Sacred Compass

I just finished this book. It was a great, modern, easy to understand view of the Quaker concept of discernment - and also just a fine book on meditation and slowing down and asking questions and listening. I had known of it for a long time, but had not gotten around to reading it until it was a Christmas present. Now I am glad I waited - the book made sense to me today. I am sure as I travel through more decisions and musings, I will reach for the book and its guidelines.

Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street

Fabulous! I am and always will be a fan of "the street". I am hoping to add this to my Sesame bookshelf for Christmas.

Nothing Was the Same

by Kay Redfield Jamison

"It has been said that grief is a kind of madness. I disagree. There is a sanity to grief, in its just proportion of emotion to cause, that madness does not have." So writes Kay Redfield Jamison, the clinical psychologist whose widely acclaimed 1995 memoir, "An Unquiet Mind," revealed her lifelong struggle with manic-depressive illness. "Nothing Was the Same" is the story of her marriage to the late Richard Wyatt, a man who overcame severe childhood dyslexia to become a leader in schizophrenia research. With the blend of straightforward frankness and poetic eloquence for which her earlier book drew praise, Jamison describes the almost 20 years of their life together as a love affair that encompassed not only their shared work, colleagues, family and friends, but also her mental illness and the cancer that ultimately claimed his life in 2002. One thing that makes this book especially compelling is its quiet matter-of-factness in the face of personal catastrophe. ..... Every step carries emotion -- shock, dread, hope, joy, despair -- and Jamison portrays each of these with piercing clarity. Still, the overall tone of her recounting is even, spare and thoughtfully analytical, avoiding grimness and offering some leavening lighter touches, like Wyatt's affectionate characterization of Jamison's manic-depressive mind: "a delicate ecosystem, a pond of subtle alkalinities, which was kept alive through a finely honed mix of lithium and love and sleep, or, as he imagined it, 'water grasses and dragonflies, and a snail or two to tidy up.' " (Amazon)

This was a very bittersweet read, to know the inevitable ending, to hear of the hope in the varied diagnoses, to wonder if Jamison would be alright without her husband. It is a well-written memoir and a sad but comforting book.

Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals

by Christopher Payne For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were a prominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendant Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings—and the patients who lived in them—neglected and abandoned.

Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors—chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home.Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, "where one could be both mad and safe." (from Amazon)

This is a fabulous collection of photographs. The end section also refers specifically to the loss of Danvers State Insane Asylum.

Called Out Of Darkness - Anne Rice

Ironically, this is the first book I've read by Anne Rice. Not sure how I first came across it, but it was interesting to read Rice's story of a return to her Catholic Faith. It made me think more about how our early years shape who we become. I too, have returned to a journey of faith - but not the same Catholic one that I began. For me it was interesting to see Rice's return and how she reconciled her difficulties with some of the dogma of religion. Perhaps all of her earlier writings, in a way, were working out those difficulties as well.

I am eager to read more of her works - this was quick and accessible I am curious as to her prose style in works of fiction. She has written both many books about Vampires, and more recently books about Jesus - I'll have to do some thinking about which end of the spectrum to start on! But I am glad I read this book as another version and glimpse into someone else's journey. This video also shows some her descriptions of beauty, which she saw in the church. How interesting to look at this now from a more "sparse" Quaker perspective!

The Film Club: A Memoir

by David Gilmour

In this sensitive memoir, Canadian film critic and novelist Gilmour tells of the bargain he struck with his son, 15-year-old Jesse, who was unhappy at school. Gilmour would allow Jesse to drop out if he would agree to watch three movies a week with his dad. Over the next three years, the two would wrangle over movies that the elder Gilmour thought his son would love but didn’t (A Hard Day’s Night) and experience the irrational thrills of “guilty pleasures” (Showgirls). More important, they edged slantwise, in typical male fashion, into more personal discussions of big topics, such as sexual jealousy (Last Tango in Paris) and alcoholism (Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry). At the same time, Jesse dealt with serious heartbreak, while his father struggled to find steady work and worried incessantly over whether he had made the right decision in allowing his son to drop out of school. (from Booklist)

I really enjoyed this - both for the well written tale of a father and son, and also the great film commentary. There is a list in the back of Gilmour's "must see" films he watches with his son. I will have to add them to my netflix list!

