The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1000 Books to Read)

The "greatest of all novels"? No, Virginia Woolf. It is just a jumble of stuff. I didn't get it, but I watched the movie and all the special features that explained it. It is not a favorite, but I can cross it off my very long list (that I am seriously considering abandoning because we are scrapping the bottom of the barrel these days - I think I have already read the TRUE classics that most lists have). I am not sure why Mustich includes some of them, but...here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

This antic shaggy dog story firmly established itself during the twentieth century as one of the most admired books ever written. Virginia Woolf, for example, hailed it as “the greatest of all novels,” and Czech writer Milan Kundera praised it for reaching “heights of playfulness, of lightness, never scaled before or since.” Tristram Shandy’s levity is irrepressibly apparent even before you start reading: Flip through the book and you’ll see black pages, marbled pages, blank pages, and typographic oddities that, you’ll discover, are visual counterparts to specific moments in the story. In large part that story turns out to be about the protagonist’s difficulty telling it. As digression follows digression, and interruption interrupts interruption, Tristram leads the tale on such a merry dance that it proceeds in every direction but forward. His reflections on matters mundane and philosophical and his accounts of the lives of his father and of his eccentric and often incomprehensible uncle Toby are just a few of the detours that distract him from his own progress, which never gets much past his first three years. But this wayward narrative’s energy never flags, and Laurence Sterne’s self-reflexive novel offers one of literature’s first—and probably its funniest—portrayals of the errant urgencies of consciousness.

The Red and the Black by Stendhal (1000 Books to Read)

I love classical books, but I don't think this is one of the best of them. It was a bit too melodramatic for me! 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

In the pages of The Red and the Black we meet one of literature’s most memorable protagonists, Julien Sorel. The son of a sawmill owner, young Julien has Napoleonic dreams; handsome and clever, he has the gifts to pursue them. Recognizing that the path to glory for an ambitious youth in the France of the Bourbon Restoration runs through religious rather than martial channels, he dons the black robes of the clergy rather than the red uniform of the military. This decision reveals the scheming soul that animates Sorel’s every action, even in the sphere of love. Stendhal is particularly deft at capturing the tumult of lovers’ emotions, their prides and jealousies, anticipations and despairs. In fact, the psychological naturalism with which he depicts Julien’s conspiracy of one—his relentless opportunism in pursuing the unreachable triumphs he imagines are his due—undercuts the romantic sweep of the tale. Stendhal’s realistic style combines with his wry intelligence to treat all that falls into its purview—from the hypocrisy of the church to the petty posturing of both provincial and Parisian society—to a worldly assessment both sardonic and shrewd, making The Red and the Black a pleasure to both read and ponder.

The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked this book. Sagan was BIG when I was growing up. So, it was fascinating to read his stuff. I have also been into brain science lately. So, it coincided with what I am interested in right now. 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Although he had not yet achieved the fame that was to come with his documentary television series Cosmos, Carl Sagan was already an astronomer of some renown when he published The Dragons of Eden, his first book to venture freely beyond the astronomical realm. Employing his celebrated gift for lucid explication of complex scientific matters, he produces a breathtaking overview of the nature and development of human intelligence. In the more than four decades since the publication of The Dragons of Eden, some of Sagan's theorizing has surely been overtaken by new research. But the bold sweep of the book's perception still opens unforgettable vistas of knowledge and imagination.

Sister Carrie

This did not end how I expected it! After reading some lackluster books from the 1000 Books list, it was nice to get back to a more classical story by a famous author. So, I liked it!

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

In the opening scene of Theodore Dreiser’s first novel, Sister Carrie, Caroline Meeber, eighteen years old, wearing a plain blue dress and worn shoes, is on a train bound for Chicago. “Dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off supremacy,” she has four dollars in her bag and an equally vague plan to live with her sister until . . . what? Soon enough disillusioned by the reality of her meager new life, she will scrape and scheme and love and fall on hard times—use and be used—before ultimately finding the material success she seeks, as an actress in New York City. Writing with an earnestness that granted society more agency and potency than any novelist before him, save perhaps Balzac, had allowed, Dreiser pioneered an American naturalism that left a path for Sherwood Anderson, Sinclair Lewis, Saul Bellow, and several generations of other accomplished novelists to follow.

