MARCIA'S BOOK JOURNAL: JANUARY 2001

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1/08/2001

I've been meaning to write about this book for awhile ...

The Procrastinator's Handbook:  Mastering the Art of Doing It Now by Rita Emmett is a really comprehensive examination of all the reasons we put things off with plenty of suggestions for changing our behavior.  As a compulsive self-improver, I've read tons of books on breaking the procrastination habit.  And I've actually gotten better (over the course of many years of practice and emotional healing work).

But I learned a couple of new things from Rita's book.  One is that I'm a "drifter."  She says:

Have you ever looked back over the part morning or afternoon or evening without having a clue what you did or where the time went?  Some drifters start several jobs and never finish any; others putter around without really doing anything.

Drifting occurs under a variety of circumstances:  when you feel depressed overwhelmed, distracted, or excited, or when you haven't planned what to do with your time.  It usually occurs during unstructured time.

Well, she has me right there.  A lot of my time is unstructured time, meaning I have the wonderful opportunity to schedule my day as I wish.  I mean, I have a lot of tasks on my daily "to-do" list but as my own boss, I get to choose when.  Unfortunately, if I don't actually choose, I drift from one to the other, doing a little here and there, and suddenly the whole days gone by.

Rita says:  The beginning of a cure for drifting is to recognize it ... The next step is to get yourself in gear and finish one task.

So now I've recommitted to make my lists, choose my priorities, finish one task at a time, and if I find myself drifting .... well, I try to be gentle with myself and take a time-out to re-focus.

I'm ashamed to say I read the chapter on getting rid of paper clutter, because I'm sitting at a desk with a haystack of unfiled papers.  Rita really gave me food for thought when she had us ask ourselves:   Do you really want to be caretaker of this paper?  Do you really want to devote precious space to clutter?  No, I don't want to be caretaker of old magazines, clipped articles I haven't looked at in twenty years, and interesting items I might need 'someday.'  But if there's one thing I procrastinate on it's filing things that I really do want to keep.  But I'm getting better.  Everyday in every way I'm getting better and better at dealing with paperwork.  Really, really I am.

The Procrastinator's Handbook is an easy read, in a friendly conversational style with plenty of anecdotes from Rita's seminars.

Other books that have been helpful to me along these lines have been:

Doing It!  Let's Get Off Our Buts by Peter McWilliams
Clutters Last Stand:  It's Time to De-Junk Your Life!  by Don Aslett
 

PS - Rita Emmett is a member of OCWW -- Off Campus Writers Workshop -- a group I attend for it's wonderful writing seminars.

1/17/2001

For Chanukah/Christmas, one of my gifts was The Best Spiritual Writing 2000 edited by Philip Zeleski.  I have gotten past the preface yet.  I haven't been so fascinated by a preface in a long time.  This one has a list of the best spiritual books of the century, put together by a panel of writers and theologians.  It's a little like those VH-1 lists, you know -- "the top 100 greatest rock and roll songs."  Everyone who looks at a list like that is going to say, "Well, that's not what I would put on the list!"

To be honest, I'm unfamiliar with a lot of them (especially the Christian books).  I've only read one in the top ten:  Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki which is a great book and is on my list of recommended meditation books.  I just re-read it recently as an audiobook.

So now comes the decision -- do I make an effort to read more of these top books of spiritual writing -- or just let my intuition guide me along as usual?  The stack of unread books next to my bed should answer that question right there, but I have a feeling I will pick at least one new book from this list from the library on my next visit.

Here's the ones on the top 100 list that I've read.  It's worth clicking through to the Amazon page linked to each book.  The reviews there will give you a bigger picture than my little blurbs.

In alphabetical order by author:

Alcoholics Anonymous (Anonymous)

I am incredibly grateful to Bill W. & Doctor Bob for what they created with this 12 step program.  They probably had no clue at the time that this work would bring healing to people with addictions and compulsions other than alcoholism.

Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn

Well, I actually may not have read this one but I have been inspired by his work, in particular Being Peace and Miracle of Mindfulness.

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

I have read this book many times, starting in high school.  I remember reading it the summer of '69, taking a spiritual journey with Siddhartha at the same time the first men went to the moon.  I think I'll read it again.

My Guru and his Disciple by Christopher Isherwood

I collect books about the relationship between disciple and guru (in Isherwood's case Swami Prabhavananda).  I believe the relationship between me and my guru, Goswami Kriyananda has been miraculous and transformational.  I'm fascinated by what draws people into this deeper spiritual commitment and how the guru facilitates change in the disciple.  I have also read and re-read the Isherwood and Prabhavananda translations of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras called How to Know God and The Bhagavad-Gita.

Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

This is a terrible confession -- I know I read this book for a class years ago but I don't remember any of it.  It's supposed to be a classic.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung

Here's another one that I know I read but don't remember.  Or maybe I only read part of it.  Oh, well.  I think I like reading about Jung and Jungian psychology more than I like reading Jung.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

I call these the best books I never read when I was a kid.  I read these as an adult and I loved them.  Can't figure out how I missed them as a fantasy loving child.  I think I'll read them again.  They're way better than Harry Potter (IMHO).

