retreat reading

I was recently blessed to attend a three day silence and solitude retreat in the mountains near where I live. 

During the time, I included two books. 

This one is an old favorite of my mom's. It's packed with thoughtful, wise words - and written from a mother in the middle years of life (to a mother in the middle years of life so it seems).

As she secludes herself on an island for a holiday from her busy Connecticut life, husband, and five children, she writes and meditates on the art of contemplation, and how difficult it is in "modern" life.

She doesn't idealize the past and its many hardships, but she recognizes how the luxury of time and labor saving devices have given women the possibility to fill their time with many pursuits and tasks, many of which are not conducive to contemplation. This is even true today many years later. I am reminded when I do take the time to chop vegetables, pull weeks, or herd cattle that there is something - a call to simpler life and a quieter mind.

So it's a call to build in contemplation so that we can remain true to our hub - the inner life that sustains creativity and fruitful life. 

Each chapter is dedicated to a different sort of sea shell with a metaphor relating it to human life or to her own life - very tastefully.

I hope to have a chat, no a walk on a beach somewhere someday with Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Perhaps we will talk and then perhaps we will be in companionable silence. 

I love the chapter describing her time with her sister - the possibility of natural artless compatibility. 

A wonderful conversation with Lois here. 

I won't try to summarize the book. You know how I hate doing that. Suffice it to say - this book is part of a pursuit my family and I have ambled into through a longtime friendship. The pursuit could be described as the attempt to learn more about Jesus and his teachings in a Jewish and more historically accurate context. 

It is so refreshing to move away from the controversies that have imbued the church over the past centuries and to merely try to look at the scriptures with (less) of a lens of the ages. As we recognize that we no longer identify with a particular sect, movement, denomination of the Christian Church - we can unreservedly pursue knowing God through the tapestry of his text and stories - and through our own hearts and experiences as well.

This book will be a good companion for my little shelf. (the one that's easily accessible - not too high,)