Simple Gifts: Great Hymns: One Man's Search for Grace

by Bill Henderson

Book Overview

In a world of internet friendships, far-flung families, and a growing sense of alienation in American life, Bill Henderson tells the story of how he found community and joyful camaraderie through the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743284739
• ISBN13: 9780743284738
• Release Date: March 2006
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

This Is a Terrific Book, Written by a Tough Writer Who Fought His Way to His Love of Faith in Hymns

Bill Henderson, founder of the Pushcart Prizes to honor works by small presses, has produced an inspirational book that's gutsy and appropriately small. This is a smart, tough guy who once told a friend in a bar that he was fed up with preachers who describe God as a hair-trigger Sadist. This God doesn't make sense. It's "Life Everlasting" vs. "Eternal Damnation," he muses. Then, Henderson asks his buddy in the bar, "Is this God a moron?" Yet, somehow Henderson's odyssey takes him from that coarse skepticism to an appreciation of faith and hymns that prompts him to write: "Oh! When it hits! When a great old hymn reaches way down inside where you live: then the problem is not shall I sing, but can I sing at all. I choke up and stumble over words and notes. Nothing can mean so much as a classic hymn. Such hymns go to a source in us beyond our control and leave us overwhelmed with joy and recognition." Hey, I want to go sing hymns in Bill Henderson's church!

liberal thinker loving conservative hymns

touching personal encounter with hymns as related to writer's personal experience. Had gumption to take on old chestnuts such as "Just As I Am" and Graham evangelism. Threw some new light on traditional hymns. Easy read I didn't put down.