Category: Reading

Reading in the sun~

2/23/2017

I continue to be awed by the sense of God’s presence as I lie on the couch in the sun reading. Sometimes I stop and let it wash over me. Other times I feel compassion take center stage, compassion for every character. I can usually find a piece of myself in each one, part broken, part loving. Isn’t that the way we are, filled with both?
These moments of awe remained with me today during my walk. I feel closer to God than during times of formal prayer.

Reading for compassion--a God idea

2/17/2017

I am posting the following both there and my acottagebythesea blog. I want to emphasize here that my reading for compassion project is God’s work.
The other day when I told a spiritual friend about the project, she unequivocally felt God’s grace and power. Here was God, working in God’s wonderful and mysterious way. I feel that too, which gives me the best ever reason to keep going. This isn’t just a good idea, it is a God idea.

I have been pondering the birthday gift of book titles I received from Face Book friends and from those of you who read this blog. What began as my participation in the 2017 Goodreads Reading Challenge, quickly morphed into an antidote to political negativity, accompanied by my desire to read for compassion. What I am pondering today, a month and a half into the project, is the effect it is having on me, my gift-giving friends, and, dare I believe, the wider world.
     My reading began as intellectual learning--different lifestyles, points of view, periods in history--but then expanded to include feelings of compassion, first for the particular characters and situations, and then to something more universal--a feeling without words deep in my heart.
     I know very little of the effect this gift has had on my friends. I am sure that those who sent a suggestions spent time thinking about perfect book for me. I have thanked a few personally, and made a few general post on FB and here, but that’s about it. And yet, I still feel a personal connection with each of them.
As far as the effect in the wider world, I am certain this project is making a difference; after all, I believe the world is always a more faithful, hopeful, and loving place when we live from compassion. Reading these books enables me participate in just that.
     (You can read how this got started on my posts at the end of December 2016 and beginning of January 2017.)

Let go, let God.

2/11/2017

For the past few days I have wanted to write, but I can’t come up with the words. You see, when I feel God’s presence, there are no words, because God is beyond words. I just know/feel God.
That is the best I can say, but perhaps I can explain how this presence without words has come about. First of all, I have let go of trying to figure it all out: “Here I am God,” is about it for words. Also, I am practicing Centering Prayer daily, the essence of which is no words. Finally, I am reading, and, what is amazing and totally unexpected, is God’s presence that comes over me from time to time when I have book in hand.
Today my mantra is, “Let go, let God.” Give it a try.

Pray, read, pray

1/26/2017

The Women’s March in Washington immersed me in family and politics and place me smack in the middle of the everydayness of life. It was almost impossible to prayerful, or at least to situate myself in a prayerful stance. I was disappointed how easily I marched away from God, although I didn’t march into anger. I was more in the moment along with 500,000 others, including eight family members.
Driving home Monday I told my husband that I might watch a little of the evening news. But half way home, as I read Eleven Hours, a novel about a nurse and women in labor bonding in the delivery room, I found myself settling back into my commitment to be a positive and prayerful presence in the world. I have returned to my reading for compassion project, and have started praying for my enemies, which I am only able to do when I renew my belief in a loving God. It is a challenge to stay hopeful and faithful. Pray, read, pray.

Prayerful reading for hope~

1/14/2017

    A few more thoughts about prayer to add to the following cottage-by-the-sea post. This pausing in the midst of reading sends me to a deep place with God, a place where God is present with nothing added. I go from reading and thus being ‘in my head’, to resting with God in my heart. Perhaps this, for me, is the essence of contemplative prayer.

     My Reading for Compassion project is taking on new titles: Reading for Humility, Reading for Gratitude, Reading as Prayer. How can I not feel compassion, humility, gratitude and prayerful when I read about the poverty and sexism in India or Appalachia?
     I am surprise, however, by how centered I feel while reading about these challenging life situations. Sometimes I pause to feel the presence of the Holy, the ineffable. In part, my gratitude is for the grace-filled life I have been given, but it is also for the hope lived out by the protagonists in the stories. That is what humbles me.
     To date I’m averaging a book every three days—I have given myself permission to read during the day. In some inexplicable way, I believe I am offering hope to a world fraught with anger, jealousy, bigotry, poverty, and mistrust.

Compassionate Reading~

1/2/2017

I’ve added a few feature to my Cottage By the Sea blog. It’s entitled “Compassionate Reading.” Here’s my description. If you’re interested, check it out at www.acottagebythesea.net.

   Compassionate Reading may sound strange, but that’s my purpose in joining the Goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge. A book a week seems like a reasonable goal. Maybe I’ll read 52, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll read 32, but probably not 520.
     Number goals appeal to me, especially ones connected with the calendar. As a teacher, I loved the definitive school year. There is nothing like a Monday morning every seven days to give me another jump start. The first of every month I take delight in turning the page of my wall calendar. I like numbers.
    However, this reading goal isn’t about adding books to a list. My goal is understand lives different from mine. Up until now I have read through the lens of my own life, one of ease, privilege, freedom and advantage; they never promised a rose garden, but I was given one. Now I want to wear the lens of the authors and their characters. I want to step into their feelings and experiences without comparing them to mine. I want to observe without judging. I want to appreciate the nuances rather than put everything into categories. I want to I want to read with my heart more than my head.
    My plan is to post how each book opened my heart to compassion.

