The Skin I Am in

What poetic justice is contained
throughout the leaves of history captured in this book! The
author chronicles what at first glance seems like the
vestiges of a particular journey. The book then takes a turn
and proves to be quite instructive as it deals with no one's
particular journey, yet, the books is about everyone's
journey and maybe even the reader's. THE SKIN I AM IN is
about the use of time, contentment, survival, living and
love, and ends with a retreat to days past. There is a
pattern in the book that engenders winnowing through
troubled places as one strives to the keeping of covenant
promises in the Scripture.

The first theme is a
treatise on time, which is reminiscent of the pilgrimage of
the early Christians to Mecca, captured in the Psalms and
identified as the "Songs of Ascent." This recounting of life
experiences is told by those on the pilgrimage where the
quest was not necessarily for a single truth but truth in
the eyes of the beholder. Yet, this book, "THE SKIN I AM
IN," is also on the edge of being prophetic by using
metaphors for the seasons of hope throughout one's life.

The windows to the soul described in the book
were likened to gates in the book of Acts in the Bible.
There were many gates but the metaphor here is about the man
that waited for his healing at the temple gate called
Beautiful. The poetry in "THE SKIN I AM IN," like the man at
the temple the gate that waits on healing, waits on healing
while sharing the seasons of life.

The man at
the gate found healing. Alfreada Brown-Kelly uses poetic
beauty as she arouses our consciousness. She ends the book
by giving the reader hope for a full life and leaves the
reader with and a deft appreciation of this inspired work,
"THE SKIN I AM IN." -Bertha L. Davis, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN