Interview with Brian McLaren on ‘Naked Spirituality’

May 24, 2011 by

Brian McLaren set off a terrific buzz nearly a decade ago with a book title so long that most people couldn’t read it all in a single breath: A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I am a missional, evangelical, post/Protestant, liberal/conservative, mystical/poetic, biblical, charismatic/contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, incarnational, depressed-yet-hopeful, emergent, unfinished Christian. Yes, that was the full title and, if you’ve never read that milestone book—click on the title to visit Amazon now.

Back then, the buzz around Brian McLaren indicated that he was a very smart, aggressive evangelical who wanted to build bridges across the entire Christian church—and wanted to slap some real-world sense into both traditionalist and progressive Christians. Back then, there were lots of examples of Brian’s tough-and-smart stature. Consider these lines from the Foreword to “Generous Orthodoxy,” which explains that book’s significance—and also may make your head swim just a bit from the terminology:

“Many of these developments can be traced to the failure of modernity’s categories and paradigms to recognize the social and cultural diversity of the human experience. This failure has promoted the emergence of postmodern theory with its critique of certain, objective, universal knowledge and its quest to construct new forms of thought in the aftermath of modernity.”

Now, you have to remember that “Generous Orthodoxy” was a big, strong manifesto that many of us read cover to cover as a sign of an emerging wave of pragmatic Christian leaders. Brian had published several books before that 2004 landmark—and he’s published more books since then.

TODAY, in Brian’s new Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words, you’ll find a very compelling, very readable narrative that meets readers where most of us live our daily lives. From this new book, here’s an example of what Brian is writing:

“This is a book about getting naked—not physically, but spiritually. It’s about stripping away the symbols and status of public religion—the Sunday-dress version people often call ‘organized religion.’ And it’s about attending to the well-being of the soul clothed only in naked human skin. As a result, it must be a vulnerable book, tender in tone, gentle in touch. You won’t find much in the way of aggressive arguments here, but rather shy experience daring to step into the light.”

In short: You’ll like this Brian McLaren immediately—and you’ll understand every word he’s writing! By the time you reach the back cover, Brian will have introduced you not only to a wealth of stories and spiritual principles, but you’ll also find a guide to fresh approaches toward prayer—as we described in Part 1 of our coverage of “Naked Spirituality.”

Now, we welcome Brian McLaren to ReadTheSpirit …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN MCLAREN
ON NAKED SPIRITUALITY: A LIFE WITH GOD IN 12 SIMPLE WORDS

DAVID: Since we’re getting “naked” here—transparent, honest—let’s start with some updated facts about your life. Like, where do you live now? Tell us a little about your family.

BRIAN: We’ve lived in the Washington D.C. area for a long time. Now, we live in Marco Island, Florida. I’m 55, married with four children and one grandchild, soon two. I’m a quiet member of the little Episcopal church here on the island.

DAVID: You’re known for your work with Sojourners. Does that continue?

BRIAN: I have no official relationship right now. I was the board chair for some years, but I haven’t been on the board for more than two years. I do contribute on different blogs and I contribute to Sojourners, too.

DAVID: As we’ve been reporting, there’s a civil war going on over who can use the “evangelical” label these days. For example, some evangelicals are fighting mad about your friend Rob Bell and want him to stop using the e-word. How about you? Are you still an evangelical these days?

BRIAN: My heritage is evangelical and I feel that I’m providing an important connection by continuing to use that word. A lot of young evangelicals ask me to keep the connection with that heritage, so I do. But I am aware that a lot of evangelicals, including some gatekeepers in the evangelical world, consider me to be an outsider.

DAVID: As I look at your new book, there are fresh approaches to prayer and Bible study and spiritual life—but you’re drawing deeply on Christian traditions as you have in your earlier work. This is an authentically Christian book. You’re talking here about transparency, honesty, cutting back to the core of the faith. This is what I find a lot of emerging Christian writers are trying to do—writers like Kent Annan, who writes about his work in Haiti. But we should explain to readers of this interview: You actually do write about some famous examples of nakedness in your book.

BRIAN:  That’s right. The theme of nakedness in the Bible is so powerful from the Garden of Eden in the opening pages—through prophetic nakedness—to the fascinating scenes at the end of the gospels where nakedness keeps coming up.

DAVID: We just published a story about all that nakedness during Lent.

NAKEDNESS FROM ST. FRANCIS TO JOHN PHILIP NEWELL

ICON of ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI’s life.BRIAN: This theme—and the corresponding theme of clothing and covering up—is very powerful throughout the Bible. But it goes beyond the Bible, as I write in the book. The theme resurfaces again and again in church history. St. Francis scandalized his hometown when he stood naked in front of the bishop and his father and others assembled in front of the local cathedral. He stripped off his clothes and said he would go nakedly to meet his Lord. The idea is to try to strip away all the layers to reach the essence, the heart of our faith.

DAVID: In introducing your book to readers, we’re going to quote John Philip Newell on prayer. I find that the prayers and the teaching in his two new books, both of which we recommend, are a strong parallel with your own new book.

BRIAN: I’m a huge fan of Philip’s work and much of this new book clearly resonates with the Celtic tradition that Philip has done such a good job of helping people to rediscover. Part of the idea of nakedness is stripping back analysis. There’s a certain way that our own analysis begins to control us. When we analyze too much, we get the feeling that we control God. We domesticate God through our words and our assumptions about how God operates. There is something powerful that happens when we strip away all of that and simplify our words. We allow awe to resurface. And with awe, we have a fresh eruption, a fresh start.