Clarity~

7/13/2016

    Here is my cottage-by-the-sea post of yesterday. On this prayerdiary blog I want to tell you how easy it was to let go of those New Age books, and at the unexpected relief I felt in doing so. The topics still intrigue me—past and future lives, energy and chakras and more, but they are all there to ponder from a Christian perspective. In these winding down years of mine, I don’t have to read everything, but it definitely helps not to have the books staring me in the face. Clarity of material possessions helps clarity of mind.

    My husband and I are in the midst of a major purge of stuff. It started when our grandpet had a series of accidents on our wall-to-wall upstairs carpet; that led to the shameful confession that couldn’t remember when it was installed because it was so long ago--at lease twenty years, maybe thirty. It is time to get rid of the rug and think about hardwood floors.
    This has ended up primarily being a book purge; many New Age—past lives, astrology, ‘para’ this and that. Just the thing for someone at the put-and-take. Fewer books means fewer shelves; so far we’ve emptied four.
I’ve been writing about simplicity on this blog for close to seven years. Passing these books on to interested readers opens up simplicity on many levels. When we decide to move, we will have already done some downsizing. If we stay here forever, it will be a BIG help to our kids. In letting go of all those ‘para’ books, I have released all obligations to pursue such topics. Simplicity on the material, physical plane; simplicity on the psychological, spiritual plane.

Sabbath

8/31/2014

I took the Sabbath today--from writing, but not from reading.

Meditation books

4/10/2014

My favorite meditation books.
First on the list, The Bible.

The Art of Prayer: An Orthodox Anthology.
Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and
      Readings from the Northumbria
      Community.
Baillie, John. A Diary of Private Prayer.
Carmichael, Amy. Edges of Water.
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest.
Chambers, Oswald. Still Higher for His Highest.
Harter, Michael, ed. Hearts on Fire: Praying with the Jesuits.
Harvey, Andrew & Ann Baring, compiled by. The Mystic Vision.
Lewis, C. S. A year with C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works.
Merton, Thomas. Through the Year with Thomas Merton.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime; for Summertime; for
     Autumn and Wintertime.
"The Upper Room".
Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart.

Cottage reading list~

4/8/2014

I just posted the following list of my pleasure (and other) reading at the cottage this year on my Cottagebythesea blog. An * indicates audio books that entertained me on my roundtrip drives from home to cottage.

This list doesn’t include my spiritual readings, which consist of daily devotionals (I’ll post a list of those in the next few days). And then, there is The Bible, which of course heads the list.

* Allende, Isabelle. Daughter of Fortune.
Anderson, Joan. The Second Journey: The Road Back to Yourself.
Carrisi, Donato. The Lost Girls of Rome.
Ensler, Eve. In the Body of the World.
Dreher, Rod. The Little Ways of Ruthie Lemis.
Ferrante, Elena. My Brilliant Friend.
Ferrante, Elena. The Story of a New Name.
Fiorato, Marina. The Botticelli Secret.
France, Peter. Hermits.
Gallagher, Jeffrey M. Wilderness Blessing.
Gilbert, Elizabeth. The Signature of All Things.
Gordkova. A Mountain of Crumbs.
Grodstein, Lauren. The Exploration for Everything.
Grollner, Adam Leith. The Book of Immortality.
Hanion, Jeannette. The All of It.
Hood, Ann. The Knitting Circle.
* Hood, Ann. The Obituary Writer.
Hossein, Khaled. And the Mountains Echoed.
Kerman, Piper. Orange is the New Black.
Kidd, Sue Monk & Ann Kidd Taylor. Traveling with Pomegranates.
Kline, Christina Baker. Orphan Train.
Kopp, Heather. Sober Moments: A Memoire.
Lamb, Wally. We are Water.
* Merton, Thomas. The Seven Story Mountain.
Moriarty, Liane. The Husband’s Secret.
McDonnel, Jane Taylor. Living to Tell the Tale: A Guide to Memoir Writing.
McKinlay, Deborah. That Part Was True.
Moyes, Jojo. The Girl You Left Behind.
Moyes, Jojo. Me Before You.
* Nuland, Sherwin B. The Art of Aging.
Phillips, Jayne Anne. Quiet Dell.
Russo, Richard. Elsewhere: A Memoir.
Sotomayor, Sonia. My Beloved World.
St. Germain, Justin. Sun of a Gun.
Stedman, M.L.. The Light Between the Oceans.
* Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the PCT.
Welch, Evelyn. Art and Society in Italy 1350-1500.

It is hard to pick favorites but the following stand out:
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor.
My Brilliant Friend and The Story of a New Name, by Elena Ferrante
Wilderness Blessing, by Jeff Gallagher