Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir

Kate Braestrup is an ordained minister and serves as the chaplain for the Maine Warden Service , which means she ministers to game wardens and others at the site of any outdoor accident that the wardens are called to respond to. Kate wasn’t always religious and in fact was quite vocally against organized religion at one time. Her first marriage was pretty rocky and seemed to be headed for divorce, so she and her husband went for counseling and she came to realize that she really loved her husband but wasn’t doing a good job of showing it. In fact, she was acting on her fear of losing him (he was a police officer) rather than letting her love show.

Marriages (hers and those that she has performed for others) made Kate think about love show more a lot and in Marriage and Other Acts of Charity, Kate Braestrup tells her story and reflects on love. She says there are three kinds of love – eros, which is romantic and sexual love; philos, which is affection and friendship; and agape, which is love that “earnestly desires the wholeness and happiness of the one who is loved.” In this touching memoir, Kate intersperses the story of her adulthood with reflections on marriage and other types of love.

When I started Marriage and Other Acts of Charity and discovered that Kate Braestrup is a minister, I wondered if it was going to be a book for me, since I don’t enjoy “preachy” books. I’m happy to tell you that I didn’t find this book to be at all preachy. Instead, it is a quiet, reflective story of someone who is trying to live the best life she can by showing love to others. This book is thoughtful, introspective, funny, and inspiring and it made me cry a bucket of tears. It felt like I was reading a book by an old friend. It made me reflect on what I value in life and think about how I want to treat the people I love. In case you can’t tell, I liked this book a lot! show less

Many thanks to Nancy White for sending this my way. I thoroughly enjoyed Braestrup's first book Here If You Need Me and hoped she would continue with the insightful and beautiful writing. I was not disappointed.

Braestrup is a Unitarian Universalist minister/chaplain who works with the Maine warden service. Tragicially, suddenly widowed in 1996 when her policeman husband was killed in an accident, she was left to raise four children from ages 3-9.

This latest book is a testimony of the difficulty of committed, loving relationships. Unflinchingly told with candor, clarity, honesty and poignancy, Braestrup does not gloss over the fact that her marriage was rocky and difficult...AND, she also celebrates that it was also loving and show more wonderful.

This book is packed with pearls of wisdom, including the fact that sometimes loving those we love is the hardest thing we are called to do.

The ups and downs, give and take of committed relationship requires a self giving and other directedness that seems impossible to achieve, stumbling along, we learn of love as we follow the dark path, with the hope light is at the end.

Highly recommended!! show less

I read Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup. I didn't love it.
In fact, I felt rather misled. It was nothing like what I expected it to be.
I didn't expect religion to be so much a part of it. I expected more about life in general,
her work and family. I did get that, with large doses of unexpected religion.

It was however a good book. Paradoxical isn't it?
Despite myself, I liked the not so religious part.
She is an interesting person with an interesting view.

This one.. Marriage and Other Acts of Charity: A Memoir, did not sneak up on me.
I knew what I was in for. What was I thinking? Why did I promptly click on this title
when the vine program offered it to me to read and review? What was I thinking?

I was thinking that forewarned is show more forearmed. I expected a lot of religion. I was hoping
for more of the other thing. The unique and sort of off center views I experienced in the first book.
I got more than that. Or less, if you are talking of the religion, which is of course part of it all.
It has to be, as it is part of her.I am here to tell you what I think. I think that if you read and liked So, here it is . What I think. If you read Here If You Need Me and liked it, you will like this book. If you read Here If You Need Me and didn't like it so much, you will like this one more.

I think you should read it. There are stories about her friends, her family and even porcupine mating. Sort of.
In any case this one was so much more than I expected, I may have to read Here If You Need Me, to make sure I wasn't being prickly as a porcupine myself and maybe a little huffy. I hate huffy.

The stories are about love, like, laughing, falling our of airplanes or hoping not to, to be exact.
There are melted teapots and weddings and sex. ( yes, SEX ). All are told with humor and some whimsy
peppered over it all. It is short, entertaining and light. It is a book to pick up when you are sad.
It is also a book to pick up when you are happy. Go figure. Recommended. show less

Love, loss, religion and faith are woven beautifully into this book. I really enjoy Braestrup's writing and would love to meet her someday. I think this book I'll lend to a few select friends and keep on the shelf to be read again. It was that good.

I loved this author's other book (Here if You Need Me) and I have enjoyed hearing her being interviewed on NPR. Her spirituality mirrors my own, so I looked forward to spending an afternoon with the next part of her life.

However, this book reads as chapters on different kinds of love - family love, romantic love, love tinged with anger...it feels choppy and it does not feel like each chapter builds on the previous ones. I am disappointed, but have decided not to finish it given how many books I have that are longing to be read.

I think it's difficult to categorize this book. It's called a memoir, which it loosely is, but it's really more like a group of thoughts and short essays about marriage based on the author's observations. She bravely bares her own personality quirks. I really wanted to hear more about her--about her first marriage, her life as a widow, and her second marriage. She talks about all of these things but not in a linear story format--it's more like little bits and pieces worked in with observations of other couples and stories from her job. It just felt kind of rambly.

I guess what I'm saying is I would have liked to hear more of the stories of her life, told in a cohesive or at least straightforward format.

I like her stuff. Wise, funny, poignant. One story of her dad reminded me of our laughter and joy when Daddio asked, "Do you have to dry clean cashmere socks?"