Ariel Diaz-Nanasca

Interesting insights from the author

Revisado: 10-28-22

Lots of interesting information from the author. We just wish more time was dedicated to letting him speak.

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Most Helpful for Families with Autism

Revisado: 04-16-21

I received a review copy of the audiobook for "Of Such Is the Kingdom: A Practical Theology of Disability" by Summer Kinard.

What I enjoyed most in this book was the early sections discussing how the Orthodox Church understands disability and the fact that God allows disabilities for the purpose of cultivating virtue. I found this part really encouraging to listen to. I felt like it even applied to my experience of infertility, which of course is the inability to do something that others can do and that a healthy body can do.

I had some concerns about the author's suggestions for accessible Church School curricula. I talked with my husband about it, because he has a type of muscular dystrophy that affects all his motor neurons and causes all his voluntary muscles to be weaker. Kinard's suggestions heavily emphasize hands-on activities for all students in order to accommodate students with brain-based disabilities. This is something that would actually exclude my husband. He said that, if he were a kid, he would try to avoid going to class because he would think, "Ugh, I get really tired from doing the physical activities they do in class!" and it would feel like another place where he doesn't really belong and can't do what other people are doing.

The book seems primarily geared toward families dealing with autism or other similar conditions. Kinard makes an effort to mention suggestions related to other disabilities, and she has some "spotlight" sections on particular issues, such as blindness. However, much of the book feels specifically applicable to those who have autism themselves or in their family or among their church community members. From the way the book was advertised, I expected it to be more generally applicable to people with all kinds of disabilities.

Overall, I enjoyed this book the most in the earlier sections, and as it went on, I felt less and less engaged. In the beginning I expected to be giving it a 5-star review, but by the end it had fallen to a 3-star review for me.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Highly Recommended

Revisado: 05-05-20 El oyente recibió este título gratis

By Michelle Diaz-Nanasca

I think I've decided that my favorite type of Orthodox book is the kind that gives as much information as possible about the lives of saints. Whenever I read the paragraph-long lives of saints that appear in places like The Prologue from Ochrid, I always have so many questions! There are so many saints about whom we know just bits and pieces, a few small facts about how they lived and often the most about how they died. I am always hungry for more details, all the elements of a saint's story that added up to a life of becoming more and more like Christ.

Imagine my delight, then, when on the same day I received two such books: an audiobook review copy of Apostle to the Plains: The Life of Fr. Nicola Yanney and, in the mail, a book ordered by my husband just a few days before, The Romanov Royal Martyrs: What Silence Could Not Conceal. We are still reading and loving the second; this review is about the first, which I so enjoyed listening to while doing chores over the course of a week.

Fr. Nicola is a person whom I think every Orthodox Christian in America should know about! His story opened my eyes to many aspects of American Orthodox history that I had never heard about. I didn't know what it was like for a young man living in a small village in Lebanon in the late 1800s, or what he would have experienced immigrating to America in a steamship with his new wife, Martha. Learning about the experience of immigrants made me think about how blessed I am to be born in a country with religious freedom and access to opportunities. As a newly-married nineteen-year-old, Fr. Nicola left his home not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't safely raise a family there. He knew he would probably never be able to return to his beloved homeland. The book describes the difficult two-part sea voyage and the tense wait to see if he and Martha would pass inspection at Ellis Island and be deemed healthy enough to enter America. I felt like I was recovering pieces of American history that I really should have known about.

I was intrigued by how much detail The St. Raphael Clergy Brotherhood was able to compile to tell the story of Fr. Nicola's experience in Nebraska, as a peddler and then a farmer, and finally as a missionary priest with a massive territory (nearly all of the middle third of the contiguous U.S.). His story reminds readers of the gift it is to have a priest and an established parish in our own towns. He and his family spent years without any opportunity to see a priest, to go to confession, to receive Holy Communion, or to have their children baptized. The Yanneys were finally visited by the future bishop and saint, Fr. Raphael, on their remote homestead, when he baptized their children and stayed for a few days to offer church services and give the sacraments to the local Syrian Orthodox community. In the following years, they again had no access to a priest, since Fr. Raphael was based in New York and was traveling all over the U.S. to find the scattered Syrian Orthodox people. When Fr. Nicola's wife, Martha Yanney, tragically fell ill and then died in childbirth, she was not able to receive the sacraments or have an Orthodox funeral, because there was no priest. These experiences of having so little connection to the Church were formative for Fr. Nicola.

When his community all agreed that he was the best candidate to become their priest, Fr. Nicola was ordained by the newly consecrated Bishop Raphael of Brooklyn. In accepting ordination, he assumed a life of incredible self-sacrifice. While a single father with four still-young children, at Bishop Raphael's request Fr. Nicola began serving not only his local community in Kearney, Nebraska, but the Syrian Orthodox people throughout numerous Mid-Western states. After years of pouring himself out, he literally gave his life for his flock when he contracted the Spanish flu while confessing and communing ill parishioners, during the pandemic of 1918.

With the publication of Apostle to the Plains last summer and now its availability as an audiobook, we have the huge blessing of access to an in-depth look at Fr. Nicola's life and ministry. It was a treat to listen to the audiobook, because I love being read to while I work around the house. I'm very picky about narration, and I thought the read-aloud style of this recording was well done. The reader's straightforward manner doesn't distract from the text, allowing it to take center-stage. More importantly, the reader demonstrates an obvious respect for Fr. Nicola.

While I am glad to have the audiobook version and am already listening to it for a second time, I am planning to purchase the hard-copy version of the book, as well: I want to be able to reference it easily, and I want to see how names are spelled and have the full experience that comes with reading a book. As you can see, I highly recommend Apostle to the Plains!

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