DAVID: This year, as we reported earlier, John Philip Newell is urging Abrahamic gatherings for prayer—Jews, Christians and Muslims praying together.

BRIAN: It doesn’t surprise me that, when we get Muslims, Christians and Jews together to talk about peace, the best place to go is a place where we are all speechless—where we are reduced to silent wonder in the presence of mysteries too great for us. Philip knows this, of course, in the work he’s doing.

Some years ago, I was invited to a gathering of Christians, Muslims and Jews that was part of Miroslav Volf’s effort on A Common Word at Yale. During the discussion time, an elderly Muslim scholar came up to the microphone and said, “We’ve heard a lot about the love and justice and goodness of God, but no one yet has mentioned the beauty of God.” He quoted a number of surahs from the Quran that spoke of God’s beauty. As he spoke, there was a qualitative shift in the room. Talking that way about the beauty of God took everyone into a place of awe. It was, for me, the moment I won’t forget in the entire gathering because there was suddenly a sense that we were moving together beyond analysis to awe and worship.

NEW APPROACHES TO ANCIENT TREASURES OF PRAYER

DAVID: You certainly draw people toward awe in your approach to prayer. I urge people to get your book and read about all 12 words to fully appreciate this experience, but you do seem to be poking and prodding and urging people to jump start their approach to prayer, right?

BRIAN: There is no fool-proof method for prayer. Any method we develop eventually seems to stop working as it once did. The Christians I encounter tend to fall into three camps or practices regarding prayer. One, you have people who are prayer book people. If they don’t have something to read, they don’t have anything to pray. For them, reading through prayers can have great meaning—but it also can become somewhat automatic. I’m not against prayer books. I collect them and love them, but it’s a process of running pre-written words through the brain so it runs the risk of becoming a process we kind of check off on our daily list.

At the other end of these groups is the camp where people don’t believe we should read prayers. Praying should be spontaneous, this camp says. But what actually happens is that we don’t come up with entirely new forms of prayer and, instead, we tend to link together a lot of cliché phrases into these long trains of what we consider spontaneous prayer. In a written prayer, at least we know someone put enough thought into the content that it comes to us written—and often republished through the years. Now, spontaneous prayer is important and it can work very well for people. At its best, spontaneous prayer lets us process what’s going on in our hearts, right now, in a beautiful way. But it’s not perfect either. All too often, we get stuck riding on this long train of tired phrases.

Then, there’s a third camp that concerns me: It’s the camp of people who become aware of how rarely they pray, then they feel guilty about it, but they don’t quite know how to develop a meaningful prayer life. Mainly, it’s a camp where bringing up prayer makes people feel guilty.

I’m trying to help all three camps. I’m offering people ways to center their prayers in a series of simple words. This has stood the test of my own life. It’s simple. It works for many people.

BRIAN MCLAREN AND MARCUS BORG: THE PROBLEM IS LANGUAGE

DAVID: At ReadTheSpirit, we are watching this emerging national conversation about the nature of faith and religious life. I’m always looking for connections in the conversation. And, I was surprised at the similarities between your new book and the newest book by Marcus Borg, Speaking Christian: Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power—And How They Can Be Restored. Both of you argue that one of the biggest problems handicapping Christian communities today is language. We’ve turned language into barriers that lock people into old patterns—and lock other people outside the faith.

In Borg’s new book, he writes: “Ultimately, the central message of Christianity is simple. It is about loving God and loving what God loves. This means loving God as disclosed in the Bible and most decisively revealed in Jesus. … The Christian message reduced to its essentials is: Love God as known in Jesus and change the world.”

In your own book, you write: “The word that enfolds them all is love. … It all comes down to love or call it compassion, if you prefer. Love is the vital connection. A life with God is a life of love. You know God by loving God. You know God by loving others.”

Pretty amazing, I think, that some sections of your books could almost be swapped back and forth. Both you and Marcus are trying to slice through today’s doctrinal civil wars and both of you see one of the biggest challenges as clarity of language.

BRIAN: First of all, that is a very good insight about what we’re both writing right now—and I never thought of it before—but, yes, these two books are alike. We’re both grappling with words of engagement with God. I hadn’t even thought of that connection between the two books—but you’re absolutely right. Walker Percy liked to say that words can become like coins that grow smooth as poker chips through use. We wear off the specificity. The very fact that certain words are of great value means that we use them too often and we end up sabotaging their value.

We need to go through periodically and clean house, then we can rediscover words that have been hidden from us—often in plain sight. In Marcus’ book, I’m thinking about a word like “sin” and how that word becomes reduced, trivialized and almost chopped in half so you get just part of the meaning of that powerful word. Eventually, the word becomes a problem; it becomes despised.

DAVID: I like the idea of suggesting that small groups divide up and have half the members read your book—and half of them read Marcus’ new Speaking Christian. That certainly would make for a fascinating discussion!

BRIAN: I read his new book a week or two ago and I have huge respect for him. In my travels over the last couple of years, I speak to a lot of evangelicals and a lot of mainline Protestants and I also speak to some Catholic groups and others. But, wherever I go, I find people deconstructing our theological systems. Because we’ve tried to lock them into certain systems, many people now want to go in with a machete and chop it all down. If that’s your method—just chopping it all down—then you may find that, in the end, there’s almost nothing left. In writing this new book, I’m trying to fill that vacuum in a healthy way.