Trust in the Slow Work of God by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Friday Freewrite Fifteen

Such a good poem. It made me think of one of my directees who is only in her 30s but has been through so much that she is out of the "Productive" Stage 3 of Hagberg and Guelich's The Critical Journey. Wise beyond her years. 

Going through hell early on has its advantages. She has been through it, spiritual abuse from church, and health issues. I get that. Pain can be a great teacher, but it is never fun in the middle of it. It is nice to reflect on it and say, "That was painful but I learned so much through it. I wouldn't trade it, but please Lord, I would prefer not to go through that again." 

Today is a low-key day. I am supposed to go to a group intercession time at 8 am, but I don't know the people, and that is awkward for me. Then, I meet with one of the people I am sponsoring for the OMS at 9 am. Always a rousing conversation. I might just do my final exit interview now since the window of doing that starts in nine days, and I want to take a break in the summer. I will still meet with directees, but I will meet for two days at the beginning of July and three days at the end. Then, it starts all over again if the 2HC is a go next year. 

With these two Spiritual Exercises groups, it is difficult to know if I will have the capacity for all that I have put before me. The good news is that I got a definite NO about supervising new spiritual directors through Deepen starting in January. (That would make me work through the summer in 2025, and I want to not be working through the summer with these groups.) I was asked to supervise directors in training starting in October 2025, and I will probably say yes to that because the people I would be supervising are international workers in areas that are my passion. So, I have that penciled in, and it would require a mid-October 2025 trip to Spain. So, I would like to combine that with two weeks on the Camino de Santiago! So, something to dream about in the future.

So, 2HC will be over next Saturday at 9 am. Then just those few directees and one Silent Prayer time, and I am on VACATION to the Great Lakes. I cannot even describe how excited I am to have uninterrupted time with George enjoying the beauty of being in a boat on the water: a big ship (378 passengers), special operations boats (about 16), Zodiak boats (8?), and kayak (just me and George together in beautiful Canada!).

I want some time to reorient for this trip. I had a strange lull in activity at the beginning of April. So, I did a lot of research on the places we will be going, but I have not had enough time to really get back to it. 

I took a wonderful walk this morning at 54 degrees. Now it is warming up and will be a high of 86. We have a late dinner with our community/family group out on our deck since we cannot meet on Sunday since we are celebrating Father's Day late with our bugs. I think we are going to Pop's in Albany. Comfort food. So fun. The kids have never been there, and I think they will like the big menu. So, American (even American flags stuck in the food). 

Bye! 

Freewrite Fifteen on a Tuesday

Sunrise at Joseph and Mary Retreat Center, Mundelein, Illinois, August 2023 

I am having a writer's block. So, I am going to have a fifteen-minute freewrite and then go into some Centering Prayer (with the nuns of House of Prayer East Moseley). Then, I will have an hour and a half to write what I hope will be a lovely blessing for the whole 2nd Half Collaborative. I don't even remember doing this last year. Ack!

Somehow freewriting loosens my brain up. I love blessing people, but how do you summarize a blessing after 10 months with this great group of people? The first-ever group that we actually had an opening retreat that was face-to-face at the beautiful Chicago retreat center (the name escapes me, but I will post a picture of it at the top). That was such a lovely time, and I felt like I floated. It was an effortless time of relating with a great group of people. It was small - 13 participants and five facilitators. The grounds were lovely, and they had BIKES to take and ride (so, of course, I did a 25-mile round trip to Lake Michigan and back on our day of Silent Prayer - because that is what Carol does). 

I think part of the reason I have a block is because I spent a delightful morning in a two-hour talk with spiritual directors in training. It was on "Cross-Cultural Spiritual Direction," and I'm no expert, but they asked me back again.

I forgot the planned "statio" time of entering into God's presence and launched right in. Still, part of that was that we started with everyone introducing themselves and where they were from. (Not my choice because that was part of my time of statio - but I didn't communicate that to the person in charge.) The start of my talk is about where I am from and what a culture shock it was to go into the church after not being raised in it (I still feel a little out of place in the traditional church - not in the body of Christ, however). 

