Reader Reviews for 
"A Fruit-Bearing Spirituality"
I am deeply appreciative of my readers for sending me their thoughts on my book. To current and future readers, I am happy to read your thoughts on my book any time. Please visit my contact page to get in touch.
- Carolyn
Marsha Skain 
R.N. M.Div. D.Min.
A Fruit-Bearing Spirituality is a book for anyone interested in a world evolving from an earlier paradigm toward wholeness through a mode of  "spiritual praxis".  It is a story that effectively integrate's Reinhart's personal journey with insights from Quantum Physics.  Commitment and passion characterize the determination Carolyn Reinhart brings to the urgency of our times in need of real environmental and structural change. It is a tall order but Reinhart pulls it off with humility and eloquence.
Viv Quick 
MBE RGN
October 31st 2013
When I first started to read this book I had just returned from a week-end at Holton Lee the place where a lot of the research for this book took place, so I had an immediate resonance, using a tree as a model was especially significant with bottom up growth. This is a book for all those who are on a spiritual journey seeking an authentic relationship not only with God but also with others and our environment.

I have found this book both challenging and thought provoking, enhancing some of my own thoughts on my own spiritual journey, which has been a journey seeking genuine relationships and making sense of the hypocrisy in many of the institutions into which we are immersed. The word Praxis is used very effectively in describing the combination of theory and practice, to aspire to “talking the talk and walking the walk” Fairness, justice and peace are again in the essence of a search of spirituality.

Quantum Physics is something I don’t really understand so I have had to read this part of the book over again and digest this more slowly and I will continue to read and investigate more.

Love is a central theme of this book and I like the comment made “To love unconditionally we first need to know God’s peace at the centre of out being”

The context in which we live often shapes our response to those around us and our environment, I would like to think that my reading this book and pursuing some of the well researched theories I might begin that transformation in parts of my life that needs direction.
Dr Pam 
McDermott 
MD CCFP  
Physician Therapist
2013,11,28
In the Western world there is a longing for a deeper meaning to life; we have not found it in materialism and the promise of science has not proved adequate to make sense of uncertainty and impermanence.   At the same time, religious traditions no longer seem relevant to many and even those who remain in institutional religion are floundering to find a way to put beliefs into practise in our complex modern world.   Searchers for a meaningful spirituality with inadequate guidance can find themselves on a haphazard and scattered quest.

Dr. Reinhart’s book represents a distillation of her life-long, thoughtful study of this question, drawing on many references from mystics to philosophers, from scientists to theologians concerning the development of spirituality praxis, i.e. the combining of theory and practice.  She weaves a cogent account of quantum theory in and out of the fabric of an authentic spirituality. When I get up in the morning, I want to be able to say, “How will my beliefs (the ‘theory’) bear fruit (the ‘practice’) today?”  This is what ‘praxis’ is and ‘Fruit-Bearing Spirituality’ offers us a place to start. 
Jeanne Hinton
Jeanne is a writer with a particular interest in community development.  Her books include:
Communities (Hodder & Stoughton 1993),  Changing Churches and Changing Communities (Churches Together in Britian and Ireland 2002/ 2003)  and Small Christian Communities Today (Orbis 2005) .She now lives in Plymouth in the south of England and works in the community there.  She is a co-author to a recently published workbook Building Effective Community Ventures, available as an e-book through Fast Print Publishing. 
As one of the original group working with Carolyn on her research project I have lived on and off with the book as it has grown, All the more exciting to have it now in published form, to weigh it in my hand, to like the feel of it, the cover illustration, to note the easy to read print,    But a book is more than its cover and title and this is a book with a particular challenge.  As Carolyn writes there is the need ' to journey deeply; in order to discover more of one's journey'.  This is a book you have to journey deeply with. 