DAVID: Obviously, you’re hopeful. You’ve said so on the cover of your 2004 book and anyone who reads this new book will realize you’re hopeful. But you’re also urgent in explaining the challenges we face.

BRIAN: Opposite things are happening with increasing intensity. You have Christians, Muslims and Jews coming together and working for peace—and that’s happening with greater intensity now. And, at the same time you have other Christians, Muslims and Jews plotting each other’s downfall with greater intensity. What that kind of horizon line says to me is: We all need to choose what we’re going to do now. How can I leverage my life that shifts the outcome in a positive direction? Traditionally, we’ve thought of activism as the way that’s accomplished. I am an activist. I believe in activism. More and more we see that activism and spirituality are deeply integrated.

But we have to find ways to deal with the conflict. If I am filled with conflict in my soul, then it’s going to be very hard for me to contribute to a more peaceful world. If I’m filled with greed and unbridled desires, it’s going to be very hard for me to contribute to a sustainable world. The solution, I believe, is to rediscover the missional and spiritual dimensions at the core of our faith. Yes, I am a person of hope, but I’m also a person who has never felt more urgency about this need to create honest conversation. If we fail, if we give up, the consequence is beyond scary. I am a person of hope. Week by week, I’m inviting people to build on the hope at the center of our faith.

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(Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering spirituality, religion, interfaith and cross-cultural issues.)

Interview: J Philip Newell on seeing hope in every moment

May 3, 2011 by

Billions of people around the world pray every day. The world longs for peace. What does John Philip Newell offer that is unique?

He is an outsider—a Christian pilgrim from Scotland who circles the globe, drawing on his distinctively Celtic branch of the Christian family tree. As a prophetic writer and teacher, he is a visitor in communities.

In 2011, he has launched a Praying for Peace movement, which ReadTheSpirit has been celebrating all week. In Part 1, we introduced Philip and Praying for Peace. In Part 2, we shared five voices from Detroit, men and women who also are trying to open eyes in ministry. Today, you’ll hear from Philip in our weekly interview. Later this week, we will publish prayers that begin “Open my eyes to …” by a host of people touched by this message.

How does an outsider pray? John Philip prays on a broad canvas, like a Renaissance painter sketching the whole of the world around us—yet probing deep into our own hearts at the same time. Here is an example, one the prayers from his new, “Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace.”

For close of day, John Philip Newell has written

In lives where love has been born this day
thanks be to you, O God.
In families where forgiveness has been strong
thanks be to you.
In nations where wrongs have been addressed
where tenderness has been cherished
and where visions for earth’s oneness have been served
thanks be to you.
May those who are weary find rest this night.
May those who carry great burdens for their people find strength.
May the midwives of new beginnings in our world find hope.
And may the least among us find greatness
strength in our souls
worth in our words
love in our living.

You can order the entire book, “Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace,” from Amazon.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH JOHN PHILIP NEWELL
CELTIC CHRISTIAN TEACHER, NOW PRAYING FOR PEACE

JOHN PHILIP NEWELL and his musician friend Fran McKendree in a prayer circle at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.DAVID: I’ve gotten to know you and your work in recent years, and I think I can say this: A good portion of your prophetic power comes from the fact that you’re an outsider. Does that make sense to you?

JOHN PHILIP: Yes, that’s fair to say. I do think some of this comes from my Celtic Christian identification in terms of the sources of treasures and resources on which I have drawn over the years. The Celtic tradition was often pushed to the outer edge of Christianity and sometimes was seen as pagan or pantheistic—as people looked at it from within orthodoxy. So, yes, I suppose that I am speaking from the edge. But it also should be said that a lot of my work is hosted by churches, sometimes cathedrals, seminaries and major retreat centers—so I have a great love of the Christian community and much of the interest in my work today comes from within that Christian household.

DAVID: Yes, that’s true and I see it as a bit of irony. As the outsider, you often are telling people that we need to recover the heart of Christianity.

JOHN PHILIP: When I travel, the question people most often ask me is: How are we going to bring young people back into the church? When I hear that, I say: That’s emphatically the wrong question to ask. The challenge we are facing is not trying to bring young people back. It’s far bigger than that. The status of Western Christianity is in collapse, largely because we’ve taken our eyes off the core of the tradition. We haven’t been giving people the deepest resources we have to help them follow Christ. What we need to do is pay attention to the yearnings of many who are not being invited into the church. We need to learn from their dissatisfaction and their desire.

DAVID: What do you hear when you ask the alienated about their desire?

JOHN PHILIP: Many see very clearly that spirituality must be deeply rooted in love of the earth and a commitment of working for peace in ways that Christianity is largely ignoring.

DAVID: How did we come to this point of disconnection?

JOHN PHILIP: There is a history here and much of it comes from the Age of Reason with its separation of spirit and matter. In the Calvinist tradition, the suspicion of matter and suspicion of the human body led to a sense of salvation as almost being air lifted out of relationship with the earth. Salvation came to be seen in opposition to the deepest energies of our bodies, instead of being deeply connected to those energies. I think that split has continued, both in the religious and the secular world. On both sides of that dualism between spirit and matter—or between humanity and the earth—we have become impoverished. We are no longer connecting with the deep earth energies of our being. We have impoverished our perspectives on the earth and we have robbed it of what we hold most dear in our lives, which is the yearning to be in relationship. As we move back toward a holistic way of seeing in which spirit and matter are re-integrated, then we can move toward spiritual freedom once again.