Anywho, the talk went well, and I am still thinking through it. Good questions that I did not field super well, but that is OK. I feel, overall, very happy about how it went. 

Maybe I just need to ponder that a bit longer before I go into my next thing: writing my blessing. It is probably 50-100 words, but I want to wait and ponder that too.

I also have a directee at 2:30 where we will evaluate her time through the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius. That should be good. Then, I have this writing, but tomorrow, George has the day off. So, I am not going to the agenda overview for a retreat that I am helping with for the 2nd Half Collaborative. We are going to go to one of our favorite spots: Beaver Creek! Love that place, and we have not been there since we were there with John and Katherine, and we saw that cool rainbow cloud. I miss them so much.

All that said, the people who asked me to do this talk also asked me to be a trainer for their spiritual directors. So, I would lead a monthly cohort and supervise them as they write up Contemplative Reflection Forms, I really love supervising, AND on top of all that, they are people who are international workers who are becoming directors, and that is my niche, wheelhouse, whatever you want ot call it. 

So, I am seriously considering it. It would be the Fall of 2025, and I would not be leading two groups through the Exercises like I am this coming season.

Speaking of that, I am so excited about that. This 19th Annotation group is the bomb. 

Time to go! 

Friday Freewrite Fifteen Morning Pages

I slept in until 5:15 this morning because I stayed up until 11:30. That is unusual for me, but I wanted to watch the finale of Welcome to Wrexham. I love that show. Usually, I get up and write my morning pages on my Scribe, but I miss my Friday morning freewrites. So, I am combining the two.

I tried to explain freewrites to someone last Sunday night, but she didn't understand it. It just helps you get your unedited thoughts and feelings down in writing. There is probably brain science that tells you that the physical act of writing is better for your brain than typing, but my computer was still on this morning. And I looked at it and said, "I want to freewrite." So that is what I am going to do. 

I had a little blow yesterday. I had decided to not weigh myself and just lose weight by feel. I got weighed at my doctor's appointment last Monday before I went on my three day retreat, and I made the mistake of looking at the recorded weight when I was looking at the test results. Bummer! I had not lost as much as I thought I had. The good news is that I did lose, but my guess was eight whole pounds less! Wow!

But the point is that I am less, and I am fine. Also, the things I was concerned about cholesterol, LDL, and glucose were all OK. The doctor wasn't concerned about them at all, and after I saw the results I went and spent the afternoon with K who is a Registered Dietitian (we graduated from the same Foods and Nutrition program at Oregon State, but she went on to get an internship, and I went into ministry with the Navigators), and she said for 65 (or almost), I am doing great.

I also noticed on my Apple Watch data that my VO2 Max is doing really well. It is almost back up to what it was when we were hiking hills on the C2C (Corvallis to Sea trail - I think I have posted the video I made for that hike). Hills are good, and I got a LOT of hills when I was at the retreat at the Trappist Abbey in Lafayette/Carlton. I really need to incorporate more hills in my walking this summer because I want to get my VO2 Max up to what it was a few years ago. The good news is that I have a very HIGH cardio score for my age and even the age of someone in their 40s! WOOHOO.

I had a very productive day writing my Belovedness Devotional for my 19th Annotation of the Spiritual Exercises. I think I will be able to send it out today, and I would even like to try to send out the updated Timeline handouts for their "Blessed History" work. 

I might even update praying through the first week. Write a step-by-step guide so they get the rhythm of the Exercises. 

It was so fun to talk to Kim yesterday. We talked for almost four hours. We had so much to talk about, and she brought the dog over to her mom's house so we would not be interrupted. She has been such a faithful friend to me. When I look at my Rule of Life/Personal Customary, I have regular time with life-giving friends as a monthly priority. I am not always as good at doing that. 

Well, the timer should be going off any minute, I think. I will post my C2C video for reference. Hmm. Maybe we should go hiking again this weekend. Hills are so important for cardiovascular health.

There is the timer. I sure enjoy typing and it saves paper and/or stylists on Scribe pens. LOL!

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Finished: May 20 (almost all caught up in my reviews)

Wow! I have never read a Rushdie. Now I know why he is such a celebrated author. I loved this book, and I loved the sweeping history that is the backdrop to this story. 

Highly recommend. 

