soulful reads for a week that’s leaking at the seams…
by bam

old faithful: only slightly more emphatic than the geyser at our house this week
it’s been one of those weeks over here: a concussion on sunday (our not-so-big ultimate frisbee kid crashed face- and head-first so hard into other team’s Very Big Kid’s shoulder and biceps that the coach called that night to say he’d never heard such a loud bang between colliding bodies), leaky pipe-turned-geyser on monday, four hours of doctor on tuesday (preceded by an hour on monday). (oh, and did i mention eight hours of plumber squeezed between doctors?) and from there, the week dissolved.
or, more aptly, it flooded. any appliance in the house that could go kaput, did. (yesterday the ice maker seemed to be trying to set world record for cubes, a cascade of frozenness that would have made i-love-lucy escapades pale in contrast. yes, a first world problem, i totally get it!)
so, while i type away toward impending deadline, i’m thankful for a shelf of good reads. i wrote this batch back in february when i was down with strep, flu, bronchitis and eventually pneumonia, but it just appeared in print, in the chicago tribune, yesterday. each book is a gem, but the one i’ll hold onto forever is “dorothy day: the world will be saved by beauty,” the enchanting and bracingly honest biography, written by dorothy’s granddaughter, kate hennessy.
this line, in particular, is worthy of a week’s meditation — at least:
“Maybe she saw beauty in the cracked, chipped, and repaired. This is a paradox we all live with — this flawed vessel called to holiness.”
may your week be far less leaky than ours…..
Appraisals of Dorothy Day, Rumi and St. Francis in this week’s spiritual book roundup
Barbara Mahany
Chicago Tribune
“Dorothy Day” by Kate Hennessy, Scribner, 384 pages, $27.99
It’s the tag line, six words wafting just above a watery image of a mother and child up to their ankles in ocean, that captures the magic: “An Intimate Portrait of My Grandmother.” And mind you, this is a biography of Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, called “a saint for the Occupy Era,” and now being considered for canonization as one of the 20th century’s great American forces for good.
The brilliance of this devastatingly beautiful work — you can almost hear the grandmotherly whispers, and yet it’s deeply journalistic in its fine-grained and unflinching reporting — by Kate Hennessy, the youngest of Day’s nine grandchildren, is this: Hennessy does not give us hagiography; she explores the depths of Day’s humanity, in all its frailty and shortcomings, and points us toward an indelible truth.
She makes us see that there’s a fine balance, a constant tension, in all of us — even in Day — in which the sinful is at work with the saintly. Yet somehow, in the end, through force of will, or divine grace, the light outshines the darkness. Love reigns, but not without struggle. Maybe we too can find that tipping force.
Hennessy captures that essence in a passage about her own mother, Tamar, Day’s only child: “Maybe she saw beauty in the cracked, chipped, and repaired. This is a paradox we all live with — this flawed vessel called to holiness.” Dorothy Day answered to holiness.
Her granddaughter’s masterwork belongs as a permanent addition to any literary bookshelf of the best of spiritual biography.
“Rumi’s Secret” by Brad Gooch, Harper, 400 pages, $28.99
In the prologue of “Rumi’s Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love,” the author wanders the Grand Bazaar of Aleppo, Syria, that now bomb-ravaged city of infinite heartache, in search of any lasting trace of one of civilization’s most enduring spiritual guides. In these deeply divisive times, it matters more than ever to deepen our understanding of the roots of sacred Islam, and this deeply researched and highly literary biography of Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic, is at once prescriptive and enlivening.
Rumi’s poetry, it’s been said, is pure devotion to a “religion of love.” No wonder, eight centuries later, it ranks among the best-selling on the globe. Until now, though, only the barest outlines of Rumi’s life had emerged from behind his poetry.
Brad Gooch, whose earlier biographies of Flannery O’Connor and Frank O’Hara were widely praised, traces the life and teachings of the mystic often compared with Shakespeare, for the volumes of his creativity, and St. Francis of Assisi, for his spiritual wisdom.
In an attempt to illuminate Rumi, who preached an “emphasis on ecstasy and love over religions and creeds,” Gooch learned Persian to read the poet’s original works, and retraced 2,500 miles of Central Asia — from Iran to Turkey, Syria to Tajikistan and beyond — exploring the major centers of Muslim culture in Rumi’s journey.
Rumi’s greatest achievement, Gooch writes: “To articulate the sound of one soul speaking: Don’t speak so you can hear those voices/ Not yet turned into words or sound.”
It’s a call to sacred silence — a call this noisy planet needs.
“A Gathering of Larks” by Abigail Carroll, Eerdmans, 108 pages, $12.99
It’s fitting that a book of modern-day letters to St. Francis, the 12th-century friar who called himself “God’s Fool,” would be deeply playful. And so it is.
“A Gathering of Larks: Letters to Saint Francis from a Modern-Day Pilgrim,” an epistolary gathering of poems-cum-love letters is indeed sparked with joy and stitched with whimsy. But, too, it’s richly textured — hardly a one-note wonder — and promises to catch the unsuspecting reader off-guard. In fact, that’s where — in lines that pulse with sorrow, in verse that spares no jagged-edged truth — much of its power lies.
