How to Be Here audiobook

I mean... I finished this book in a day. I've always been a Rob Bell fan and each book challenges me in another way. So much good truth in this book. Well worth reading and it even causes you to look at your life differently.

“Do you see your life as something you create?Or do you see your life as something that is happening to you?The blinking line raises a compelling question:What are we here for?” p. 8Rob Bell came to my attention when he published Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived . Although Bell comes from a different strain of Christianity, I liked Love Wins. It fits my theology. I believe that Jesus of Nazareth came to tell us about God’s love and that any Christian message that does not include love for all is not Christian.So I also had no problems with Bell’s message in the second book I read by him, What We Talk About When We Talk About God . He has moved in his theology to what I interpret is a more loving view of God’s relationship with humans. However, after that I lost track of Bell. His latest book came to my attention thanks to his publisher and Edelweiss. I was browsing the list of books that will be published this spring and this title jumped out at me. I am so glad I got to encounter Bell again.If you are willing to include doubt in your faith life, Bell is a good writer to visit with. He is willing to admit that he doesn't have the final word. This book would be especially helpful if you are considering your life path and what God might have in store for you. I am guessing this may become a popular graduation gift.Thanks for Edelweiss and Harper for letting me read this pre-publication edition.Other books that helped me see my faith in new ways:Disquiet Time: Rants and Reflections on the Good Book by the Skeptical, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels Holy Stuff of Life: Stories, Poems, and Prayers about Human Things House of Prayer No 2: A Writer’s Journey HomeJesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible’s View of Women

I read this book in a day - couldn't put it down. Rob Bell always writes in such an engaging way. His gift of communicating complicated ideas to the masses is unparalleled. This book takes common life themes (such as failure, success, life purpose, etc.) and deconstructs them, carefully shedding light on the real truths of our expectations concerning these matters. Bell writes from an incredibly authentic place, being honest with his own successes and "failures" and makes his own life relatable to the reader. Highly recommend!

I loved this book. Rob Bell is my spiritual dad— dorky, over-enthusiastic, charming, and comforting.

“For thousands of years humans have been aware that our lives intimately and ultimately depend on our breath, which is a physical reflection of a deeper, unseen reality. It isn’t just breath we’re each given-it’s life itself. Before anything else can be said about you, you have received a gift. God/the universe/ultimate reality/being itself—whatever word you want to use for source—has given you life. Are you breathing? Are you here? Did you just take a breath? Are you about to take another? Do you have a habit of regularly doing this? Gift. Gift. Gift. Whatever else has happened in your life—failure, pain, heartache, abuse, loss—the first thing that can be said about you is that you have received a gift. Often you’ll meet people who have long lists of ways they’ve been slighted, reasons the universe has been unfair to them, times they got the short end of the stick or were dealt a bad hand of cards. While we grieve and feel and lament and express whatever it is that is brewing within us, a truth courses through the veins of all our bumps and bruises, and it is this: We have received. You’re here, you’re breathing, and you have received a gift, a generous, extraordinary, mysterious, inexplicable gift” (25-27). Have you ever stumbled upon a book that just seemed made for you? What is that? I would like to think that it is some higher power of communication. Well, that is what this book was for me. I admit that I picked up this book because I was intrigued by the topic of being “here.” As a semi-Luddite, I am constantly wondering if I am missing out on beautiful things happening around me, while I scroll through endless data that I will forget within the hour. The reason that this book really spoke to my heart though, is because I am coming off of my first year of teaching. I was left with all of these questions rambling around inside of me. Did my students learn enough from me to create on their own? Did what I taught matter? Did they like me? Did they know that I think they matter and that I love them? (Yeah-I’m that teacher. Tell me how to disconnect the caring part of myself-so far they are inseparably connected.) This book reminded me that in the end it doesn’t matter, because I do know that I put my whole heart and soul into what I was creating. I did my very best and I am still as passionate about the English language as ever. Some will notice that, some won’t, but in the end it doesn’t matter what they think, because they are not me. I’m the one shaping my life—and I can’t be anyone else. So why not enjoy every moment of it? Rob Bell reminded me that in Genesis we discover that the universe is constantly creating and making itself better. It’s a pretty sweet deal that we can be co-creators in that process, shaping our own lives into what we want. So be you, because you are great. I plan to be the best Goodreads Erika B. ever. Remember—“No one has ever done this before. No one has ever been you before. This exact interrelated web of people and events and places and memories and desire and love that is your life hasn’t ever existed in the history of the universe. Welcome to a truly unique phenomenon. Welcome to the most thrilling thing you will ever do. Welcome to your life. Welcome to here” (200).Mushy book review out-Mic drop. Erika's Amazon Link

