New Books

 

            It is fun to have a new book and open it to begin to read.  Even if I have some idea what might be in a book, I can never be sure until I begin to chase words across the page.  Regardless how fast anyone can read, no one can read a whole book at once.  It needs to be done page by page.  You can read it fast, but you cannot read it all simultaneously.

         It is also fun to reread some old books.  It is one I have wanted to reread for some time.  And it is one I have used for classes read for classes.  I know the author as a personal friend.  That is usually a nice thing, but also potentially a misleading thing.  If I know the person, I am a sitting duck to be duped.  Too easily, I assume I know “exactly what he will say.”  That usually makes me read the text too carelessly.  I “read into” the words and sentences what I “think he would be saying” instead of what the guy really said.

         So I sit, I open the book, and I read.  I let my friend begin to speak to me.  I like opening lines.  I always read the preface.  Important things are said there before the author actually gets to the topic at hand.  Prefaces are usually the time to give some thanks to all those who helped with the writing project.  And it gives tribute to all those who put up with you during the writing process!

         Parker Palmer is my friend and his book, which I picked up to begin rereading is called, The Active Life.  “Nice title,” I murmur.  It fits my life---an active life by my own definition.  I also am a sucker for sub-titles.  Parker’s is a good one: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring.  “Right down my line,” I think.

         Now I was ready for the opening line.  It did not disappoint me.  Palmer says, “It is a mistake to imagine that writers are experts on the things they write about---at least, it is a mistake in my case!” (xi)  I liked this for a number of reasons.

         First, I liked it because Parker Palmer is not claiming he is an expert in a spirituality of work, creativity, and caring.  Neither am I!  He certainly has a great deal of experience in this arena.  But experience does not necessarily make one an expert.  In fact, the most practiced monks I know would cringe at the suggestion they are experts in spirituality.  Parker Palmer suggests contrarily that he is writing to think through what it means to develop a spirituality of work, creativity, and caring.  “Me, too,” I want to exclaim!

         That is a tall order.  Those are three big words: work, creativity, and caring.  Oh, I know enough about work.  But do I know about the spirituality of work?  Do I know how to work in the Spirit?  Can I become a labora spiritus---a laborer of the Spirit?  Tomorrow when I get up, I will think, “today I am off to be a spiritual laborer!”

         And creativity---that is a big one.  Too many of us think of Einstein or someone like him when we think of creativity.  But it can be more mundane and simpler than that.  One way to be creative is to make something.  In the case of spirituality, perhaps creativity can mean simply making something out of your life.  Today is my next best chance.  If not today, then I am a procrastinator, not a creator.

         Finally, there is the spirituality of caring.  I know enough Latin to know that “care-language” is a form of “love-language.”  To care is always ego-displacing.  If you care, for the moment someone or something matters more than you.  To care is to be for the other.  So if I am going to practice that spirituality today, I will look for those opportunities to be “other-focused.”  That’s easy, since there are so many “others” in my life every day.  If I care, they are everywhere!

         Ok, this book has sucker-punched me with its first line.  I will practice what I have just learned…and will continue.  You, too?