BOOK REVIEW: The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield

I had heard a lot of hype about Barack Obama; Fears about him, often unfounded, that distilled down to prejudices based on the actions of leaders at his church, or even how his last name "Obama" sounded like "Osama", the first name of the infamous terrorist leader. When I was given the opportunity through Thomas Nelson Publishers to read and review "The Faith of Barack Obama", I quickly responded. I read this to get factual information, not the mud-slinging that seems inevitable during political campaigns. I did not want to vote for or against a man based on hearsay, rumor, innuendo, or the aforementioned prejudicial fears.

I was delighted to read in the introduction that the author, Stephen Mansfield, unapologetically gave this as the purpose for writing the book. He also stated that he was not voting for Barack Obama. This might imply that the book would be skewed against the presidential candidate, but I did not find it so. In many ways, it portrays Barack Obama as a strong man of character, raised in difficult circumstances and dealing with the same issues we all do, and many unique to him. One man can only truly understand another man at the most superficial of levels, but I feel that the book did an excellent job of conveying a great depth and breadth of understanding of Mr. Obama. It shows him in fairly intimate situations, compelling sympathy and feeling for the man. In reading it, I found myself wondering how or if I would have acted differently. I began to find a new respect for Barack Obama for his strength.

To take me beyond the hype to a feeling of intimacy with -and respect for- someone I am unlikely to ever meet, that is a powerful ability. This is a powerful book, written by a masterful author. Read it, even after the elections. Win or lose, Barack Obama will be someone you will want to understand the motivations of.

Don't Just Sit There, Do Something!

It's confession time: I have a bit of a defense mechanism of finding all of the things that can go wrong, and often talking myself out of doing (or completing) things. I don't like the idea that the quality might be less than I want. Case in point: I opened up this Blogger account about two years ago!

But after reading a recent post by Mur Lafferty, I'm finally getting down to writing my first blog post. I know, big deal. But it is, for me. I've never really considered myself a writer, public speaker, or thought-leader that others would be interested in what I have to say. And at the same time, I've stumbled upon enough blogs that either haven't been updated since 2006 or are little more than rants to the world about the idiot-du-jour that stayed stopped for a few seconds after the light turned green. I want this blog to be worth finding, not just for those who want to find out about me.

So my takeaway from the video Ms. Lafferty posted about was that it's obvious that we don't have the experience to meet our own expectations for what we're contemplating doing.
For a painful while, we will need to trudge on, doing the best we can, and remember that with the pain comes the oh-so-valuable experience that will bring us closer to being acceptable to our own standards. If we want to do do this to fulfill a need that we see not being met, then our standards are probably high, and our passion for the subject as well, so we will strive for quality, and will help fill that need.

So stop making excuses and thinking you're not good enough to do it!