Mr. Lincoln's Chair: The Shakers and Their Quest for Peace

by Anita Sanchez

"The Civil War struck America's Shaker communities with all the violence of a hurricane. Through the dramatic story of two worlds in collision, author Anita Sanchez gives illuminating insights into the nature of each. As she unfolds the story of the Shakers' quest to spur President Abraham Lincoln to grant them conscientious objector status, the reader realizes how critically important to our nation is the legacy of a people who are too often dismissed as merely being the makers of nice chairs. Vivid and beautifully written, this book is a wonderful introduction to the history, faith, culture, and heritage of the Shakers, who have been interacting with and quietly influencing the mainstream culture of the United States for over 230 years while most Americans were unaware it was even happening." --Darryl Thompson, Shaker historian and historical interpreter

Terrific book. I am a huge fan of the Shakers and their community and lifestyle. This book had lots of new information for me, and was well written and involved the "outside world" as well as that of the early and civil-war time Shakers.

If Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person

by Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland

Traditionally, many Christian denominations have held fast to the belief that those who confess God's saving grace from sin will be rewarded with eternal life while those who reject this grace will be damned to eternal perdition. Such a belief, according to ministers Gulley and Mulholland, fails miserably to acknowledge the real message of Christianity: that God's gracious arms are wide enough to hold every person, regardless of shortcomings or sins. The authors did not always feel this way, and their little meditation on Christian universalism is as much autobiographical confession as theological treatise. Using stories from their own lives and ministries, Gulley and Mulholland devote a chapter to each of the words in the sentence "why God will save every person." In a seamless voice, they tell of people's struggles to accept teachings of the church that keep them from closeness with God. They also recall events in their own lives where they stood in the way of God's grace operating in personal relationships. For example, when one of their ministerial friends declared his homosexuality, they realized that - despite their former judgmental stance on homosexuality - this person deserved God's love and grace as much as any other. Salvation, they argue, is simply being freed of every obstacle to intimacy with God. Gulley and Mulholland's stirring manifesto on the central role of universalism in Christianity will provoke traditionalists and encourage new ways of thinking about the nature and purpose of the Christian faith.

There's also some controversy around this book. I shall blog about that separately. This was, in my opinion, a terrific and tolerant look at Christianity and humans (in all their faulted ways) in a loving, all-encompassing way.

How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist

by Andrew Newberg, Mark Waldman

Over the past decade or so, numerous studies have suggested that prayer and meditation can enhance physical health and healing from illness. In this stimulating and provocative book, two academics at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Spirituality and the Mind contend that contemplating God actually reduces stress, which in turn prevents the deterioration of the brain's dendrites and increases neuroplasticity. The authors conclude that meditation and other spiritual practices permanently strengthen neural functioning in specific parts of the brain that aid in lowering anxiety and depression, enhancing social awareness and empathy, and improving cognitive functioning. The book's middle section draws on the authors' research on how people experience God and where in the brain that experience might be located. Finally, the authors offer exercises for enhancing physical, mental and spiritual health. Their suggestions are commonsensical and common to other kinds of health regimens: smile, stay intellectually active, consciously relax, yawn, meditate, exercise aerobically, dialogue with others and trust in your beliefs. Although the book's title is a bit misleading, since it is not God but spiritual practice that changes the brain, this forceful study could stir controversy among scientists and philosophers.

