Journer Readers' Comments

With the publication of the novel Journer, John Cock has pub- lished his seventh book, wherein the main character, Peter,

and his wife, Suzanne, and their son, Adam, journey to the

"heart of the universe" on an extended global adventure. Layer after layer of Peter’s inherited notions about life, religion, and culture fall away on his quest. . . . Fashioned after Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, a lean spiritual journey, Journer is a contemporary spirit odyssey in the very real world.

~The Gazette, Galax, VA

I have finished Journer. . . . I am a lover of books, which now I find almost impossible to read fully. Consider it a compliment that your book is the first book that I have read from beginning to end in over two years. . . . The marvelous thing about our journeys is that, while we have taken different routes, we have arrived at a similar place in ecumenical thinking. Thank you for the privilege of knowing you through Journer.

~Anne Adkins, author, Winston-Salem, NC

Journer has to be the best book you ever produced. As a 30-year teacher of a university course Masterpieces of Indian (South Asian) Literature, with the basic text Ted de Bary's Sources of Indian Tradition, I always used Siddhartha as a secondary reading and so was quite familiar with the structure of your novel.

What a service you have done for thinking and reading people! You should be quite proud of your latest venture!

~Dr. Margaret Berry, author, Greensboro NC

John, what a read. I am still processing it all. . . . [Who gave you] permission to write about my journey (ha)? . . . What blew me away and brought me back was near the end when Peter (representative of all us humans) made some striking comments about the diversity of the spirit in our world today. How do we relate to other faiths? . . . [Y]ou have given me and, I am sure, others a little book to carry with us, reminding us of who we are and the Word that gives us life and takes it away. . . . Thanks for poetry, John, I really enjoyed it all. Peace, Koshin

~Bob Hanson, activist, Milwaukee WI

I really like the last several chapters talking aobut Oneness. It was easy to read - an interesting journey of changing and expanding consciousness. I really admire John for writing the books.

~Roseanne Sands, author, Burnsville NC

I was especially appreciative of your inclusion of Tillich and Bonhoeffer and the insights you shared in relation to that Spiritual quest ever aiming for Truth.

~Sr. Ade Kroll, Berkeley CA

You have done it again. . . . I marvel at your skill in articulating the message of grace and spirit. This time you have woven the Word through a fiction of life experiences that some of us can truly relate to and others can only dream about. I enjoyed reading the dialogue in the bookstore between Adam and the hard core fundamentalist woman calling Peter an atheist. I had to smile on that one. I also found the closing chapter describing the spirit council discussing grace quite picturesque.

~Dick Galbreath, minister, Wilsons VA

I finished Journer in three settings. I was intrigued with its autobiographical nature. . . . You demonstrated how “Layer after layer of his inherited notions about life, religion, and culture fall away on his spirit quest.” Your journey is metaphorical of my own. . . . Reflections:

**Two poignant events in the book were very pleasing to me. The story line about Ms. Mary and her funeral discourse were wonderful. The same is true concerning Adam’s baptism. Your treatment of these experiences was refreshing. I enjoyed, in particular, your ability to preach black in dialogue with those present around the grave.

**The most inventive part of the book is the last chapter, “Communicant of Eternal Creation.” The dream sequence is a dandy. This raises the ending into a spiritual metaphor. Beautiful.

**Laity are hungry to be taught, and the usual pulpit fare is proclamation of a Word that is no longer relevant to our worldview and human experience. . . . I find your novel to be a gut trip experience. At this time, I’m more interested in the emotional and relational than I am in the rational. I believe your "novel" approach addresses my concern. It blessed me.

~Bill Salmon, minister, Salina KS

As I got into it I recognized this was "your" story. A little further in it became "my" story. Before I was finished I knew it was "our" story, all of us who have been on this parallel spirit quest, though the specifics may vary.

It was a "not to be put aside" reading in one sitting. From one perspective this may be the best thing you've written.

I loved the ending -- the litany of your personal saints prior to being taken up in the vortex of the storm to continue the never-ending journey. . . .

Two immediate reflections: One, whatever the message, it is probably best related in the form of story. Second, I again remembered Buber's insight that our calling is to participate in that which is emerging in the course of being itself. . . . You said this best with one of my favorite quotes from the book, "Only within the common destiny of creation are we unique beings, but each with the same purpose. Our history is the history of creation. Our future is the future of creation. We are one."

~Randy Williams, consultant, McKinney TX

. . . I had a really good time reading about Peter and Suzanne, and their very interesting lives together. Several of the scenes are absolutely terrific. You left yourself with a potential sequel as well. . . .

~David Pope, pianist, Chattanooga TN

What delightful reading! It has breadth beyond any invented boundaries, depth and height in its exploration of the spirit, and openness to the experience of transparency in daily life. As I read, the saga of the author becomes my own journey, and/or my journey becomes his saga. It is a universal human story and I become the journer.

~TCWright, poet, Denver CO

Your book Journer has taken me through my journey too. When I finished it I had to go back and re-read Siddhartha. As I read when Mary named Peter "Journer," I thought of a young black man in Chicago at a summer program who looked over a crowd of people and said to me in amazement, "All these are Iron Men." . . In one way or another we are all Journers.

~Carl Larsen, poet, Denver CO

Thanks so much for publishing your new book JOURNER, relating the story one family's spiritual journey through a rich and full life, with all its awakenings and new beginnings. It is a wonderful accomplishment, and it inspires me to dig down more fully and deeply into the new phases of my own journey. Your book has renewed my faith in the transformative power we all seek.

~Nancy Trask, librarian, Winterset, IA

Got the book today and just read the first chapter. . . . You write so well.

~Harry Wainwright, minister, Asheville NC

Even though I participated in the editing, I was again caught up in the grand sweep of the journey. . . . I feel it will make a companion book to Bending History, and of course I agree with you that each of us are 'Journers' on the Way.

Also, once again, a thank you for the honor of my mandala/ prayer which graces the cover. I love the way Tara has placed the mandala on the back cover with your name caught up in the sweep of the underground stream which indeed 'holds' all of creation!

~Ellen Howie, artist, Altamont NY

I feel exhilarated as I read this last chapter. It pulls the threads of the book together into a whole and has a really high climax. . . . I feel Joy. What a wonderful testimony you have created to all of creation, to Joseph, to Thomas, to the Bishop, to the church in its many forms, and to your family.

~Lynda Cock, author, Greensboro NC

Thank you so much for the book. . . . I did read it right away and will tell . . . others about it. . . . Was Adam [in the book] Jeremiah? Peter surely sounded a lot like John, from a mountain background, who took his family on a global odyssey . . . to the city,  to the ghetto, to third world villages. I did enjoy it.

~Mariah Nunn, Galax VA

 

Granddaddy, are you really Peter?

~KEC, Greensboro NC

Dah Dah, what is fiction and what is non-fiction? I got confused as Daddy read us the book. Some of it sounds like you and Mamaw. But other parts don't.

~NAC, Greensboro NC

 

Wow, John! I so enjoyed Journer. I have re-read it over the past two days. Your closing chapters are quite profound and moving.

~Diane Galbreath, principal, Wilsons VA

John is such a fine writer.

~Ann Pope, pianist, Chattanooga TN

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