DAVID: That may be a difficult and challenging vision for readers to follow. I’ve heard you talk about this and I’ve read your books, so I think I understand enough to say: This explains why your approach to prayer is far from the kind of pleading that we see all too often in American prayers. In contrast, your prayers are about opening up our eyes—about vision of ourselves in the entire sweep of the community and God’s creation. Is that fair to say?

JOHN PHILIP: I can say that one of my experiences in writing prayer books like this new one is that, when I go back and use prayers I have published, I find that I do not particularly recognize myself in the texts. That’s in contrast with my experience when I re-read my prose work about spirituality, like the new book coming this summer. When I re-read my prose work, I recognize myself clearly in those texts. My sense is that, when I write prayers, I am primarily setting out to speak from within the community rather than from within myself as an individual. I want to voice concerns that issue up from within the human soul, not just my own life.

I see the practice of prayer as allowing the deepest part of us to come up into awareness and expression. Prayer is not about beseeching a distant one to alter the mystery of reality, but rather prayer is about coming into tune with the deepest energies within us—the energies that I believe are of the One. The practice of prayer is bringing us back into relationship with that which is already among us and within us.

JOHN PHILIP NEWELL: SEEING ‘A NEW HARMONY’

DAVID: This is a great point in our conversation to ask you to summarize the book coming this summer. Tell readers what to expect. We’ll publish a link at the end of our interview so they can pre-order the book.

JOHN PHILIP: This forthcoming book, “A New Harmony,” really pays attention to what I discern as the movement of the spirit at the heart of this point in time—and to describe this growing awareness I see emerging of life’s essential interconnectedness. I see this awareness breaking through in the consciousness of nearly every major discipline and form of study at the moment. Within the Judeo-Christian tradition, I regard this as a new Pentecost—a fresh movement of the spirit with many manifestations. What I’m trying to do in that book, “A New Harmony,” is pay attention to what I believe the spirit is doing—and to ask those of us in the Christian household how we can better serve his moment. The danger is that we wind up opposing it and, if we do, then we risk winding up irrelevant to this movement of spirit.

DAVID: That sounds dire. Yet, I find myself often speaking in similar terms. In the realm of media—which is simply the way people connect with each other—the whole dynamic is changing as well. Through most of the 20th Century, people working in professional media competed with one another. We rarely shared, rarely collaborated. Now, we must cooperatively share. We must collaborate. The real danger today is not some competitor—it’s irrelevance. But, ultimately, John Philip, you’re not a pessimist about all of this. The most appealing quality in your books and teaching is that you foster hope.

JOHN PHILIP: I am continually asking people: Will we meet this moment? Will we be filled with the spirit of this moment? Will we see life’s essential oneness and embody this in new ways of living that can lead to transformation? Will we take up this enormous challenge?

I am immensely hopeful about this moment of grace. Our eyes are opening about the dangers that we face—and about the way forward as well. I remember that when the Dalai Lama was asked whether he had hope about the future, the Dalai Lama laughed! He answered: Of course! The future is not yet decided. This is an important part of hope.

I agree with the Dalai Lama. I believe that, at the heart of every moment, at the heart of every relationship, is the way of peace. And this way of peace is not going to lead to some sort of fixed, static realm of perfection, but I believe it is a choice at the heart of every moment and every relationship. Whether we are considering our relation with creation or our relations within the world’s religious traditions—in every moment, we can choose to honor the sacredness in the other and follow the way of peace with hope.

YOU CAN ORDER JOHN PHILIP NEWELL’S NEW PRAYER BOOK, which contains a full cycle of daily prayers to be used in the Praying for Peace initiative, “Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace.” The book is not yet available for delivery, but you can click on the title link and pre-order it from Amazon.

In the summer of 2011, Jossey-Bass will publish a more in-depth book about spirituality by John Philip Newell, “A New Harmony: The Spirit, the Earth, and the Human Soul,” which you also can pre-order from Amazon now by clicking on the title. At ReadTheSpirit, we already have previewed a manuscript of this book and can tell you now: It’s great for small group discussion and describes in detail Newell’s vision of where our faith is leading us around the world.

We want our international conversation to continue

Conversation is far better than the dangerous shouting matches we’ve been witnessing in our global culture. So, please, email us at [email protected] and tell us what you think of our stories—and, please tell a friend to start reading along with you!

We welcome your Emails! . We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed. Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online journal covering religion and cultural diversity.

J Philip Newell invites us all: Open our eyes in prayer

May 1, 2011 by

IONA CELTIC CHRISTIAN AUTHOR NEWELL CRISSCROSSES AMERICA
ENCOURAGING ABRAHAMIC PRAYER, ASKING US TO …

OPEN “eyes of wonder.”

OPEN “our eyes to strengthen our will and our loving.”

“May the sparks of God’s beauty dance in the eyes of those we love.”