This was an interesting book to read, although slightly misleading. Rather than being a "religious" type book, it's more of an in depth study on how prayer and meditation and spiritual practice all affect the brain. Interesting perspectives and studies done on tolerance of other faiths, perspectives of God that differ and how that affects others, etc. A decent read.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

by Matthew B Crawford

Philosopher and motorcycle repair-shop owner Crawford extols the value of making and fixing things in this masterful paean to what he calls manual competence, the ability to work with one's hands. According to the author, our alienation from how our possessions are made and how they work takes many forms: the decline of shop class, the design of goods whose workings cannot be accessed by users (such as recent Mercedes models built without oil dipsticks) and the general disdain with which we regard the trades in our emerging information economy. Unlike today's knowledge worker, whose work is often so abstract that standards of excellence cannot exist in many fields (consider corporate executives awarded bonuses as their companies sink into bankruptcy), the person who works with his or her hands submits to standards inherent in the work itself: the lights either turn on or they don't, the toilet flushes or it doesn't, the motorcycle roars or sputters. With wit and humor, the author deftly mixes the details of his own experience as a tradesman and then proprietor of a motorcycle repair shop with more philosophical considerations. (from Amazon)

Great book - a little heavy on the technical details of machine repair, but I found this book thoughtful overall.

Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory

by Mickey Rapkin

According to GQ senior editor Rapkin, today's lively collegiate a cappella groups boast hip-hop repertory, professional vocal arrangements, competitions at Lincoln Center and a world shrunk by the Internet. During the 2006–2007 college season, Rapkin, an alum of a Cornell all-male singing club, followed three a cappella powerhouses: Divisi, an all-girl group from the University of Oregon, the testosterone-driven Hullabahoos of the University of Virginia, and Beelzebubs, from Tufts. Each is a collective with a score to settle, a tradition to honor. Robbed of a championship in 2005, Divisi wants payback; the Hullabahoos want respect without forfeiting their frat-boy charm; and the controversial Bubs want to hone their edge. Throughout, Rapkin engages with celebrity trivia (Heroes' Masi Oka sang a cappella at Brown) and music criticism. He profiles the cottage recording industry built from college a cappella. Most notably, he riffs through signature events and crisis moments with a snarky humor (onstage Divisi looks like the women in that Robert Palmer video) that turns each chapter into a picaresque progression toward graduation. (from Publishers Weekly via Amazon)

SO here's a world I knew NOTHING about..... sometimes a difficult read, with lots of names and facts. But the overall story is good - although I did not fell I connected with the struggles of all the singers in their quests for glory. An average tale.

A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion Inside One of America's Best High Schools

by Alec Klein

Enter Stuyvesant High, one of the most extraordinary schools in America, a place where the brainiacs prevail and jocks are embarrassed to admit they play on the woeful football team. Academic competition is so intense that students say they can have only two of these three things: good grades, a social life, or sleep. About one in four Stuyvesant students gains admission to the Ivy League. And the school's alumni include several Nobel laureates, Academy Award winners, and luminaries in the arts, business, and public service.

A Class Apart follows the lives of Stuyvesant's remarkable students, such as Romeo, the football team captain who teaches himself calculus and strives to make it into Harvard; Jane, a world-weary poet at seventeen, battling the demon of drug addiction; Milo, a ten-year-old prodigy trying to fit in among high-school students who are literally twice his size; Mariya, a first-generation American beginning to resist parental pressure for ever-higher grades so that she can enjoy her sophomore year. And then there is the faculty, such as math chairman Mr. Jaye, who is determined not to let bureaucratic red tape stop him from helping his teachers. He even finds a job for a depressed math genius who lacks a college degree but possesses the gift of teaching. (from Amazon)

I suspect that this book's tale is indeed accurate in terms of a high-performing, high-pressure high school. I am still shocked when I read of teenagers under this kind of pressure - most of it parental, not from the school. A good read, and prompted some good thinking from me about what we teach, what we value and why.

It's not about the coffee : leadership principles from a life at Starbucks / Howard Behar, with Janet Goldstein.

