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Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life
In the spirit of Alain de Botton's 'Consolations of Philosophy', the Abbot Christopher Jamison, from BBC2's The Monastery suggests ways in which the teachings of St Benedict can be helpful in everyday life - for those who are religious but also those of no faith background who are searching for spiritual guidance.
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God of Surprises
Jesus said ‘The kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.’ This book has only one purpose: to suggest ways of finding the treasure in what we may consider a most unlikely field – ourselves. It is a guide book to the inner journey in which we are all engaged and has much to say to those who have a love/hate relationship with the Church to which they belong or once belonged.
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labyrinth - landscape of the soul
A unique insight into labyrinths in the UK and wider. This straight-forward practical guide explains what labyrinths are and shows how a growing number of organisations, groups and individuals are using them... it charts a personal journey of discovery and awakening. It is a book for the soul.
More information: http://www.diwilliams.com
Landmarks: Exploration of Ignatian Spirituality
Margaret Silf''s highly practical book is based on the Spiritual Exercises and insights of St. Ignatius L oyola. She provides a way of obtaining guidance for those seeking a deeper meaning to their lives.
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Reading with God: Lectio Divina
David Foster is a Benedictine Monk of Downside Abbey and chaplain to Downside School. He has always been concerned to bring the riches of the monastic tradition to lay people as they struggle to live the Christian life in the modern world. Lectio Divina or the art of spiritual reading is an art which is all but lost outside monastic communities. But following St Benedict's opening command in his Rule to 'listen', attending to the word of God through the printed text is an art which needs to be rediscovered in a world in which we are surrounded by a cacophony of sound and noise. David Foster has written a masterly guide to this art.
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Sacred Space - House of God, Gate of Heaven, Philip North & John North. Continuum, £14.99
In a series of essays, leading experts (including Timothy Radcliffe, Eamon Duffy and Margaret Barker) explore the ideas that underlie the historic connections between place, holiness and travel. Since ancient times there has always been a connection between sacredness and specific places, where the divine is at home and the seeker should make efforts to be present in the hospitality that is offered. The history and experience of this can be brought to bear on the preoccupations of present-day people and their encounter with the idea of sacred space, and although these essays were assembled to mark the 75th anniversary of the revival of the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, this book illuminates a wide variety of issues pertinent to a wide variety of circumstances. Chapters consider the built environment with which we clothe sacred space; the nature of the physical in relation to the idea of God incarnate or present in the physical world; the book, e.g. the densely illuminated Lindisfarne Gospels, as sacred space, a place of encounter; and ‘seven cairns for the creation of sacred space in the city’. There is also a consideration of whether the feminine side of the divine has been subsumed, and whether we are rediscovering what has hung on in the undercurrents of popular religion and observance. There are, of course, a variety of styles of writing in this volume, but they form a whole that is learned but not too serious, enthusiastic about the subject but not overbearing and certainly full of interesting thoughts to reflect on the spaces we inhabit and the nature of their sacredness.
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Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict
St Benedict wrote his Rule, a detailed book of instructions for monastic living, in the early 6th century, and thousands of Benedictine monks and nuns lead lives based on it to this day. In this book Esther de Waal gives a concise introduction to St Benedict’s Rule aimed at modern lay people. The monastic life that St Benedict envisaged is not one of great asceticism: rather work, prayer, and study are to be held in balance, and all of them are to be done to the glory of God.
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Struggling to be Holy, Judy Hirst. DLT £9.95
The cover of this book gives a bit of a clue to its contents, which is not always the case. There in a vortex of blue and green the eye is stilled and drawn beyond the surface to a space beyond, to something un-revealed but familiar. The content has Judy Hirst reflecting on holiness, a quality that we so often are attracted to when seen in others but fail to recognise in ourselves, something that does involve effort and seeming failure but is actually a part of our everyday lives. Hirst is very honest in sharing the lessons of her own experience, for example in the chapter on paying attention, also known as living in the present moment, a quality which applies as much to the world we inhabit and our ordinary situations as it does to the time we think of as being with God. “I have challenged a whole list of spiritual directors with my inability to be focused in the present moment….. I learned painfully (through a long and unpredictable illness) that if I was well now that was all that mattered. I could live now and not be crippled by the unpredictability of the future. All I had, as indeed any of us have, if we could only grasp it, was the present moment and if that was good and if it enabled me to do what I longed to do then I was profoundly grateful and acutely aware of the gift of it……. It is a humbling lesson to understand that we are not in control.” This is a gentle but clear book, encouraging and realistic ‘for seekers and strugglers everywhere’.
More information: Amazon website