Early in the book I read that 'kindness, love, inclusiveness, patience and mutuality' are marks of a fruit bearing spirituality and all contribute to bringing about a transformation of the world in which we live.  I liked the simplicity of this, but Carolyn continually delves deeper into what is involved here and challenges any simplistic understandings.   She stretches our mind through her exploration of Quantum Physics and how an understanding of such can transform our lives, and she challenges our understanding of what spirituality is through critiquing the many competing spiritualities today.   In her conclusions Carolyn returns to sum up what love really is and how real change can be effected in the world. 

There is a lot to take in, having read the book once, I realise I need to read it again to absorb it properly.   Which is a good thing? 
Rob Gill 
Artist, 
Huntsville, Ontario
A much needed critical look at the emerging field of spirituality, challenging popularly circulated easy claims of the movement. A call for humanity's recognition of its own power for transformation emerging from not only self-realization but also from the individual's recognition of connection to all else. Written in deceptively plain language, there are many essential tools for understanding human nature and spirituality. Emerging from a place of compassionate knowing and a studied praxis, many aspects and qualities of our current global situation are discussed including obsolescent power structures, the effects of language on worldview, and the need for refelection and discerment. An available summary of her doctoral dissertation and a valuable document to assist in humanity's vital (re)awakening.
Judith Baillie, 
Ancaster, Canada.
Longtime volunteer service:   as Eucharistic Minister to both Parish and Hospital;  Formerly to Cancer Clinic, Joseph Brant Hospital, Burlington and to Idelwyld Long-Term Care Facility, Hamilton.
Underlying the ongoing process and development of her concept of “Spirituality” based on theory and practice, each informing the other, Reinhart’s writing echoes her personal and heartfelt spiritual conversion to the praxis of connectedness and inclusivity.
Julia Waterfield 
B. Ed. (Hons), MA Christian Spirituality (Sarum College/Winchester University), Post Grad. Dip. Integrative Arts Psychotherapy.
A Fruit-Bearing Spirituality brings a harvest of insight gained from the author's deeply reflected upon experience over many years.   She speaks to the increasing emergent in the current climate in which there are ever increasing concerns about the impact that technological advances are having on the planet.  She also speaks to the groundswell of spirituality as opposed to religion.  The voices from across many contemplative and mystical traditions from ancient times, are speaking to many today.   Reinhart clearly identifies that spirituality cannot be considered only in context of the individual in isolation, but that it permeates relationships with others and the universe.  She has drawn from the invaluable insights quantum physics has contributed to our understanding, for example, of the interconnectedness of things, which she describes as a web.  This reminds me of the Jewish mystical tradition of the Kabala, which 'presented the image of worlds nesting within worlds......(like) a wonderfully illuminating template of the skein of relationships which connect invisible spirit with the visible fabric of this material world. “ All is one unified web of life ....... We are all participants in the life of the Cosmos, atoms in the Being and Body of God.  In our essence we are one." (Baring, 2013)  

It is a timely reminder and a very clear practical guide to connect with ourselves, others, our environment and the Other, the Divine, God.  In Reinhart's own words, 'Spirituality must permeate the personal and the political, and animate our thought, action and imagination.'  'Spiritual development and its fruits are .......deeply interconnected, so that all we do, feel and endure has a secret effect, radiating far beyond ourselves.'
Julie Brushey  
BA (Religion, Psychology) 
Past Chair, Muskoka Presbytery of The United Church of Canada, Muskoka, Ontario
Immediate Past Chair, Trinity United Church, Huntsville, Ontario 
Through her extensive reading in the fields of spirituality and quantum physics, Carolyn Reinhart has discovered an understanding of how, we all the people of the world, could be living more fruitful lives in harmony with one another. In her book Carolyn provides insight into the relationship between spirituality and religion, and spirituality and community, i.e. the interconnectedness between each of us and all of us in the living world, indeed between each of us and the universe. For a person like me who has only begun contemplating my own spirituality in these terms in recent years, Carolyn has provided much food for thought - and fruit for picking - on how to live one's life with integrity.