Authors

Simple Words of Wisdom

/ still a dreamer

No doubt, you find and read books that inspire you, whether you read them on an ongoing basis, re-read them, or discover them for the first time. Same here. One of my favorites, that I fall back into periodically, is Simple Abundance – A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sara Ban Breathnach. Having read it from cover to cover when I first received this as a gift many years ago, I now always have it nearby and let it fall open from time to time to see what Ms. Ban Breathnach has to say on a particular occasion.

I thought I would share with you a line of inspiration that she wrote …  and an example of how the seemingly simplest thought can say it all —

“Learning to shrug is the beginning of wisdom.”

Chronos vs. Kairos

/ still a dreamer

How interesting that chronos and kairos should appear in my reading materials in so close a time frame. Not long ago, I read Madeleine L’Engle writing about it. Then on October 12th, in one of my favorite books, Simple Abundance – A Daybook of Comfort and Joy, Sarah Ban Breathnach addressed it. And as always, these “chance” messages were of particular relevance to my life at the moment, and my feelings of far too much to do in too little time all too often. Might you find yourself in here, too?

Ms. Ban Breathnach defines chronos as how we try and control time – clocks, calendars, datebooks, agendas, beepers, etc. Chronos is time at its worst and a delusion of grandeur – it is the world’s time.

Kairos, on the other hand, is time at its best. Kairos is transcendence, infinity, joy, passion, the sacred. Kairos let’s go and allows us to escape our own confines. It is spirit’s time.

We, who never seem to have enough time, are at the mercy of chronos … or allow ourselves to be. But we need kairos so desperately. We do already know it – it’s any time when we have been so wondrously involved in what we are doing at the moment that we lose track of worldly time and just are. And there we find joy, rapture, oneness with our own spirit.

But how to be in more kairos? Ms. Ban Breathnach recommends the following:

“* By slowing down
* By concentrating on one thing at a time
* By going about what we are doing as if it were the only thing worth doing at that moment
* By pretending we have all the time in the world, so that our subconscious will kick in and make it so
* By making time
* By taking time.”

She says, “It only takes a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment. All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres.

“Today be willing to join in the dance.

“Now you’re in kairos.”

Sorry, Henry — Sorry, Clare

/ still a dreamer

I tried – I really did – but The Time Traveler’s Wife just jumped around too much for me to follow at this juncture in time, when I am reading so sporadically. This book has such a unique and interesting premise, but I found, that with very little reading time available at the moment, (and often at the end of the day), that The Time Traveler’s Wife was not getting the true attention it deserved. And by all reports of friends who have read it, it’s tricky to follow anyway. So, back on the shelf it goes, to be picked up when I have the luxury of reading for hours on end and truly appreciating Henry and Clare and their time-spanning relationship.

What, then, should I choose? The finds from the Hunterdon County’s Annual Book Sale beckon! There awaiting me are best-sellers, favorite authors, new-to-me authors, and children’s books – lots of them. Among these are fairly current offerings and some classics. Of the latter are some I have not yet read, like Old Yeller, and some I have, including my current choice – The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

I can remember the copy I borrowed as a child from the Dixon-Homestead Library in the town where I grew up – it was a hardcover, and a medium dark green. I also remember loving it, and am curious to see how it stands up today. Written in 1911, The Secret Garden intermixed some of the history of Burnett’s own life with her imagination, and became instantly popular, and then in time, a classic.

Do you remember reading this as a child?

Banned Book Week – Sept. 25th-Oct.2nd

/ still a dreamer

Did you know that the American Library Association (ALA) – who bestows the John Newbury Medal and Randolph Caldecott Medal (among others) – holds an Annual Banned Book Week? I was very interested in this and went to their web site which has extensive sections on not just their greatest concern – the 1st Amendment – but also lists of the books in question sorted by different criteria.

Among their lists are: the 100 most challenged/banned classics, and the details of who banned/burned/and/or challenged them and why; the most challenged/banned books sorted by decade, author, year, plus statistics.  Some books are banned by entire countries, entire states in our own United States, by schools, religious groups and others. Who would have thought that so many people on the planet thought they had a right to tell us what we can and can’t read?

Looking just at children’s books for a moment, here is a partial list from among 100 books for all age audiences banned or challenged in the last decade – Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling (Harry’s number 1!); His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman; Captain Underpants (series), by Dave Pilkey; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain; Forever, by Judy Blume; Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous; Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar: In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak; Bridge To Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson; Junie B. Jones (series), by Barbara Park; A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle; Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine; Are You There, God?  It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume and oh-so-many more.

What are they kidding me?! Be afraid, people, be very afraid … clearly there are lots of others out there who think they know what’s best for you, me and our children. I am alternately scared, disgusted and outraged. Well, the good thing is that the ALA has this extensive web site which supports intellectual freedom and the upholding of the First Amendment. On the ALA OIF (Office of Intellectual Freedom) section of their site, there are ideas, resources and activities for teachers and parents who believe in the freedom to learn, and various events for the week.

Think you should decide what you and/or your children reads? This may be a site you want to check out.

Blue Diary – Alice Hoffman

/ still a dreamer

I may have written this elsewhere on my blog about Alice Hoffman, but I will say it again. She never disappoints as an author, and she is a master of the well-crafted, cannot-put-it-down novel.

Blue Diary is the latest of Alice Hoffman’s that I’ve read – just finished it, in fact, and I feel like I want to pick it up and read it again; I didn’t want it to end, and I feel like another reading will further enrich my experience in Monroe, MA. Hoffman’s characters are so real – so relatable. They are people you know, flawed, struggling, yet with their own — sometimes surprising — depths of strength.

A family man with a wife and child who adore him, a worker in the small town relied upon for his excellent services, and a volunteer fireman honored because he is often the first to go into a fire fearlessly and rescue someone trapped. Yet on one morning the police arrive – his own friends – and take him away in handcuffs for a crime he allegedly committed 13 years ago in a different state under a different name. How has this happened?

I suppose in a way you can say this is a murder mystery, but it is so much more than that. It is an examination of the hearts and souls of the people whose lives Ethan Ford has touched,  and those of their friends and loved ones as things start to come apart at the seams, and also of those whose lives he has ruined. It is a mystery that needs sorting out by many different people. Over the course of Blue Diary, the mystery is revealed, played out through the many characters we get to know and care about.

The second chapter in Part One, simply entitled “True,” is from the POV of Kat, neighbor and 12 year old friend of Ethan Ford’s son, Collie. She says, “The first thing I noticed was that he could walk past a mirror without casting a reflection. My grandmother always told me that a mirror can shine back a person’s dishonesty, but what did it mean for a man to have no reflection at all?” This is not a tale of vampires, or the supernatural, but an insight of a child who can appraise a truth. Something no one else has quite been able to grasp, though past inklings come to light for some. Masterfully woven into the main plot are several sub-plots, all wonderfully intriguing.

And then there’s Hoffman’s writing itself. Her writing has been described as “lush” and “luminous” and these are accurate. Her way with words is so incredibly rich, I never want to leave her world – whichever book’s world she has enticed me to enter. Perhaps it’s why I’m inclined to want to read this again immediately after just finishing it. Her descriptions of place, of experience, of emotion are so compelling that I am there. It’s an amazing gift, and I don’t know of that many authors I’ve read that share it so consistently, novel after novel. Blue Diary is a terrific read.

So what next? What can follow such an engrossing story? Or should I just enjoy it again?