Those are just three lines from the new book of prayers that writer and teacher John Philip Newell is carrying on a long, global pilgrimage this year. He’s best known for his years at Iona Abbey and his books celebrating Celtic traditions within Christianity, such as “Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality.” Newell’s family home is in Edinburgh, Scotland, but he is a restless pilgrim, often teaching and leading retreats around the world. That’s John Philip in a 2009 photo above wearing his ever-present scarf, a practice he picked up after illness during his childhood in a rough northern climate. Next to him in the photo above is singer-songwriter Fran McKendree, who also is a restless Christian activist and most recently contributed a kite-flying story to ReadTheSpirit. They are standing in a prayer circle Newell designed in the high desert of Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico.

You will hear more from John Philip in our Wednesday interview this week, but today we’re introducing his Praying for Peace initiative.

John Philip Newell’s Praying for Peace Initiative—in his words:

IN AN INTERVIEW LAST WEEK WITH ReadTheSpirit, JOHN PHILIP SAID—This initiative was born in January in discussion with people who gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I told them that I have become so aware that the shadow side of Christianity, Islam and Judaism is at the heart of some of the most conflicted places of hatred and violence in our world. I’m feeling passionately that without peace in the Abrahamic household, we are undermining any hope to see peace between us as nations. That passion led to the writing of this new book of prayers that we are releasing soon.

As we met in New Mexico, we talked about spreading this word this year, and I came to realized that what we are talking about is larger than just connecting people with one new book of prayers. We must invite people to help us launch an entire movement of praying for peace. Coming out of that consultation in New Mexico, I shifted the focus of much of my travel schedule for 2011—much of which already had been planned before we met in January. I had accepted many invitations to teach in 2011 and, of course, I love doing that. But now, in this Praying for Peace movement, I realize that I am compelled, first and foremost, to pray with people. Yes, to pray within the Christian household, because I am a part of the Christian household. But also, to pray with men and women within the Jewish and the Muslim households across the family of Abraham.

As I travel through the rest of 2011, I am planning to gather with people from the entire household of Abraham and pray for peace together. In addition to the existing events you see listed on my website, I am now planning additional time for visits to places where Christians, Jews and Muslims can gather and pray together. So, keep watching that page for additional news. For example, now I am in conversation with a church in New York City about the possibility of praying for peace as a contribution to all that will unfold in September in New York as we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

How to Begin Your Own Prayer: “Open my eyes to …”

John Philip Newell’s teaching on prayer mirrors the advice of the famed Bible translator Eugene Peterson, who teaches that a pastor’s role is to help people see clearly what is happening around them, and the wisdom of the late Cesar Chavez, whose most famous prayer calls for vision as well.

Please, start writing your own prayer with the words, “Open my eyes to …”
Email [email protected] to share your words with readers. We plan to publish such prayers to help launch this national effort that John Philip Newell is leading.
Keep reading our website throughout this week for more examples of people contributing to this effort!

To inspire you to write—and to email us—here is just one brief example from the many prayers written or adapted by John Philip Newell for his new prayer book, “Praying with the Earth.” This prayer illustrates the crucial role of vision in John Philip’s own approach to prayer:

PRAYER FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD
By John Philip Newell

Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face
in the light of the moon and patterns of stars
in scarred mountain rifts and ancient groves
in mighty seas and creatures of the deep.
Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face
in the light of eyes we love
in the salt of tears we have tasted
in weathered countenances east and west
in the soft skin glow of the child everywhere.
Whichever way we turn, O God, there is your face
There is your face
among us.

To keep this collective outreach simple—please, start your own prayer from the words, “Open my eyes to …” and email us what you write here at [email protected]

YOU CAN ORDER JOHN PHILIP NEWELL’S NEW PRAYER BOOK, which contains a full cycle of daily prayers to be used in the Praying for Peace initiative, “Praying with the Earth: A Prayerbook for Peace.” Due to delays at a printing plant, the book is not yet available for delivery, but you can click on the title link and pre-order it from Amazon—so it will arrive as soon the books finally are printed.

In the summer of 2011, Jossey-Bass will publish a more in-depth book about spirituality by John Philip Newell, “A New Harmony: The Spirit, the Earth, and the Human Soul,” which you also can pre-order from Amazon now by clicking on the title. At ReadTheSpirit, we already have previewed a manuscript of this book and can tell you now: It’s great for small group discussion and describes in detail Newell’s vision of where our faith is leading us around the world.

We want our international conversation to continue

Conversation is far better than the dangerous shouting matches we’ve been witnessing in our global culture. So, please, email us at [email protected] and tell us what you think of our stories—and, please tell a friend to start reading along with you!

We welcome your Emails! . We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed. Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online journal covering religion and cultural diversity.

634: “Are fairies real, Mommy?” (Part 2) Doorways into Our Imagination

March 4, 2010 by


This week, we’re exploring mystical realms from Monday’s “Night Fairy” to Tuesday’s story on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fairy friends—and we even encountered the bizarre “Harvard Psychedelic Club”.
    HERE IS Part 2 of a special story for parents … by author and marketing
consultant Lynne Meredith Schreiber—a parent herself …

BEHIND A TINY DOOR:
The Story of Ann Arbor’s Fairy Doors
    … and the Roots of Belief, Part 2 (Click here for Part 1)

By Lynne Meredith Schreiber

I first heard about the fairy doors from another parent who took his daughter on a walking tour of downtown Ann Arbor. I Googled the words and landed at this site (www.urban-fairies.com).
   
