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An extremely important book, essential reading for ANYONE embarking on a spiritual path.

“Ego thinks it is much more powerful than it actually is. In this way it defends itself from the realization of its true condition.”
Robert Hall

We have not even begun to properly understand what it means that biocarbons have arranged themselves on this planet in such a way as to know they are fleeting assemblages born to suffer, love and die. (Saying that it’s all) “just chemistry” is a way to baffle the terror of that mystery with the music of a seeming certainty; it is a campfire story posing as an explanation...

Mark Vonnegut - son of the zany iconic novelist Kurt V. - went on to a successful medical career and a solid life as a paediatrician, but in this tell-all memoir he reveals how his bipolar life has been shot full of holes from the outset. Alarming, hilarious... and above all, Candid! This may be terra incognita for most - so you’re in for THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE!

Charles Morris, a chronicler of American Catholic life, wrote: “There were no more patriotic Americans than Catholics, nor any more loyal to the Pope than Americans, and the American Church developed a wonderful skill at picking their own path between these two loyalties.”

A harrowing, but ingratiatingly self-deprecating book, and quite wonderful in its own haphazard staggering through the 1970’s - strongly reminiscent, to me, of my personal, idiotic meanderings. He’s so right. For if we haven’t learned from our life, what are we Doing with it?

My discussion group reading!

Still as rivetingly convicting to my innate sense of pride as it was so many years ago! For humanity never fails us - both in its richness and in its folly! I am sadly no exception...

For my aunt, Sister Mary Ann Farrington, SNJM, soul friend and true comrade on the path, and the only person I know whose copy of St John’s Collected Works is more beat up than mine.

Quite simply, the most enjoyable YA book I’ve read in the past year. A remarkably fun look into a so-called weird - but actually only harassed and bullied - teen’s headspace!

This one looks every bit as good, if not more applicable to my own life, as The Existentialist’s Survival Guide - for the latter posits no happy ending in this world - and my personal journey shows me otherwise.

The beautiful woman whom I love and have been sleeping next to for thirty-five years is a breast cancer survivor. Now it’s Parkinson’s. We can forget the so-called golden years of retirement... and yet, when it came to being in the ring of life... Sue has always been a rock. It was no secret to me or my kids.

Kiergaard... says “Anxiety... is an expression of the perfection of human nature.”
(K’s saying our pop psychology is full of beans! We CAN become our own human, true selves.)

This new book, which first appeared last month, offers a frank but humbly sympathetic discussion of a long-ago talk between two very different, yet seminal thinkers: the warm humanist Carl Rogers, and the existentially driven thinker Paul Tillich. It also includes the author’s experiences of their influence as a centrist student in the climacterically-charged 60’s, like me. A deal at $6.00!

It is a never-ending blizzard of little and big gut-churning worries that seem to make it impossible to be present. An aborning spring day, the trees are exploding, but the only thing I can glimpse is a world that snarls like a pit bull on a short leash... If the proverbial slate fell off the roof today, no one besides my wife would know that I was a walking haunted house aflame with anxiety.

What a super book. Marino and I are so like two peas in a pod, but so unlike each other in so many ways, too. Give you an example: Marino started out as a professional boxer-cum-philosophy-graduate. Can you beat THAT? Reason I noticed it is Commonweal magazine gave it a rave review. And I picked it up Dirt Cheap on Google Read. Do I feel five stars coming on? Just maybe...

It is the interior life especially that I have tried to deal with here because during the past fifteen years or so that this covers I have found more and more that, like the back pages (of a newspaper), it is in the interior where the real news is.

New nonfiction study that got a stellar review in Commonweal Magazine! Looking forward to this one. Excerpts to follow...

Perfect fullness is always to come, and we do not need to demand it now. This keeps the field of life wide-open and especially to grace... This is exactly what it means to be “awake.”

Christmas to-reads become, happily, New Year’s REMAINDERED BOOKS!

Great audiobook, with a nice clear reading. And so much detail you miss with an abridged version. So much more revealing than the watered-down edition!

Audiobook from Google Play. This should be Good...

(Republicanism, constitutionalism, natural law, and cultural tradition:) These four streams came together in the Founders’ vision that gave birth to an entirely new type of nation. Whether the Founders would recognize their handiwork today... is another matter.

The King’s Grace appointed a Dean to administer the affairs of the Cathedral, and Canons, lay clerks and choristers to preach and sing the services. During the reign of the Montagues there had been an outbreak of the plague... The people had felt that there was a curse upon the city because the monks had been driven away, but now that the men of God were back... Hope was reborn and men went to work with a will.

This will be a very Honest and Heartfelt Five Stars for me. I have already rated it as such, with my thanks, on the Franciscan Media website where I bought it!

A cogent and affable diagnosis of the delicately-balanced predicament of the 21st century American Church, and possible future remedies for shoring up its strengths.

A wonderfully well-balanced and positive look at our inordinately difficult times, and our true place in their midst.

An incredible influence for good throughout the East, sown in large part by this early and indefatigable pioneer. Analysts now say China will soon have the Largest Christian Population among World Powers.

Book Club reading!

Got this marvellous, grownup book at a deep discount after Christmas. I know the hoopla’s all over, but my elderly soul likes to mull over the Christmas Mystery at ANY odd time in the year!