God, Are you Listening?

I accepted this book, God, Are you Listening? for review because the synopsis submission and the back cover promised that “this is a non denominational spiritual self-help book. It is intended for people of all faiths, religions, and believe systems, as well as non-believers.” With its contradictory Christian title, I was intrigued by how the author would accomplish this difficult balancing act. It turns out the book is very Christian orientated with only minor glimpses of other religions. The prevalence of Christian lecturing may offend non-Christians.

The first five pages of the book in the first chapter “Unanswered Prayers” will lose a lot of non-Christian readers immediately with the heavy inundation of God. This could have been rewritten to be more inclusion of all religions, and belief system. Author Elizabeth Hutchinson pulls God into every aspect of her book. The author would be better off to withdraw any claims of being non-denominational.

The author leaps from practical examples to broad generalizations. Hutchinson points out how cleaning a house only comes with looking, taking action, and continuing to do so to removes chaos in the house, and within ourselves. Suddenly the author asks “Now you may ask, If it is so easy why isn’t everyone doing it and why are we living with war, famine, and family violence? And you know what? God asks the same question.” Then after these huge questions, Hutchinson goes back to how to clean, one room at a time. This transition from practical example to broad social questions, and back to the first practical example without answering the important broad social questions show poor continuity. A good editor would have caught many problems including the flawed thought flows, overuse of passive verbs, too many ‘ands’, and frequent word repetition.

Hutchinson has spent much of her life helping and teaching others through the social and victim services systems. Many of her teachings in this book revolve around what she has learned from other people’s experiences, books, and conferences. She uses these multi-faceted experiences including her own burnout to illustrate how to free oneself to find one’s full potential. She covers areas many people struggle with: mediation, forgiveness, fear, resentment, resistance, impatience.

Although her topics are vital in each person’s life, I found that much of what she details is basic common sense laden with Christian inferences. Written as revelations, these details would have evolved from inadequate behavioural patterns she observed in people she had assisted in her extensive career. The preponderance of common sense in this book will appeal to a very restricted audience. If only Hutchinson had written without the biblical and Christian references, her book would have been truly non-denominational and useful to the social services sector.