"Think like a person of action, and act like a person who thinks"

This book is filled with some wise words. Certainly in the "self-help" category - but there was a time in my life when i took to the genre, so it became a quick read for me. It's all about the people of this organization, as Behar effectively illustrates. I liked this quick read, especially as a reminder of how I like to look at organizations, since I will be teaching in a new one in the fall.

The Forever War

by Dexter Filkins

Filkins, foreign correspondent for the New York Times, has covered the struggle against Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. He marshals his broad experience to present a wide-ranging view of this struggle, told through a series of intense, vivid, and startling vignettes. Embedded with marines during the struggle for Fallujah, Filkins describes an almost surreal scene of confusion and unvarnished violence. In Kabul, Filkins witnesses the amputation of a pickpocket’s hand, followed by the execution of an accused murderer under the Taliban regime. At a press briefing, a Taliban “minister of information” recites a litany of forbidden activities that is both absurd and terrifying. An interview with Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, who bravely fought both the Soviets and the Taliban, is particularly poignant, since he would eventually be assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives. Filkins accompanies Americans searching a Sunni village for insurgents, where their insensitivity probably creates more enemies than they capture. A portrait of the difficulty, complexity, and savagery of a conflict that will be with us for some time. --Jay Freeman

A horrifying look at Iraq and the problems we face there, that don't get talked about much these days. Everyone should read this, if only to be informed about what our country is involved in.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University

by Kevin Roose

From Amazon:
In what could be described as religious gonzo journalism, Roose documents his experiences as a student for a semester at Liberty University, the largest Christian fundamentalist university in the United States. Coming from progressive Brown University, the author admits that the transition to Liberty, with its iron-clad attempts at controlling student behavior, came with much anxiety. He trains himself to control his foul language and even begins to pray and study the Bible regularly, much to the bewilderment of his liberal Quaker parents. He suffers his way through a course debunking evolution, but finds enjoyment in a Scripture class. Roose may be young—he's a 19-year-old college sophomore—but he writes like a seasoned veteran and obviously enjoys his work. He quickly makes friends at Liberty, but is naïvely stunned and not a little disgusted by their antigay rhetoric. School founder Rev. Jerry Falwell granted Roose an interview for the student newspaper shortly before the famous evangelical's death in May 2007. "Complicated" is how Roose describes Falwell, which is a good descriptor for his undercover student experience. (Mar.)

This was a great and entertaining read, I learned some things too. Also amusing to see Roose compare Liberty U to his Quaker upbringing.

A Testament of Devotion

by Thomas R Kelly

I had read excerpts of this in Faith and Practice. I was drawn to the writings. I am drawn to this book. I often keep it in my car for my morning beach walks. Kelly has a way of looking at life that is peaceful, all-knowing, and wise.

Our Quaker Ancestors : Finding Them in Quaker Records

by Ellen and David Berry

A book written to help amateur genealogists doing Quaker research. A great resource for me in its explanation of how Quaker meetings and record keeping has worked.

Quaker Nantucket: The Religious Community Behind the Whaling Empire

by Robert Leach. From Amazon:

The authors provide detailed information about the rise and fall of Nantucket's Quaker community and its whaling industry. If your Nantucket ancestors include family names like Macy, Starbuck, Coffin, Bunker, etc., you'll gain additional perspective on the interconnections between family, religion, and whaling, the "splintering" of the Quaker community, and some reasons for migration off island.

I live on Macy Street - named after Thomas Macy, who lived in Amesbury and went to Nantucket. Also a great history of the real Starbuck family, of Moby Dick fame. This is a great addition to my Quaker history library!

New England Quaker Meetinghouses, Past and Present

Entries on 138 Meetinghouses, historical facts/locations/pictures. Weeks set out to photograph every meetinghouse in New England. A great resource. I would love to visit some of these places myself this summer, and this will be a good start!