For those among us who consider Francis a model of gentility and grace, it’s a wholly charming notion to reach out from our world of big-lot stores to the patron saint said to tame a wolf, preach to larks, and sing to Brother Sun and Sister Moon.
The writer of these letters — Abigail Carroll, a Vermont-based author — is very much an inhabitant of the modern-day melee. Yet she reaches beyond — to another time, to another plane of mysticism — and in rubbing together the profane and profound, the secular and sacred, she positions the medieval saint squarely in our midst. And makes us understand why he remains a vital prophet, one imbued with much to teach us on the subjects of natural wonder versus materialism, on beauty, brokenness, simplicity and, above all, on faith of a radical kind.
what’s on your reading list at the moment? any leaks in your week?
and happy blessed birthday to dear dear jan, beloved longtime friend of the chair. sure are a heap of may birthdays here at the table….
Oh Barbara,
As a TBIer, I am so very, very sorry to hear this!!! He is young and the young heal much easier than us older folks. Lots of rest right now, as I hope the doctors have advised, lots – teachers must be advised of this. I can suggest some amazing things to help his brain, after he has had a lot of rest.
Actually, one can help his healing right now, to get his brain waves working in better sync so healing can happen better and maybe faster.
ww.brainstatetech.com I know there are a practitioner or 2 in Naperville, but given you are in the Windy city, there should be closer practitioners to you. Please keep us posted! The other http://www.interactivemetronome.com is the best thing I have found in the 14 years post my serious TBI! It’s a computer game that helps to get a brain’s wiring in optimal shape. sorry for the not so good language! My practitioner has found that when I am away for a while, the perfected timing so my brain can work better – HOLDS!!!! It is the BEST resource EVER in my 14 years post.
Saying prayers for your young man/lad!!! Blessings! Louise
thank you!!! i’ve actually heard of that, and know someone who knows someone who does it. again, my heart aches that you suffered traumatic brain injury, and that this new reality is your daily challenge. you inspire. bless you. xoxo
Wow! What a week for you. Hope your boy is better soon. And hope the leaks are resolved. Looking forward to picking up the Rumi. This week, for us, the furnace and air conditioner gave out.Next week, the men descend for the install.Bank account is leaking!
i hear you! i’m thinking a pleasant tent might be a superior housing option. at the moment quite proud that i googled “fix ice maker arm” and figured out DIY repair. i charge myself very little. so sorry for your bank leaks!
Oh, my, poor boy! I had a bad whack on the head with temporal global amnesia (but after many tests, no concussion), so I can kind of relate. Yes, much rest. Hope he’s better soon. I feel obligated to provide some comic relief. Here’s a fun video from Mike Mustard (aptonym or nom de video?), who works on Henry’s (of the Evanston farmers market) farm. A week of bad luck there, too, including BOTH tractors out of commission. And how did he not get some kind of head damage bouncing on that truck? But lively, fun insider’s look into farming if you love to know where your food comes from. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Aelsd3BFJk
(Hope the link turns into a link!)
it works!!!! and, yes, i started getting a queazy tummy from all the bouncing in the back of the pickup! what a total hoot to find my farmers making videos/talking on cell phones, all while falling out of the truck! how fun to find real live entertainment here at the chair. wonders never cease here, where all sorts of tidbits get pulled to the table. thanks, dear karen. see you and the greens SOON!
Ha! Ha! I’m so proud of myself when I can figure out one of those DIY things from Google. I always wish the nuns had taught woodworking and small appliance repair in high school instead of “domestic science.” Boy, that was a waste.
i just checked and much to my amazement it still hasn’t fallen out yet……..God bless the nuns who taught domestic arts. i missed all that. maybe that’s my problem. but i do have a mother who taught me how to wield a mean iron. xox
Oh leaky watery week indeed…all framed our week of weather, although the sun and birdsong is brilliant this morning. All those concussive head hits fill my days as a school nurse and they are nothing to be ignored. I hope the healing goes along quickly.
Your spiritual bouquet from the book garden is wonderful. Rumi alone could keep me going. I gleaned a flower of a poem to share from FB this morning and grateful to Connie Schultz (Ohio columnist married to a Democratic congressman) who is just sane voice in a crazy world. If you are an FB explorer, check her out. She is funny, acerbic, wise with a interesting life story. Anyway, the poem she posted linked me to this week’s Table and the Chairs. For all of you and soak up that brilliant blue, yellow, and green today.
Trust
It’s like so many other things in life
to which you must say no or yes.
So you take your car to the new mechanic.
Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.
The package left with the disreputable-looking
clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,
the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—
all show up at their intended destinations.
The theft that could have happened doesn’t.
Wind finally gets where it was going
through the snowy trees, and the river, even
when frozen, arrives at the right place.
And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life
is delivered, even though you can’t read the address.
Thomas R. Smith, from Walking at Dawn
the wallop at the end of that beauty hits hard, powerfully. makes me think what a beautiful life has been delivered to me. even when it leaks.
love you and may all our leaks be plugged! xoxo
this glorious weekend sure is going a long way toward healing balm.
Oh your poor little man. What a total bummer. I hope he’s recovered fully & well.
I read Wonder by RJ Palacio last week (mostly while feeding my little one). I loved its characters & message.
that is TRULY a favorite over here……you must have been weeping while reading and feeding……
xoxoxo