2016, in books

Time for reading is time I treasure, but this year my reading wish list grew faster than I could finish books.  I discovered the magic of an Audible subscription and I now download 1 new audiobook every month so I can listen while driving.  It's no cozying up with a cup of coffee and a blanket, but it provids me an opportunity to get through some of the long classics and absorb myself in a story while facing traffic.

My reading list this year was also shaped by a program I began in August called The Living School.  The writings of mystics and those leading a contemplative life encouraged and inspired me in my own inner journey, complemented with guidance from the treasured faculty of the program.

So this year's list is a bit all over the place.  The stories and perspectives I read this year come from all around the world and each book has added a new thought, a new inspiration, a new appreciation for something I did not know.  That is the magic of books and here is the magic I encountered in 2016:

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The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (as an audiobook)
This simple story lifted my spirits at the end of a heavy period.  Listening to a story of life being given to a forgotten garden, which then gave life back to children was a delightful respite and ended up giving me some life as well.  It made me want to go dig my hands into some dirt, too.

Vitamin N - Richard Louv
In relation to the above theme of children and the outdoors, this book outlines why interaction with nature is a must for children, with plenty of benefits.  It provides 500 practical ways for children to interact with nature, both in grand expanses of the wild or just in your backyard or a city park.  I will keep this one around and refer to it throughout Leo's childhood.  It inspired me to keep nature in my life daily, even in tiny ways.

Mornings in Jenin - Susan Abulhawa (as an audiobook)
This story holds so much - tragedy and hope, how war and trauma affect generations to come, and a more-than-compelling story of one of the most captivating conflicts in recent history.

Madwomen - poems of Gariela Mistral
Earlier this year, I rediscovered a poem that was passed down through the women of my family.  I noticed the author and looked her up and then purchased this book of her poems.  I went through it slowly and I found myself turning down pages of poems I wanted to revisit, which I often did throughout the year.  There is one in particular, called The Dancer, that I just can't get enough of.

Prayer and Identity - Beatrice Bruteau
With much division in our world, exasperated in 2016 by a brutal election, I have given much thought to whether it is possible to stay in community with people so different than ourselves.  I have contemplated over and over again the tension between "staying at the table" and unapologetically living into who you know yourself to be.  Can you do both?  I've somberly asked this countless times, then this essay by Beatrice Bruteau gave me hope and light and some semblance of an answer. 

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Others listened to as audiobooks:
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
The Signature of All Things - Elizabeth Gilbert
The State of Wonder - Ann Patchett
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
Adventures of Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Joyous Body - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Roots - Alex Haley

More books I enjoyed this year:
Beauty - John O' Donohue
The Gift of Story - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Merton's Palace of Nowhere - James Finley
The Naked Now - Richard Rohr
Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening - Cynthia Bourgeault
Nice Girls Don't Change the World - Lynne Hybels
Lady of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Art of Power - Thich Nhat Hanh
No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame - Janet Lansbury
The Mind's Road to God - St. Bonaventure

Excerpts of these texts, assigned through The Living School:
The Cloud of Unknowing - Anonymous
Living Presence: A Sufi Approach to Mindfulness and the Essentail Self - Kabir Helminski
Guigo II: The Ladder of Monks and Twelve Meditations
The Interior Castle - St. Teresa of Avila
Sermons by Meister Eckhart
Christophany - Raimon Panikkar
Christ in Evolution - Ilia Delio
The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three - Cynthia Bourgeault
Theological Investigations, Volume III - Karl Rahner
Chanting the Psalms - Cynthia Bourgeault
Love is Stronger than Death - Cynthia Bourgeault
 

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For the love of home

With 2016 coming to an end, I started putting together a photobook of daily pictures.  I take one photo each day, write a bit about it, and at the end of the year, I compile all of these into a hardback book.  Last week, I read through these entries and I couldn't believe all we've done and everywhere we have been in 2016.  We've traveled so much and I've continued my work with a breastfeeding child, doing my best to balance motherhood with my workload.  To be honest, it's been an absolutely exhausting year and I don't say that with a sense of martyred pride.  Being so busy, I've discovered, is simply stupid.  After reading through everything, I gave myself a lot of grace.  It's been one thing after another - a lot of sickness, a lot of travel, several heavy issues we've had to deal with in our community, lots of work done through it all, and lots of relationships made and built.

