Review of Kate Braestrup’s Here If You Need Me

After posting several times about the positive media coverage for Rev. Kate Braestrup’s Here If You Need Me, I’m delighted to have finally read it.

Here If You Need Me has all the markings of a good book. Rev. Braestrup is a likable narrator. Her writing is funny, unpretentious, evocative, and thoughtful. The book is filled with vivid characters and stories.

It’s also a more complex book than I anticipated. On the shelf at the bookstore, this book tells anyone who picks it up, “I am a cozy book.” On the cover is a beautiful photograph of Rev. Braestrup wearing a warm sweater and holding what appears to be a cup of tea. The book is short and the type is large. You might think to take it to the beach.

This is not a beach read. It has much more to offer.

Rev. Braestrup’s job as a wilderness chaplain in Maine brings her face-to-face with many of the brightest and darkest moments in people’s lives. She celebrates with family members when a loved one is rescued after getting lost in the woods, and she mourns with them when a loved one is found dead.

Rev. Braestrup’s reflections about spirituality and relationships drive the book. Here If You Need Me is not just a collection of stories, although she describes her experiences quite compellingly. It’s an account of her struggle to understand the meaning of a world where cruelty, random loss, irrational love, sacrifice, and so many other contradictory forces exist.

There are no easy answers in Here If You Need Me. Braestrup reflects on Biblical verses and theological questions, but often leaves them without a pat resolution. She wonders about why things happen the way they do, as many of us wonder. And like many of us, she doesn’t arrive at a neat conclusion.

What she does offer is a way of being in the world, and in ministry. Her understanding of ministry is expressed in the title, Here if You Need Me. She comforts people through the unexplainable trials of life by being there when they need her, sharing with them their fears, questions, and joys.

And she admires the people she meets who live by the same motto. Here If You Need Me is about celebrating the ways in which people care for one another, whether as strangers, friends, family members, or professionals. She doesn’t mention Unitarian Universalism very often in the book, or spend much time exploring how this tradition has informed her faith. And I’ll admit I felt a tinge of disappointment at first. But I could hardly feel that for more than a moment, because this book is doing so much to celebrate the values that are dear to Unitarian Universalists: open and honest spiritual inquiry, dedication to service, and love for people.