Apparently, the first fairy door appeared in the home of Jonathan and Kathleen Wright, an Ann Arbor couple who renovated their historic house in 1993. Kathleen, a Kindergarten teacher, was running a childcare program in the house, and Jonathan was working in his field of illustration, design and specialty inks. While putting an addition on their 1895 house, located in the Old West Side neighborhood, they noticed a tiny wooden door one morning in a downstairs hallway.
   
Actually, it was Kathleen’s preschool students who noticed it. The Wrights’ two daughters had yet to be born.
   
“The preschoolers discovered it one morning,” Wright told me over coffee at Zingerman’s, a popular Ann Arbor deli. “They loved it. They speculated about what was living in there. One child said he saw a lion mouse. The door opens and inside they saw a miniature stairway. They put their hands in, found another door, but that door was always shut and locked.”
   
Wright will not actually admit to creating the fairy doors. He insists they simply appear or vanish, although he did spend two years “researching” the fairy doors, out of which came a book entitled, “Who’s Behind the Fairy Doors?”
   
Calling himself a “non-certified fairyologist,” Wright expanded on children’s drawings of the fairies they have spotted near or around the Ann Arbor fairy doors.
   
When Kathleen wanted a fireplace in their home, Jonathan built it—and another fairy door “showed up.” By then, daughters Samuelina and Delaney were part of the picture. Fairy doors have always been a part of their lives.
   
The fireplace fairy door has a window, too, and behind it a curving staircase leading to a balcony, fireplace and another room where sometimes a light is on. The consensus of the Wright children, and Kathleen’s preschoolers, was that fairies must live behind these doors.
   
Since then, fairy doors have appeared in at least nine locations in downtown Ann Arbor, including on the outside of commercial buildings, retail shops and the Ann Arbor District Library.
   
“If there was any intent, it was to be something free and accessible and fun and imaginative,” says Wright. “Imagination is the key to the fairy doors.”
   
“The M.O. of urban fairies seems to be that they mimic what humans do,” Wright says. At the same time, “they blend in. How much of it is mimicry for the sake of flattery, or for self-protection, who knows?”

   

On a sunny, February Thursday, Asher, Eliana, Shaya and I parked across from the Ann Arbor District Library and embarked on our mission. We walked straight to the back of the children’s section, to a bookshelf under the fairytale sign, and discovered a teal colored door leading to a hollowed-out space several-books deep. Windows on the spines of these books gave us additional views into this long fairy home, which was littered with a seashell, several pennies and a pencil.
   
Asher and Eliana negotiated what to say in the note they would leave for the fairies. They wrote in pencil on a yellow post-it, folded it and shoved it inside the transom above the door, which wouldn’t open. (We tried.)
   
“Wait—I think I hear the fairies!” Eliana exclaimed, her blue eyes wide.
   
I listened and gazed up.
   
Asher meandered off to find books. Three-year-old Shaya wanted to play the larger-than-life checkers game. Eliana kept peering into the fairy door.
   
“Mommy! Look!” She poked a finger at me. I saw green sparkles on it. “That must be fairy dust,” I said.
    She nodded her head vigorously.
   
After a half-hour of supposition and exploration, we left the library and headed to Main Street. We stopped at the brick and wood door at the base of the exterior foundation for the Selo-Shevel Gallery. We crossed to the Ark and peered into the fairy door and fairy ticket window, where we saw a reel of tiny tickets with pictures of fairies on it. Asher and Eliana decided we couldn’t leave a note because it would obscure the tickets.
   
We continued on to Peaceable Kingdom, a store commonly known as “fairy central” for all the fairy paraphernalia sold inside. The door is located at the base of the exterior façade. We dropped to our knees, ignoring odd looks from passers-by as we sprawled on the city sidewalk.
   
Inside, we saw a fairy store, with items for sale on shelves. It looked quite involved and detailed and as if it led to more interior rooms but we couldn’t find a way in.
   
From there, we went to Sweetwaters Café on West Washington. This fairy door—really, a fairy kitchen—was located inside, beneath a high-top table and a wide window. The door fronted a four-walled, free-standing fairy-sized café, inside of which we spotted a table, tiny coffee cups and plates, and Eliana swears she saw some crumbs – evidence that the fairies had recently been there. We didn’t see any fairies, though Shaya left a small package of bread sticks as an offering.
   
After stopping for our own snacks at the counter, and learning from the café owner that he’d never seen a fairy—but that’s because adults can’t see them, he said—we meandered down South Ashley Street until we found Red Shoes, a gift store in an old house. On the way, we found another fairy door, one not on Wright’s map, located on a residential door. No way in, no windows or lights on, but sure enough, it was a fairy door.

   
At Red Shoes, we found the mother lode of fairy doors. Inside the store, low on the wall, the open doorway let little hands in to explore the abode, which was furnished. A door on the outside of the store provided another entry. It was red. Eliana left a note inside.
   
Children leave candies, coins and notes for the fairies. A lot of these gifts appear sometime later inside the Peaceable Kingdom fairy abode.
   
“So many coins are left—I’m sure the tooth fairy recycles some of that but I don’t think she deals in pennies much,” Wright says.
   
Sometimes the fairies collect the coins and leave them in a box at Wright’s house. He typically donates them to Food Gatherers. “Fairies don’t have any use for the money,” he explains.
   

After lunch at Ray’s Red Hots and an hour-and-a-half run through the Hands-On Museum, we popped into the People’s Food Co-op for a snack. We shed our winter coats and dropped into chairs – only to notice a fairy door behind the banquette, with a small green table and chairs in front of it. This one was also not on Wright’s map.
   
