Book Review: Broken Hallelujahs

Book Review: Broken Hallelujahs June 9, 2016

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Beth Allen Slevcove is a spiritual director who lives with her family in San Diego, California. We became friends several years ago when we both helped facilitate a retreat for urban leaders in Los Angeles.

Beth’s book, Broken Hallelujahs, is a powerful and personal reflection on the losses in our lives. She describes the life journey that took her from singing Hallelujah riding a bus to summer camp to singing Leonard Cohen’s “cold and broken hallelujahs” with her brother a few weeks before brain cancer took his life.

Beth’s life is full of many of the same joys and challenges that fill each of our lives. She takes the time to reflect and translate large and small experienced losses into lessons she shares with us.

Beth divides Broken Hallelujahs into three sections. The first explores what has been lost. The second talks about listening to our losses. The third addresses inviting hope. Each section contains chapters illustrating specific aspects of loss and grief, and each chapter includes a prayer practice reflecting its lessons.

Broken Hallelujahs is filled with the stories Beth has lived. Beth remembers them and writes them down with honesty and grace. She invites us into her experiences, and helps us see our own experiences in new ways.

My favorite story is about how Beth came to love her neighbors in San Diego, the guys who ran the tattoo parlor across the street.

Broken Hallelujahs is deep and readable. Beth writes with sensitivity and practicality, shining light into areas we often prefer to leave in the dark.

Beth helps each of us recognize and find the value of our own losses, our own grief, and translate them into hallelujahs.

What are the broken hallelujahs you have experienced?

Who helps you explore the places you might want to avoid?

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