July 13, 2006
July 15-16, 2006, weekend

July 14, 2006

AN OPENING P.S. ABOUT A WRITING SEMINAR:

I'll be teaching a weekend writing class Oct. 6-8 at the Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center in Bangor, Pa. Think about joining us. For a description of the class, click here. It's called "From Pain to Hope through Writing." In it, we'll spend some time thinking about what Christianity means by hope and then we'll go to those places of personal or collective pain in our lives and write about them, remembering what it means to have hope. We'll also share some of that writing with each other. Writing about pain can be a healing process as we write toward the light. The weekend begins with a Friday evening dinner and session and ends with lunch on Sunday. An Autumn weekend in the Poconos spent with words. What could be better? Hope to see you there.

* * *

NOT 9-1-1 BUT G-O-D

Is this the way to fight crime? Can you evangelize your way out of a robbery? Well, it worked for this elderly Florida woman. Anyone have anything like this story in your own past?

* * *

DO CLOSED BOOKS STILL TELL TALES?

If you wandered around in my house looking at books on the various shelves, you no doubt could tell a fair amount about me and my own faith commitments -- to say nothing of my interest in Harry Truman, Kurt Vonnegut and others.

Books_6But when I was in Vermont recently, staying with friends, I looked through one of their bookshelves one evening to see if its contents could reveal anything about what I already knew about their own religious background.

So today here you get to join this little game by telling me what, if anything, you can discern about the religious interests (or, heck, anything else) of the two people who have these books on one random shelf (I'm listing them as I found them, left to right):

* The Magic Power of Self Image Psychology

* A Course in Miracles

* Dictionary of the Bible

* Life After LIfe and Reflections on LIfe After LIfe

* Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

* Care of the Soul

* The Bride of the Wilderness

* Self Hypnotism

* 1993 Centennial Catalog: Paramahansa Yogananda, 1893-1993 Centennial

* The Myth of Freedom

* Gandhi the Man

* Days to Remember

* Listening to your Innter Voice

* Struggle for Intimacy

* Spoken in Darkness

* Sedona: Sacred Earth

* Anna's Book

* Dead Men Do Tell Tales

* Spirit Healing: Native American Magic & Medicine

* How to Read Palms

* The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching

* Divine Revelation

* The Official Preppy Handbook

* Real Women Don't Pump Gas

* The Secret Life of Plants

* Reincarnation and Your Past Life Memories

* Beyond Ego

* Centering

* Miracles

* Mrs. Seton: Founder of the American Sisters of Charity

* Daily Thoughts of Mother Seton

* Elizabeth Seton's Two Bibles

* Sylvia Brown's Book of Dreams

* The Road Less Traveled

* Those Intriguing, Indomitable Vermont Women

* Servant of the Bones

* The Tinitus Handbook: A Self-Help Guide

* You Are What You Drink

* Children of Alcoholism

* Alcohol and Your Health

* How to Select a Life Partner

* Over the Stone Wall

* On Relationship

* A Child of Eternity

* The Unredeemed Captive

* God's Littlel Acre

* Sacred Buffalo: The Lakota Way for a New Beginning

* The Da Vinci Code.

There you have it, folks. Just one shelf of many. Can you draw any conclusions? Is it fair even to try? Do our books give away our spiritual inclinations?

Tell me what you think -- and what people might be able to tell about your faith, just based on books in your house.

To read my latest Kansas City Star work, click here.

EXPLANATORY NOTE: Apologies to you readers who have come to this site in the wee hours (or weak hours, as I think of them) of the morning in recent days. Typepad.com has had some publishing problems and my posts have been late showing up. If you visit here early tomorrow or the next few days and the previous day's post still is showing, please come back later. Eventually, I hope Typepad will get this problem fixed. The Typepad folks usually haven't taken too long to fix things. Thanks. Bill.

Comments

Nick

Very eclectic list of books. Are they Unitarian Universalists? They seem to be well-educated people with a variety of interests, such as mysticism, relationships, native americans, new age.

Now the real question is, have they read all of these?


scansion

If I were just guessing, then I would guess that the person had a wounded spirit. Maybe a family member was or is involved with alcohol and there is deep hurt. Many things are aimed at spirituality, spiritual healing, and they're eager to take information about the spirit world wherever they can find it. Maybe there was a death involved--there is a thirst for rebirth, magic, and greatness.

DG

In a word... confused. Looks like they are possibly mystics, but are looking for answers just about anywhere. Although it might not be on the bookshelf the one book that was glaringly omitted? the Bible.

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