Magical Memoir Moments
Memoir and the Beautiful Sentence: Lenten Season Thoughts
My Lenten season reading this year includes Marilyn Chandler McEntyre’s extended meditation on the prayer of St. Patrick. I have written about Marilyn in previous blogs and have read several books of her poetry. My appreciation continues to grow for her spiritual and literary wisdom as I read more of her work. Christ, My Companion…
Let Your Life Speak: A Memoir Writer’s Memoir
Parker Palmer turned 70 years old today. I celebrated his birthday by re-reading his book Let Your Life Speak. I took the memoir lens in hand and went searching for how Parker uses his life story in this book. The code on the back jacket cover says “spirituality/work life” not “memoir.” But what if we…
A Memoir that Awakens the Spiritual Version of the American Dream
This morning, as is our habit, my husband and I attended Skyridge Church of the Brethren. Our pastor Debbie preached about healing, using as a lectionary text Psalm 30, the one that promises, in the majestic language of the King James Bible, that “weeping endureth for the night but joy cometh in the morning.” This…
Helen Alderfer, Poet, Mother, Wise Woman, Role Model
My husband Stuart gave me a book for Christmas I did not know existed–a pleasant surprise indeed. Helen Alderfer, an early woman leader in the Mennonite Church and someone I have long admired, has published a book in her 90th year. I have always loved reading about people who keep achieving their dreams well into…
My Stroke of Insight: A Spiritual Memoir
I will cut to the chase on the last night of the year 2008. I loved this book. I read it nearly in one sitting, fascinated by the straightforward telling of an incredible story. Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist working at the Brain Bank at Harvard University, woke up one morning with a headache…
Eat, Pray, Love–A Spiritual Memoir for Thanksgiving?
My husband Stuart and I have just worked together to make two pumpkin pies, two apple pies, and broccoli, curry cheese soup. We are waiting for our daughter Kate and her boyfriend Nik to arrive from Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving weekend. It seems fitting–maybe it was all that cooking–that this would be the night to write…
The Spiral Staircase: Spiritual Memoir the Second and Third Time Around
Karen Armstrong’s life story illustrates the hero’s journey described in my previous post. Her memoir’s title follows the traditional pattern of separation and hints at the initiation and return that happens within the pages of the book: The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness. Armstong builds her book on the scaffolding provided by T….
Left To Tell: Spiritual Memoir
Next Wednesday night the neighborhood book club (described in a previous post) will be discussing Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, a dramatic tale of courage, deliverance, and forgiveness from the killing fields of Rwanda in 1994. This book was “written with” Steve Erwin. By now you know that I am not…
Scott Russell Sanders and Spiritual Memoir
The September issue of The Writer’s Chronicle carries an interview with Scott Russell Sanders by Tom Montgomery Fate which excited me because it asks one of my own questions: is it possible to tell an artful story out of an ordinary life? Scott Russell Sanders is one of the few who do this difficult task…
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