Here is what it is about:

The novel tells the story of Saleem Sinai, who was born at the exact moment when India gained its independence. As a result, he shares a shares a mystical connection with other children born at the same time, all of whom possess unique,  magical abilities. As Saleem grows up, his life mirrors the political and cultural changes happening in his country, from the partition of India and Pakistan, to the Bangladesh War of Independence. The story is a blend of historical fiction and magical realism, exploring themes of identity, fate, and the power of storytelling. (Goodreads).

This is a perfect summation!

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Imagine a literary love child of Charles Dickens and The Arabian Nights, and you'll have some idea of the human interest and narrative ingenuity of Salman Rushdie's masterpiece, one of the most admire, acclaimed, and enjoyed novels of the second half of the twentieth century. Like Dickens Rushdie draws indelible characters and sets them in a swirling social context; he similarly shares a gift for exaggeration that gets closer to the truth about people than observational exactitude, illuminating his caricatures with a sense of justice and a sense of humor, often entwined. Like The Arabian Nights, Midnights Children leavens the world it depicts with magical capabilities and coincidences, thereby evoking the intense devotion our emotional lives demand of us, no matter our circumstances. Rushdie's unshakable belief in the regenrative power of telling stories, a faith given from in the unrelenting narrative energy of Midnight's Children is a legacy of both forebears. The force of Rushdie's prose is so propulsive, the currents of story-within-story so transporting, that each page is a futher winding of the crank on an enormous jack-in-the-box that explodes again and again with the wonders of living that hisory can never contain. 

The Master and Margarita (1000 Books to Read)

Finished: May 9

I know it is a classic. My friend D.J. said:

Critical to reading this book is understanding who or what each person or entity truly represents. Because of the government at the time, situations, people, etc. are the opposite of the literal reading.

But it just wasn't my cup of tea. It was just too ridiculous for me.  

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

One Soviet writer has no shortage of admirers today: Mikhail Bulgakov, whose novel The Master and Margarita has become both a Russian phenomenon and cult classic in the West. At once a love story, a supernatural adventure, and a vicious satire of the USSR under Stalin, it bursts with a creative energy that propels the narrative forward at lightning speed. Issued in the Soviet Union in the late 1960s, it immediately made its way to the West, where it quickly developed a following. In the decades since, as its black magic and biting humor attract new generations of readers, The Master and Margarita has become an ever more valuable document of the absurdities, dangers, and quandaries of life in the USSR and—all literature being more than local—beyond.

Sunday Sixteen Freewrite

This is the quote in another translation with words added at the end:

“The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then discharges the overflow without loss to itself ... Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare ... You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God.”

Bernard of Clairvaux, Bernard of Clairvaux on the Song of Songs III

I like the added line: "You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God."

I have been sitting and soaking in this quote for most of the morning. I am going through The Reservoir by Renovare again with my Kindle Scribe. That way, I can journal in the notes part of the book. 

This quote starts off the book, and it is one of my favorites, especially since Nancy has a little reservoir behind her house. We went up there a few weeks ago. She calls it "Carol's Spring," but it really is a little reservoir that collects the water coming down the hill from many different streams, and you cannot see them. They are hidden, but there is a reservoir at the side of the road where she stops and prays for me (and has been doing it for at least 19 years, maybe more). There is a metal pipe that channels the water under the road, and then it falls in a little waterfall down the hill into a bigger stream. 

We prayed longer there, and I see it is not a spring these days, and I like being a reservoir. This time, the more full quote that I found on Goodreads really hit me:

"You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God."

Learn to await this fullness. Soaking in that. Wait - a keyword in my life's journey. 

The memory of Colette standing at my door when I was 24 telling me "It will all be alright" when I was in the middle of my breakdown and leaving staff because of it. Crying my eyes out. She gave me hope.

I needed to wait. Painful experience but so beautiful and perfectly timed.

A memory of Shannon being so kind to call Gwen and have her pick me up in her big Cadillac and buy me shoes and take me to her mansion (yes it was a mansion) and listen to me pour my heart out to her for seven hours and give wisdom and perspective to my burn out situation.

So grateful for this. 

