Happy Christmas
Happy Christmas to all my gracious readers—through all the darkness in the world, may this Christmas bring you light for the feast and in the year to come.
I have been meaning to write to recommend a book which is wonderful in everything but its title: Reclaiming Humility, by Jane Foulcher (Liturgical). Humility can't be claimed, much less reclaimed, but this is the book's only fault. It is scholarly without being pedantic and is so beautifully written that you have no sense of the usual dry scholarly monograph. Her research is impeccable and her insights original. Highly recommended.
Also, Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee, ed. Earl Ingersoll (BOA editions). Repetititive in places, but when Li-Young gets going he is full of silence and insight.
Finally, The Taste of Silence by Bieke Vandekerckhove, published by Liturgical Press. It is a down-to-earth treatment of pain, religion, meditation. She is well-known in Belgium: She has ALS (in remission) and is half-paralysed, and yet she has been ordained a zen master with the name “Light of Kenosis”. She is also deeply into Benedictine monastic spirituality.
In early January I will be going again on a 3-month retreat on a remote island in Scotland and will have virtually no access to internet—and no, I don't have a pub date yet for vol. 2. But I'm working on it. Slowly and painfully.
May your New Year be filled with joy to aid you in the fight against the darkness.
I have been meaning to write to recommend a book which is wonderful in everything but its title: Reclaiming Humility, by Jane Foulcher (Liturgical). Humility can't be claimed, much less reclaimed, but this is the book's only fault. It is scholarly without being pedantic and is so beautifully written that you have no sense of the usual dry scholarly monograph. Her research is impeccable and her insights original. Highly recommended.
Also, Breaking the Alabaster Jar: Conversations with Li-Young Lee, ed. Earl Ingersoll (BOA editions). Repetititive in places, but when Li-Young gets going he is full of silence and insight.
Finally, The Taste of Silence by Bieke Vandekerckhove, published by Liturgical Press. It is a down-to-earth treatment of pain, religion, meditation. She is well-known in Belgium: She has ALS (in remission) and is half-paralysed, and yet she has been ordained a zen master with the name “Light of Kenosis”. She is also deeply into Benedictine monastic spirituality.
In early January I will be going again on a 3-month retreat on a remote island in Scotland and will have virtually no access to internet—and no, I don't have a pub date yet for vol. 2. But I'm working on it. Slowly and painfully.
May your New Year be filled with joy to aid you in the fight against the darkness.
posted by Maggie Ross at 11:26 am
6 Comments:
Happy Christmas, too Maggie and thank you for another year of your labor of love...
Thanks, Maggie,for the book suggestions and bit of an update on your life and work. Blessings and prayers as you go on retreat.
Go well. Alison
So good to hear from you. Thank you for the suggested reading. May God have mercy on us all.
Found you! Having lost touch after our sojourn in Reillanne, Providence has brought me to your blog. I am so glad to read that you are still alive and continuing to live the solitary life. If you would like to reconnect when you return at Easter, I am on facebook.
Jane, it's wonderful to hear from you. I'm not on Facebook, so send me your email in a comment and mark it DO NOT PUBLISH. Hope to hear from you. oxox
Dear Maggie, as part of my reading for Easter I was looking again at your sermon for Maundy Thursday, 'Love Unrecognised'. How true that our self-orientated culture seeks to forget the second clause of the saying of Irenaeus, "The glory of God is the human person fully alive; and the glory of the human person is the beholding of God." So too with the second half of the saying of Evagrius, that prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, through the laying aside of thoughts." Your words took me back to a wonderful interview on Radio 4 a few years ago about the multi-faith, multi-ethnic Civilisation Choir' of Antakya, Turkey. When an Orthodox priest was asked to comment on the harmony between the members of the choir. He answered, very simply, wonderfully, "We all come from Abraham, and the silence before him." All peace to you this Easter. Christopher
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