It was with reservations that I began reading Faith in the Family, Citrus College English Professor Dale Salwak's latest effort. I am not a churchgoer, and I am a former Salwak student, two prejudicial factors for any would-be objective reviewer.
By page 18, however, Salwak's firm grasp of the English language, storytelling ability and messages about family values and faith struck a cord within me.
Stories from the author's own life, as well as from a variety of people with diverse backgrounds, illustrate what families can offer to children and parents alike. These lessons are reinforced with scripture passages and quotations from notable novelists, poets and biographers to provide the reader with a subsequent understanding of the importance of familial relationships.
Salwak is thoughtful and insightful, weaving together tales of his youth with powerful imagery and clarity. He possess the uncanny ability to recollect the feeling of what it was like to be a child, lacking experience but full of curiousity.
In one particularly moving passage, the reader is taken back to the author's earlier years to illustrate an important lesson he learned about giving thanks for the lives of his family.
Faith in the Family is arranged into nine chapters, each touching on a different aspect of family life. The need for connection in the family, caring for and teaching children, respecting and relating to our own parents and other subjects are explored, always relating back to the book's central theme of "honoring and strengthening home and spirit."
The overarching spirituality and religious tones in the book are not crammed down the readers' throats. Rather, the inherent insights were carefully collected, then constructed and compassionately pieced together to appeal to readers from all walks of life.
The book overflows with practical advice and should be passed around by family members to share in its wonderful wisdom.
In the midst of the Information Age, with school shootings and political sex scandals topping the news, there is a definite need for Faith in the Family. Salwak shows readers through experience the indispensability of family, and the nature of the book itself -- part history, part story and part advice -- allow the reader to examine their own relationships and form their own interpretations of its guidance.
Truly an essential read, Faith in the Family's advice offers a "how-to" approach to help reap the rewards of family living.
