Review: Love is the Way - NBC2 News

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“Love Is The Way: Holding on to Hope In Troubling Times”
By Bishop Michael Curry, with Sara Grace | Avery, An imprint of Random House
264 pages – $27.00
Langan’s Book Mark: 4/4 stars

“The way of love is how we stay decent during indecent times.”
Bishop Michael Curry

I’d be surprised if you know who Bishop Curry is, the author of “Love Is The Way”, by name alone. Good for you if you do.

But if you saw Curry give his sterling homily on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018, you’ll recognize him immediately.

Curry is the presiding bishop and primate of The Episcopal Church. Elected in 2015. He’s the first African-American to lead the denomination which is non-territorial. A noted advocate for human rights, Bishop Curry is recognized as one of the most popular preachers in the English language. He and his wife, Sharon, have two daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth. They live in North Carolina.

There are two personal reasons why Curry appeals to me. First, Bishop Curry grew up in an African American community of East Buffalo, NY, my home town. His family had migrated from the South, like so many refugees from all generations, including, as he points out, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus generations earlier fleeing persecution in Palestine and finding refuge in Egypt.

The other reason for the value of the book is that my son, Mike, a journalist for more than 30 years in Washington, D.C., and one who knows good writing, gave it to me as a Christmas gift. He knew that it would have value to me. Of course, one doesn’t have to make a faith-commitment to all of Curry’s perspectives to see that he works within The Episcopal Church to argue for inclusiveness.

The subtitle of the book tells all: ‘Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times.” If these aren’t troubling times, then I don’t know what might be worse.

What’s Curry’s antidote? “Love is the way”, he says.

What does he mean by that broadly and in detail?

The book, Curry says, is about him, the folk who raised him and the community and church that formed him. He continues, “First and foremost, they taught that the way of Jesus is the way of love. And that way of love is the only way to freedom.” The capstone to all this is the cardinal principle: “The love of God, which is the source and key to life, is an equal opportunity employer.”

The purpose of the book, then, he writes, is to explain what the way of love looks like, remarking that “even as we walk it in a world that at times feels closer to a nightmare than to the dream. Solution: the way of love is how we stay decent during indecent times.”

I like especially his reference to Dr. Martin Luther King, a great influence on his vocation.

King wrote, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

I appreciate too Curry’s reference to “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.”

African slaves of America’s antebellum South turned this biblical reference into a spiritual that says there’s truly room in heaven for everyone. It goes,

There’s plenty good room,

Plenty good room,

Plenty good room in my Father’s kingdom…

Choose your seat and sit down.

About living love’s questions, Curry concludes, “So here I am fifty years later, the presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, encouraging a revival of love as a way to a liberating and life-giving relationship with God, with others, with all God’s creation on the planet we call earth.”

Those who know Curry’s story also are aware that he went out on a limb to ensure gay and lesbian priests and people were welcomed in The Episcopal Church. This put him at odds with many in the global communion. There was almost a schism of global Anglican community over the most progressive US group vs UK which does not have women bishops, and Africans who largely do not support gay clergy.

Curry speaks of a “universal hunger at the heart of every human being: to love and be loved.” About this hunger he tells us, a series of questions can be put to satisfy it.

They include these compelling questions: What is love? How do I find God’s love? How do I find the energy to keep loving? Can love really change the world? Won’t loving every body make me a doormat? What if love reveals me to be a hypocrite? Do I have to love even my enemy? Does love mean avoiding politics?

Curry concludes with this sensible remark in the face of these troubling times: “I have faith in God. I also have faith in us. We can get this right.”

Result: now is the time – today – as Curry puts it, to “stay decent during indecent times.”

Michael D. Langan is the NBC-2.com Culture Critic. He has written for the BBC, The Dublin Review of Books, Boston Globe, Buffalo News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and numerous other publications.

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