How to Be Here by Rob Bell is timed perfectly with my place right now. I'm at a juncture, a turning point in my vocation/avocation. I have chosen to shift my gears once again in my education career - taking on a job in my local town as a teacher/advocate of the performing arts. This book is a comfortable overlay of principles and ideas surrounding one's life meaning and purpose. It is an encouragement to consider the value of one's work (professional or amateur) and instill values that will lead to satisfaction in that work. Failure. Shame. Joy. Success. They are all part of fulfillment. I love Rob Bell's style. It is more suitable for my style of reading. To the point. Short. Peppered with stories. Conversational and lyric. Clean and contemporary. Quotable. I look forward to reviewing the salient points of this work as I reposition my career focus during the next months and years.

This is a helpful God-centered summary of attitudes and steps to take in your life to move toward meaning and and joy. And it’s short- you could read in in a couple quick settings- worth a read!

This is a great book! Bell articulates so well what many of us feel but do not have the words to describe!

This is an important book. It is very similar to Comer’s Ruthless Elimination in content and style, but I still find it useful to engage this material from another angle. It takes a little while to dig in and get gritty, but once it does, it’s well worth it.

So let me be really honest before we start.I am no fan of self-help books. As I've written elsewhere, they can have a tendency to tap into fear more than hope; feeding our anxiety about being a nobody. They're usually full of cheap clichés and impotent anecdotes and twelve steps that lead nowhere. And often, they result in leaving people more exhausted, burdened and disillusioned as they try and exhibit the book's mantras.Take for example those relationship books that promise a better, more enriching relationship. So people buy them, and end up missing and sabotaging the uniqueness and beauty of what they already have through grasping for the faux assembly-line product that someone else tells them that they should have.As I said, I'm no fan of self-help. It'd be better called self-destruct. And it irritates me that it sells as well as it does. So I avoid it -- with an extremely wide radius.But along comes Rob, with his clear and well-honed communication skills and does, what I feel, is very subversive to the whole genre!This isn’t really a “self-help” book -- though it appears to be one. This isn’t a book that seeks to encourage us to let go of now in order to grab at more transcendental expectations and experiences. Rob’s few words here evoke the immanency of life, seeking to ground us more in the here and now; helping us to see the wonder that this present moment holds.*How To Be Here* does exactly what it says on the cover, without leaving the reader with a large headache, an unrealistic to-do list or a side order of depression. And as someone who is prone to the latter, it's nice to read a book that didn't nuance that.This didn't leave me feeling terrible about my place or progress in life, but actually more thankful, grateful and hopeful about it.I got a lot from this. If I'm honest, I'm wrestling with a huge sense of displacement at the moment -- thinking that life will happen if I locate myself elsewhere but here -- so I needed this. It resonated in some deep levels as I read through the chapters. It's helped me to reconnect with the present and to explore and rejoice in what I find here.*How To Be Here* is a book that actually helps.Another excellent, well written, and never long, book from Rob!

If you know me, you know I'm a huge Rob Bell fan. This book may have been one of my favorites. It helps you find realistic day to day ways to be present in your life. Ways to help you stay grateful, ways to be full of grace, especially when interacting with yourself! A wonderfully hopeful and encouraging book!

This has been a tough summer. I took on some extra work, and I didn't take the time to rest and restore my mind before starting that work. There wasn't time. It got to be June, and I was nervous, couldn't focus on grading, people, or books. And so I pulled out How to Be Here by Rob Bell, a book I started a long time ago and which I put back on the shelf, a book shared with my by my daughter Kirsten. Not that the book wasn't good. I just didn't have time. Or maybe it wasn't time. Mid-June 2018 was the time. The time to talk about being out of focus, not centering my mind, my heart, my attention. The time to talk about really being present, to my family, to my students, to my own needs. The time to talk about noticing and appreciating the world around me. It's a short book, and I read a little bit every day, including the parts that I had already read. (I didn't actually remember any of it.) Bell is an adventurer and a risk taker. I assumed that meant he didn't have "freak out" moments when he questions his actions. That was a false assumption, and that's probably why I kept going. He kept reminding me of things I needed to think about. This is not a profound, ground breaking book, but it is a good book, a good reminder of how to live, mindful of what is going on around me. I forget that from time to time, and I may come back to this book again.

Such a good book. I love the way Rob Bell talks about life to learn to be present and aware right where we are. To notice the wonderful things in life and to see joy. Doesn’t have to be based on anything but just the awareness of the beautyof life and the beauty of each and everyone’s own life.