“Look, Mommy!” Eliana exclaimed. It was all I could do to keep my kids from pushing the woman who sat in front of the fairyscape away from her peaceful seat.
   
When the woman behind the counter told me that they added that fairy door 8 months ago, I shushed her. “My children believe,” I said.
    She looked chastised.
   
“There will always be people who just don’t get it,” says Wright. “They need an explanation of why. Those people never will get it—but those who do are intrigued and enchanted by the concept of a fairy or being hanging out with us.”
   
A mythology has built around the fairy doors in Ann Arbor. Some people say, “Only in Ann Arbor could something like this happen,” and as a graduate of the University of Michigan, I understand that assertion. Ann Arbor is an island in the state of Michigan, a place of anything-is-possible, a hub of fervent belief and righteous indignation and protest and change.
   
But is it so hard to suspend our disbelief? Really?
   
Wright insists that making something imaginative and also physical, available, free-of-charge to the public contains its own magic. It’s something he struggles with, as others try to capitalize on the fairy doors—they are available for sale on eBay and in toy catalogs and an individual even approached Wright to ask him to buy into a commercial side to this endeavor. He politely declined, but cringes a bit as the guy makes money off what may be his idea. (Those are resin copies, whereas the fairy doors Wright promotes are carefully crafted of wood to evoke the style and nuance of the places where they are located.)
   
“This certainly could be profitable,” he says. “But it didn’t feel right to me.”

   

Wright has never seen a fairy. He listens intently to children as they describe their encounters, and he’s left journals in every locale for those who do spot them to jot down their impressions.
   
“If you think about all the dead space in a house—there could be thousands of fairies living there! One of the signs is having a fairy door – and missing socks,” he says.
   
“This is about believing,” Wright notes. “Belief doesn’t make something real or true. You can’t make something unreal by not believing or conjure something by believing.”
“I can imagine fairies—I’ve never seen one, but by golly I can imagine them. That’s what’s engaging about all this. It’s fun to imagine it—whether it’s real or not. The doors are real. How they got there”—he looks away, his hands open—“I leave that to whoever’s looking to figure it out.”

Lynne Meredith Schreiber has written five books and many magazine articles. She is the Chief Creative Officer of Your People LLC, a company that provides community-focused marketing and public relations.

NOTE on the photos with this story:
Some of the illustrations with this week’s series of articles come from
Victorian-era picture books, now in the public domain. The color
photos of Fairy Doors in this 2-part story were taken by photographers from Divine Light Media, a
high-school-age media-production group at First United Methodist Church
in Ann Arbor, which includes: Alex DeHart, A.J. Gay, Sarah Higdon, Joey
Houghton, Alex Koukios, Blake Martin, Eric Seitz and others. The Divine
Light crew retraced the steps of Lynne and her children—hoping to catch
glimpses of what they saw.


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    (Originally published at https://readthespirit.com/)

546: “Why I Still Love Halloween,” Cindy LaFerle captures its enduring wonders

October 26, 2009 by

 


SOMETIMES, we republish particularly popular stories like this one from last year by writer Cindy LaFerle.

Recently, we published a special cross-cultural look at Halloween from Jewish and Muslim friends.
    That story prompted reader Anne Wilson from Denver to Email our Home Office, asking for help on finding “that OTHER Halloween story you had with some old-fashioned pictures and about Scottish lore. … I want to send it to a friend and can’t find it.”
    Well, Anne—you’re not alone in recalling this delightful holiday piece. (As Halloween nears again, we’ve also got coverage of the “holiday weekend” in this week’s “Spiritual Season” column.)
    And, for your continued enjoyment, here is …

WHY I STILL
LOVE HALLOWEEN

By CINDY LaFERLE


From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties,

And things that go bump in the night,

Good lord, deliver us!
    A Scottish saying

Halloween
always stirs a delicious cauldron of memories.
    Baby boomers are a
nostalgic bunch, and most of us can recall at least one costume we wore
in grade school. Wearing yards of pink tulle and a homemade foil crown,
I dressed up as Miss America when I was in the first grade in 1960. And
who could forget trick-or-treating in packs until our pillowcases were
too heavy to lug around the block?
    While the holiday suffered a lull in the 1970s, the “season of the
witch” now competes with Christmastime as the biggest party season of
the year. And with all due respect to religious groups refusing to
celebrate it, I never thought of Halloween as inherently evil.
    In fact, I always felt a little sad for one of my son’s
grade-school pals, whose born-again Christian parents refused to let
him wear a costume, attend Halloween parties, or go trick-or-treating
with the neighborhood kids on Halloween night. While I respected the
family’s religious devotion, I disagreed with their conviction that the
holiday’s pre-Christian history was a threat to their faith. (I wanted
to remind them that Christmas trees and Easter baskets also boasted
pre-Christian, pagan origins. But I kept my mouth shut.)