Through it all, I've been ever more grateful for our home.  It is my stabilizer, my place of peace.  I find myself revived when I'm able to spend a day at home with Leo or just a few hours.  Admittedly, I too often spend this time worried that I'm not doing what I need to get done, but sometimes I am able to just sit back to be fully present and those are the moments that bring me the most joy.  Here is a compilation of photos I've taken at home this year, mostly with Leo and mostly with him wearing few to no clothes.  My favorite time is the end of the day when the setting sun brings slanting shadows and a glowing light, as if it's asking me to pay attention.

We will end this week with a staff retreat and next week we travel to the U.S. once again for the holidays.  Although I look forward to being with loved ones and investing in many activities that bring us a sense of purpose, I think this time especially, I will miss our own home.

Dinner and Mystery

Every once in a while, we host a Dinner And...
The idea is simple - host a small group to discuss a certain topic or idea with collected quotations as a guide while sharing a meal together around a table.  Just last month, we hosted Dinner and Mystery, chatting with special friends about engaging the Unknown and why it is important, about letting ourselves be taken by Wonder and what that does for us.
Now, Mystery and Wonder are some of my very favorite topics and have are becoming the foundation of my seeing.  Indeed, it is the reason for the name of this blog.  There is much to say about these topics, but I will let the sampling of quotes that I found lead to you wonder about mystery better than I can.  But if I can add just a little observation, I'll point out that the many wise words on wonder so often point to two things to help nurture it in your life - nature and children.  What nurtures a sense of awe in you?

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“Our investigation indicates that awe, although often fleeting and hard to describe, serves a vital social function. By diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, awe may encourage people to forgo strict self-interest to improve the welfare of others. When experiencing awe, you may not, egocentrically speaking, feel like you're at the center of the world anymore. By shifting attention toward larger entities and diminishing the emphasis on the individual self, we reasoned that awe would trigger tendencies to engage in prosocial behaviors that may be costly for you but that benefit and help others.

Across all these different elicitors of awe, we found the same sorts of effects—people felt smaller, less self-important, and behaved in a more prosocial fashion. Might awe cause people to become more invested in the greater good, giving more to charity, volunteering to help others, or doing more to lessen their impact on the environment? Our research would suggest that the answer is yes.”

-Paul Piff, University of California; study on Awe, the Small Self, and Prosocial Behavior

Joshua Tree National Park

On our road trip from Albuquerque, NM to Bakersfield, CA, our last stop along the way was an overnighter at Joshua Tree.  After a long drive through the desert of Arizona, we arrived in the small town and settled into our rooms; we only had a few hours the next day to drive through the park and get a taste of what it had to offer before we had move along to Bakersfield.  Here are a few of the photos from the area, although I hated that we only had time in the park during the daytime with harsh sunlight.

The desert was alluring and I wished to pitch a tent all alone in the park for at least a week to soak up its wisdom, but I put that wish in my back pocket for another time, and took the opportunity for what it was - a taste of the unique landscape with my parents and young son along to enjoy it.

Sedona, Arizona

Continuing on our road trip across the Southwest, we went about an hour out of our way so that we could witness the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona.  We're glad we did.  Although it was only a drive through the town with a quick stop to grab breakfast with a view, it was worth the detour to see this magnificent landscape.  Dad even started researching retirement homes in Sedona.  Maybe it's just the natural beauty or maybe it's the claimed "energy vortex," but there certainly is something alluring about this place.