(to be continued)

1/18/2001 - Best Spiritual Books of the Century - continued

Synchronous event:  At lunch today, my friend Shelley and I were talking about religion (amongst other topics like family, health, and pets).  She felt that there was interesting commonality between Judaism and some of the eastern religions (especially in the wisdom stories).  We talked about the books That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist by Sylvia Boorstein (which I read on audiobook) and The Jew in the Lotus: A Poet's Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in Buddhist India by Rodger Kamenetz.

Then I told her about Thomas Merton, Catholic contemplative and writer who was influenced by the Zen tradition (his book Contemplative Prayer has an introduction by Vietnamese Zen Buddhist Monk, Thich Naht Hahn).

So when I came back this evening to the preface of The Best Spiritual Writing 2000 and it's list of the best spiritual writing of the century, the next book that I have read on the list was Thomas Merton's autobiography Seven Storey Mountain.  That was another book I read back in the mid-70's, part of my collection of spiritual autobiographies.

I'm eternally fascinated how people awaken to the quest for self-unfoldment, to faith, to a calling or a ministry.  When I was growing up, I never imagined I'd be a swami, a priest.  It never even crossed my mind to be a rabbi, since at that time there were no women rabbis.  It wasn't until after I'd taught my first hatha yoga class by subbing for a teacher who needed a day off that I even understood how incredible teaching could be.  I was very lucky.  My quest evolved in an exceedingly harmonious way.  I began the seminary because my guru was teaching it and I wanted to know everything he knew (I'm not even close to knowing what he knows -  25 years later).  It wasn't until farther into it that I actually felt a 'calling' and a definite belonging.  I knew that this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing with my life -- teaching, counseling, healing.

At my twenty year high school reunion, I met a classmate who had become a rabbi.  Since I hadn't remembered him as a religious scholar, I asked how he came to make that choice.  I focused intensely, ready to hear his story of awakening.  "It was either that or get drafted," he said.  (Maybe he was making light of it in a social situation.  I hope so.  The swirl of people ended our conversation prematurely.)

So I read stories of Catholics and Kabbalists, Sufis and Yogis, Buddhists:  Japanese, Southeast Asian, and Tibetan, Native Americans and Americans seeking east and west for teachers, truth and enlightenment.

(to be continued)

1/20/2001

I had the flu so I took time off from my "to-do" list and grabbed Bruce Sterling's latest, Zeitgeist, hoping to get out of my body for awhile.  But the book didn't do it for me.  I forced myself to read it, waiting to be sucked into the story, to his reality, to his narrative (a major philosophical point of the book) but it never happened.  And I'm a big Bruce Sterling fan.  I loved Holy Fire and Islands in the Net.  And I enjoy his articles for Wired magazine.

I don't want to beat up on it too bad.  It's the story of a wheeler/dealer-rock promoter- con artist who is convinced that he will disappear entirely at the stroke of midnight Y2K -- that he wouldn't be part of the narrative of the twenty-first century.  There was humor, philosophy (too much philosophy), tons of cross-cultural politics, but it was barely science fiction and I just didn't care about the main character or most of the minor ones for that matter.

I was disappointed with Truth by Terry Pratchett, too.  (I guess that's what happens when one chooses books under a tSaturn squaring nMoon aspect.)  Taking place in the city-state of Ankh-Morpork on Discworld, Pratchett brings in every single character that has been connected to that city throughout his series.  That's just a few too many characters, even if they are our old familiar friends.  See, I think that's the problem.  This is what I call a fan-driven book. It's easy to write since you're pleasing your fans (and Pratchett has a huge contingent, including me).  But I think the story should come first.  And it doesn't.  I do like his newest character, William DeWorde, and his development of the first Ankh-Morpork newspaper.  Pratchett has plenty to spoof as he takes on the perils and pitfalls of the media.  Plus there's also a mystery to be solved involving Lord Vetinari, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, with bad guys who have a strange similarity to the characters in Pulp Fiction.  So, yes, some of the classic Pratchett humor was there but I felt there was something missing.

It reminded me of what happened to Piers Anthony in the Xanth series.  The first five or six books were brilliant.  The next bunch were good.  Eventually they became fan driven -- the fans wanted certain characters and situations and it fell into a formula that even Anthony spoofed (i.e. main characters knew they couldn't be killed off because they were -- duh! -- main characters).  Still somewhat enjoyable but definitely not brilliant.  I probably read all but the last 3 in the series (there's over 20), but I've given up on it.

I'll never give up on Terry Pratchett.  I'm looking forward to his next book Thief of Time with great anticipation.  And I'll still re-read my Discworld books when I need to get off-planet.

(c) 2001 Marcia M. Sacks