A noticeable occurrence for me is how influential books and articles seem to keep coming into my orbit just at the time that I'm open to/needing them. From the time I was in an airport heading to my first job as an elementary teacher and ran into the book Teacher by Sylvia-Ashton Warner in the airport bookshop--a book that seemed very odd to be there, but was one of the all-time influences on my teaching--I've started to ponder how this happens. What book supplier thought this would be a good book to put in an airport? It's not the kind of book you'd expect to find there.
So I thought this may be something other Friends have noticed, and it would be interesting to hear of others' similar experiences. Also I'd love to hear what books have been influential spiritually for Friends. Right now, I'm excited by Light to Live By by Rex Ambler. Ambler had read and translatedd into modern language all of Fox's voluminous writings, and discovered that the early Quakers apparently had found a specific process to "stand still in the Light", and this book is about that process, with help "for moderns" from a similar psychological practice that came to Ambler's attention. I'd love to hear from Friends trying this process.
Judy, thanks for posting this. I have just ordered Rambler's book from OhioLink library system. I think it will be helpful (as I've had trouble digesting Fox in the past).
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am really curious as to how to expand my practice of holding in the Light or standing still in the Light.
Yay, Sarah! I think Ambler's best-known condensation of Fox's works is Truth of the Heart, which I find myself dipping into a lot. He says in a very good introduction something to the effect that Fox was a pretty bad writer! Which made me feel better about giving up very fast on Fox's Journal. I'm eager to share results after we've tried this process in Light to Live By for a little while...
ReplyDeleteI will round up Rex and read again. I am still smitten with Eckart Tolles' "The New Earth" however, and go back to it often for enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteI'm working slowly through Parker J. Palmer's A HIDDEN WHOLENESS, recommended by Mary Igoe Myers. Last summer, when I had time (and the need) for thick books in great gulps, three came "into orbit", as Judy says: Barbara Kingsolver's, THE LACUNA, a wonderfully-crafted historical novel, was good for my own novel-writing, full of hints on how to go further and deeper, to take more risks. Maxine Hong Kingston's THE FIFTH BOOK OF PEACE is almost undefinable. You read along thinking, Peace? How so? There is a great fire in California, an earnest family living among druggies etc. in Hawaii, Vietnam war resisters, and veterans ... but you keep reading, marking the memorable statements, until finally at the end you get it. Peace is messy, difficult, full of sorrow, anger, art, and confusion -- and absolutely necessary. The third book was THE PAPER GARDEN, a sort of biography of Mary Delaney, an 18th century lady who invented cut paper flower collages. The subtitle: "An Artist Begins Her Life Work at 72." Now I want to talk about these books with Parker J. Palmer.
ReplyDeleteHope this comes under your comment, Mary...I'm finding quite a bit of inner resistence to the process in Light to Live By--having tried it twice in Meeting, decided it's better to do it at home for now. Found it a little too "directive" for Meeting for me. Maybe when I get used to it at home I'll feel differently.
ReplyDeletearrgh--want to respond to your post, Susan, but later--the intricacies of blogging are still annoying, tho I love what's happening here!
ReplyDelete