Hope Endures: Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning by

Description: Hope Endures by Colette Livermore In this searing memoir by an extraordinary woman who served as a nun in Mother Teresas order, Livermore recounts her journey into disillusionment with the order, her crisis of faith, and her ultimate renewal. 12 b&w photos throughout. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description The searing memoir of an extraordinary woman who served as a nun for eleven years in Mother Teresas order, Hope Endures is a compelling chronicle of idealistic determination, rigid discipline, and shattering disillusionment. InÊher lifes journey from certainty to doubt, Colette Livermore enters the Missionaries of Charity order in 1973 with unwavering faith and total surrender ofÊher will and intellect after seeing a documentary on the orders work in India. Only eighteen at the time, Livermore has been studying to enter medical school -- a lifelong goal -- but virtually overnight severs her many ties with family, friends, and the life shes known in beautiful, rural New South Wales in order to train as a sister to aid the poor. In the process, she also gives herself over to the orders unexpectedly severe, ascetic regime, which demands blind obedience and submission. Given the religious name Sister Tobit, Livermore serves in some of the poorest places in the world -- the garbage dump slums of Manila, Papua New Guinea, and Calcutta -- bringing hope and care to people who are desperately ill, hungry, abandoned, and even dying, and comforting whomever she can. Although she draws inspiration and strength from her humanitarian work, Livermore and other nuns risk their own physical health, as they are sent to dangerous areas while being unschooled in the languages and cultures, untrained in medical care, and sometimes unprotected by vaccines. Livermore herself succumbs to bouts of drug-resistant cerebral malaria that almost kill her and to a new strain of hepatitis. Over time she also beginsÊto notice that the orders rigid insistence on unquestioning obedience harms the young sisters mentally, emotionally, and spiritually -- and she experiences a terrible inner struggle to find the right path for herself. As she tries to respond to the suffering around her, she often falls into an incomprehensible conflict between her vow to obey and her vow to serve, between religious strictures and the practice of compassion, between authority and personal conscience. Pressured to stay with the order by Mother Teresa and other superiors, as well as by the younger nuns, Livermore nonetheless decides to leave at age thirty and attain her medical degree, continuing to take health care and relief to impoverished people in remote areas -- the isolated aboriginal communities of the Outback and war-torn East Timor. Even as she serves others as a medical doctor, she continues in a crisis of faith thatÊeventually leads her to become an agnostic. Hope Endures is the eye-opening, deeply affecting story of a brave womans search for meaning in a world that is rent with tragedies and contradictions. It is also an unflinching critique of any faith that insists on blind obedience. For true hope to endure, Dr. Livermore demonstrates, we must always strive to question, to face the hard truths, and to discover the courage to follow our convictions. Author Biography Colette Livermore was born in Mittagong, Australia, in 1954. At 17, she had been accepted to medical school but chose to join Mother Teresas Missionaries of Charity instead, after seeing a film about Mothers work with the poor. As a nun she was called Sister Tobit and was with the order for 11 years, serving in India, Hong Kong, Timor, and the poor outback of Australia. After she left the order in 1983, at age 30, Livermore went back to medical school and ultimately attained her medical degree from the University of Queensland. Since then, she has worked in Australias Northern Territory, where the despair facing the aboriginal and other people in remote communities affected her deeply, in Aileu, East Timor, where she worked with local staff at a rural clinic to overcome tuberculosis, malnutrition, and infectious disease, and again in Australia, where she currently lives. Review ""Hope Endures" is compelling. Livermore perfectly captures our yearning to want life to fit our spiritual ideals, only to learn it never will. But we cannot help but continue to walk the path. This book is superb." -- Caroline Myss, author of "Entering the Castle", "Invisible Acts of Power", and "Anatomy of the Spirit"""Hope Endures" is one of the most fascinating accounts of the spiritual journey I have ever read. It emphasizes the importance of a direct, unmediated approach to the Source, the Absolute, God, however named. The Christian version of "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, this book is an affirmation for those to whom blind obedience and submission to established creeds do not ring true, and who hunger for something more authentic than dogma. This ringing endorsement of spiritual freedom is more important than ever, in view of the threat posed by religious fundamentalism around the world." -- Larry Dossey, M.D., author of "Healing Words" and "Reinventing Medicine""This penetrating book unveils the blindness that lurks in many spiritual organizations and traditions, and confronts an issue that still corrupts contemporary religious organizations -- naive belief used to justify ignorance, obedience, and neglect rather than to galvanize social change, improve lives, and foster spiritual connections. As her compelling story unfolds, Ms. Livermore slowly realizes that she and her fellow nuns are being taught to spiritualize their own emotional abuse, and she can no longer submit to it. Like all good stories, this one involves a strong, public personality -- Mother Teresa -- and the clash between extremes of innocence and authority. Reading this clear-eyed book is a good first step toward dealing with the shadow side of spirituality and to opening a door to a brighter, more mature way of being in the world." -- Thomas Moore, author of "Care of the Soul" Details ISBN1416597832 Author Colette Livermore Short Title HOPE ENDURES Pages 272 Publisher Atria Books Language English ISBN-10 1416597832 ISBN-13 9781416597834 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 204.092 Year 2014 Publication Date 2014-04-12 Imprint Atria Books Subtitle Leaving Mother Teresa, Losing Faith, and Searching for Meaning Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. 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