I am leading people through the Spiritual Exercises this year. They are in training to be spiritual directors, which is a requirement. They have just read Hagberg and Guelich's The Critical Journey. So, I am giving them optional "timeline work" along with their "Blessed History" that is part of the Exercises. I hope they dig deep into this. I am already benefitting from dusting off the "Life Experiences" stuff I taught with S.H.A.P.E. that I used for Women Becoming, teaching at the Suburban Women's Evening Bible Study, and later our TOAGs. It is good stuff. I hope it is not too overwhelming, but I think these three people (it may be two, one is still deciding) would be up for it.

One of the people in the 18th annotation group (only 10-12 weeks as opposed to 32-34 weeks for the 19th Annotation Group - the former runs February-May. The latter runs September-May) would also be up for it. I don't know about the other two. I don't want to overwhelm anyone, and I will always say things are optional, and then they feel pressure to do them.

I never get tired of reviewing where I have been and where I am going. Life with God is such a teacher.

Because I tend to think about other people too much (which can be a coping mechanism), these words are always good. "Do not try to be more generous than God." (With emphasis on the word TRY.)

Shoot. Sixteen minutes goes by so fast, but I want to stay true to the freewrite! 

ADDED AFTER 16 minutes:

I forgot that I wanted to add the etymology of the word reservoir:

reservoir (n.)

1680s, "a place where something tends to collect, place where anything is kept in store," originally figurative, from French réservoir "storehouse," from Old French reserver "set aside, withhold," from Latin reservare "keep back, save up; retain, preserve," from re- "back" (see re-) + servare "to keep, save, preserve, protect" (from PIE root *ser- (1) "to protect").

A Taste for Death (1000 Books to Read)

FINISHED: May 5

Another thriller! Such great writing! Such suspense. I liked it so much, that George and I watched the series based on several of her books called Dalgliesh: 

I highly recommend it!

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

The book begins with a precision of time, place, and other coordinates—a police procedural, after all, being in essence a fatal novel of manners. An old woman and a young boy discover two dead bodies in a church. In life, the two men lying in the vestry, both with their throats slit, could hardly have been more different: One was a local vagrant, the other a baronet and a rising star in politics. In one of the most puzzling investigations of his long career, Commander Dalgliesh must unravel the twisted threads that yoked them together in death. As James details his investigations, the plot resonates with themes of faith and doubt that give unexpected dimensions to the question “What happens next?” Fellow crime novelist H. R. F. Keating, creator of the delightful Inspector Ghote, summed up James’s achievement in this book best when he wrote, “By entering the worlds and minds of all her main characters—suspects, investigators, bystanders—she has been able to say more about life than has hitherto been attempted in the crime form.” 

The Silence of the Lambs (1000 Books to Read)

FINISHED May 5

I will never see this movie. But the book was so well-written, and I always find them less scary than the film.

What a thriller! 

Here is why James Mustich thinks it should be one of the 1000 Books You Read Before You Die:

Hannibal Lecter is one of the most chillingly drawn villains in the annals of modern fiction. He is perverse, polite, charming, brilliant, and brutal, and the FBI would like to lure him into helping with an ongoing investigation of a string of savage killings of young women that have left them baffled. Armed with a questionnaire and the protection of a file folder, Agent Clarice Starling comes face-to-face with the cannibalistic murderer, who is serving nine consecutive life sentences in a mental institution. So the forces of social order meet the urges of the sociopath; one side of that equation, as the reader soon recognizes, is seriously underprepared. Twisted minds, tortured bodies, and a straight line of perfectly pitched suspense add real horror to Thomas Harris’s novel, yet it is the riveting allure of Hannibal Lecter, the singular character at its core, that puts it in a class of its own as a modern thriller. 

The Eternal Promise (Renovare Book Club)

FINISHED: May 4

This was the last of the Renovare Book Club books for the 2023-2024 year. 

It was lovely. It took me a while to get into it, but some of the later essays are brilliant.

I enjoyed the person who led us through the book, the new President of Renovare, Ted Harro. His help was so excellent. He had a spiritual practice for each week of the book.

This is very different from the first book that I read by this author, A Testament of Devotion. It is a much easier read and a gem. 

But this one had a history about George Fox and the beginning of the Society of Friends (Quakers). It made my husband and I go to a Friends Meeting in my town. We loved it!