Leaping into the Hands of God: Lessons from My Teachers on Hypostatic Spiritual Care
David Alexander
ISBN: 978-0-88141-784-5, 9780881417845
123 pages
In times of trial the man who turns to God can compete with God's power—which has been made perfect in his weakness—to claim the choicest gifts from the tree of life as his spoils: patience, unflagging hope, the opening of the eyes of his heart, humility which places him on the path to Personhood, an expanded capacity to bear pain, the finding of unutterable joy within pain, and the invincibility of a life hidden with God. The spiritual caregiver clings to this truth for himself and the one who seeks his care, carrying the other within his heart as he leaps with courage and contempt for his own will into God's hands in every encounter. In the leaping, he is prepared for anything.
There is no doubt in my mind that this book will be the most invaluable textbook of Spiritual Care for a long time to come.
—The Right Reverend Bishop John (Abdalah) of Worcester and New England
Father David Alexander is an Archpriest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. He is a graduate of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary and holds a Ph.D. in Refugee Care from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. At Essex he studied under Professor Renos Papadopoulos and Hieromonk Nikolai Sakharov.
Leaping Into the Hands of God: Interview with Fr. David Alexander, Part I
1 review
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Leaping Into The Hands Of God
I listened to this book first as an audiobook and was so moved by its content, which was only enhanced by the intense and impassioned reading by its author, that now I've purchased the print version so I can read and study it more carefully. I feel like it hasn't gotten the attention yet that it deserves, which is a shame, because it really should be more widely read, especially by any of us who find ourselves walking alongside people in the midst of their struggles. I happened to listen to this audiobook in the same week that I also listened to a secular audiobook about counseling and therapy, and the contrast between that approach and what this author is proposing could not be more different. This indicates the way of a more authentically Orthodox approach to counseling and helping others. I can't recommend it enough.
