In Plain Living: a Quaker Path to Simplicity by Catherine Whitmire, I discovered that the Greek root of the word, Economy, is oikos--which means household. Usually when someone references The Economy, they are not talking about a household. Instead they are referring to a monolithic numbers game that exists somewhere out beyond cyberspace; a gargantuan, convoluted leviathan totally out of the control of any particular person or family. While this monster obviously effects our households, there is little or no indication of how we might influence it. Instead, the evil empire whips through the air, causing rack and ruin through-out the galaxy; a modern day tale wagging the dog.
Why is it that The American People are held up as our most important resource when all that we've been asked to do is stay in school and wait for the government to fix things? What happened to victory gardens, volunteer services and hiring a college student who needs to make ends meet? Where is it written that cars have to be bought on credit and business can't function without bank loans? Why has integrity leaked out of essential operations? What are WE doing? How can you and I and the guy down the street impact the economy of our communities?
"A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault." ~John Henry Cardinal Newman
We're starting an Illuminated Journaling workshop this Wednesday, March 4 at 1:30. Lynn will get us rolling with exercises from Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner by Claire Garcia. I will provide leadership, seed thoughts and general hilarity. Hopefully God will provide illumination. The reason we do this together is that most of us wouldn't get around to doing all or parts of it alone. We need time to be quiet, reflect, pray, think, feel, listen; to access different parts of our heart and soul through art and writing. We also do this together because sharing the fruit of our creative hour is a wondrous feast. Open Hearted Living. The 7-week course will cost $30 for those who can afford it. Let me know if you're coming.
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" ~T.S. Eliot
Four of us were making tea, waiting for the Literary Biography Party to start, when I mentioned that although Carol couldn't come this month, she'd wanted to bring The Last Czarto wave around. Immediately a jolly discussion sprung up about Nicolas II. This reminded me that we had the book Nicholas II, Prisoner of Purple by Mohammed Essad-Bey on our History shelf. I pulled it for Carol to look at next time she came in. Checking the author online, I see that there are only a couple of copies available, priced at $35, $50 and over $100. I think I'll up the price on ours--a wee bit more than $4.
Rita passed out a couple copies of The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. Author Simon Wiesenthal was in a concentration camp during WWII. The first third of the book tells of him being pulled off a work detail and taken to the room of a young dying Nazi. He listened as the SS man confessed horrible things and asked for forgiveness. The remainder of the book is essays on forgiveness by a whole consortium of people. I liked the essays by the Dali Lama, Desmond Tutu and Cardinal Franz Konig best.
"Life is an adventure in forgiveness." ~Norman Cousins
When the Literary Biography Party officially started, Carolyn jumped in with The Baton and the Jackboot: Recollections of a Musical Life by Berta Geissman. This autobiography follows the ravaging of musicians during the Nazi regime. Discussion flowed. Justin and Carolyn traded musical names, while Rita and I grinned at each other.
"We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning." ~George Steiner
Next I waved around Oral Robert's autobiography, Expect a Miracle. I loved his book on Seed Faith Miracles and the Literary Party was a terrific excuse to read about his journey from a young man dying of tuberculoses, to spreading God's healing power and building a faith centered university. Rita followed with In My Own Words by George C. Page, another man who started with little and gave much. George Page had the vision to build the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in L.A. Next Justin joined the poor-boy-makes-good litany with Lincoln; The Biography of a Writer by Fred Kaplan. This biography focuses on the literary developmentof the last president to write his own speeches.
"Miracles are of all sizes. And if you start believing in little miracles, you can work up to the bigger ones." ~Norman Vincent Peale
On the next round, Carolyn held up The Inner Voice by Renee Fleming. She liked discovering that a singer of that magnitude, was just a real person. She also appreciated that the book pointed out the work involved in singing well. She and Justin traded opera singer names for a while. I finally interjected with Samuel Shoemaker's I Stand by the Door,which Mary Kate wrote that she would bring to the party if it weren't a tad too far to travel here from Colorado. Then Justin, who didn't bring a second book, took the floor and talked about Jimmy Carter's book of poetry, Always a Reckoning.
Poetry? Things were obviously getting out of hand. "Biographical poetry," Justin claimed. However, I point to this moment as the beginning of the slippery slide down the slithery slope. Rita followed by talking about Stephen King's On Writing. While I admit the first half of that book is autobiographical in nature, it would be on the Writing shelf, NOT on any of our multi-spacial Biography shelves. (See Eventually Archived Newsletters for Biography shelving oddities--June 08.) Then Carolyn took the cake by waving around Franky Sheaffer's books,Portofino and Saving Grandma.
"Novels," I shrieked. "Those are NOVELS. And besides you were only supposed to bring ONE book--two at the most--not FOUR."
"They are autobiographical novels," she said primly. "I couldn't find his autobiography on becoming Orthodox and...."
Fortunately the hour was over.
Walt, who aside from a nasty crack about the Baptists, was uncharacteristically quiet during the bulk of this, suggested we do Science Fiction and Fantasy next time. For some reason we thought Walt would have fun waving books around too, so that's what we're doing. 1:30 Friday, March 20 at The Word Shop. Come at your own peril.
"These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves." ~Gilbert Highet
I was enormously proud of myself when I managed to get my twitter box onto the companyofsaints.com website. This took untold hours because I only speak pidgin html. I'd order the images and blocks of text to line up in in a certain way, push the button and then watch them dance into all sorts of interesting patterns, which were not at all what I had in mind. Finally we developed a compromise. You can now catch short, updated comments on our main site, or follow along at: twitter.com/companyofsaints
"God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest." ~Swedish proverb
We won't talk about feathering the nests...
Blessings,
Alliee +