    British and Irish historians are also quick to remind us that “All
Hallows Eve” did not originate as a gruesome night of devil worship—though I’ll be the first to admit that American retailers, film
producers, and merchants who cash in on Halloween are guilty of adding
their own mythology—and gore. Regardless, in my view, what most of
us seem to enjoy about the holiday is the creativity factor.
    Stepping over age limits, Halloween extends an open invitation to
play dress-up. It inspires us to raid attics and local thrift shops for
the most outlandish outfits we can jumble together. If only for one
magical night, it gives us permission to drop the dull disguise of
conformity.
    For flea-market junkies like me, Halloween is reason enough to
hoard pieces of vintage clothing and jewelry that, by all rights,
should have been donated to charity ages ago. My husband now refers to
our attic as “the clothing museum,” and with good reason. Friends who
have trouble rustling up an outfit will often call for help during
dress-up emergencies. (“Can I borrow one of your medieval jester hats
for a clown costume?” is not an unusual request.) Over the years, in
fact, I’ve collected so many crazy hats that we have to store them in a
large steamer trunk behind the living room couch. Those hats get the
most wear near Halloween, when even the most reserved engineer who
visits will try on a pith helmet or a plumed pirate hat and wear it to
the dinner table.
    And why not? Historically speaking, the holiday has always been a
celebration of the harvest, a madcap prelude to the more dignified
ceremonials of Thanksgiving.


    Halloween’s deep roots weave back
more than 2,000 years to the early Celts of Ireland, Scotland, and
Wales. It was originally known as the festival of Samhain, according to
Caitlin Matthews, a Celtic scholar and author of The Celtic Book of Days
(Destiny Books). The festival, she explains, marked the end of the
farming season and the beginning of the Celtic new year. Lavish banquet
tables were prepared for the ancestors, who were believed to pierce the
veil between the living and the dead on the eve of Samhain. It was also
time to rekindle the bonfires that would sustain the clans in winter.
    “In the Christian era,” Matthews writes, “the festival was
reassigned to the Feast of All Saints; however, many of the customs
surrounding modern Halloween still concern this ancient understanding
of the accessibility of the dead.”
    And we can thank our Irish immigrants for the jack-o’-lantern,
which reputedly wards off evil spirits. This custom evolved from the
old practice of carving out large turnips and squash, then illuminating
them with candles. The term jack-o’-lantern was derived from a folk
tale involving a crafty Irishman named Jack, who outwitted the Devil.
    On cool October nights, when the moon is bright and leaves scatter
nervously across the sidewalk, a bittersweet chill runs up and down my
spine. I like to recall a favorite quote from Ray Bradbury, whose
affection for Halloween surpasses even mine: “If you enjoy living, it
is not difficult to keep the sense of mystery and wonder.”
    And I think of my beloved Scottish grandparents, who left their
exhausted farms in the Orkney Islands to begin new lives in United
States in the 1920s. I recall the knee-cracking highland folk dances
they taught me, and the silly lyrics to their rural old-country tunes.
I remember their hard-won wisdom, and how much I still miss their love.
    Like my Celtic ancestors, I’m moved to take stock of my own
“harvest” — how much I’ve accomplished throughout the year, and how
many things I’ve left undone. My to-do list is yards long. There are
parts of the world I haven’t seen; stories I haven’t written; debts and
favors to repay. I marvel at the mellow beauty of the season, which has
always been my favorite, but also feel a little sad that one more year
is drawing to its close.
    All said and done, I like to think of Halloween as the big good-bye
party we throw for autumn’s final weeks. And a toast to the year ahead.
All in good fun. 

CARE TO READ MORE?
    Cindy La Ferle is a nationally published essayist and author of Writing Home,
an award-winning collection of essays celebrating home and family life,
distributed to bookstores by Wayne State University Press. Visit her web site: www.laferle.com
    Cindy visited ReadTheSpirit earlier with a story about her appreciation for Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

 

Please do tell us what you think!

     This is a good time to sign up for our Monday-morning ReadTheSpirit Planner by Email—it’s
free and you can cancel it any time you’d like to do so. The Planner
goes out each week to readers who want more of an “inside track” on
what we’re seeing on the horizon, plus it’s got a popular “holidays”
section.

    Not only do we welcome your notes—but our readers enjoy them as well. You can do this
anytime by clicking on the “Comment” links at the end of each story.
You also can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and other social-networking sites as well.
    (Originally published at https://readthespirit.com/)

 

511: Happy Labor Day to Americans; Join Us for a Moment of Prayer?

September 6, 2009 by

HAPPY LABOR DAY to our American readers!
    Want to know about more spiritual holidays and anniversaries occurring this week? Check out the new edition of Stephanie Fenton’s popular column, “What’s the Spiritual Season?”
    Meanwhile, if you really want to dig into religious wisdom for working people on this Labor Day, we strongly recommend the Web site: “Labor in the Pulipts, on the Bimah and in the Minbar.” It’s a collection of special labor-themed resources from the non-profit group, Interfaith Worker Justice. You’ll find a host of materials from various faith traditions, ready to explore and free to download.
    Also, this week is a major phase in our 2009 Lift Your City in Prayer effort. If you haven’t visited our Prayer-for-Cities resource page, this is a good time to read more about that. (And, if you live in Michigan, mark 11 a.m. this Saturday, September 12, to join with other praying men and women just north of Detroit’s New Center area.)

    Whatever else you do, take a moment to pray today. Next week, we’re publishing an in-depth interview with Dr. Robert J. Wicks, who is internationally known for his work combating stress through disciplines of psychology, medicine, social work and theology. His 40th book is, “Prayerfulness: Awakening to the Fullness of Life.” Next week, you’ll meet Dr. Wicks right here and we’ll tell you a lot more about his work, his wisdom and his new book.
    For today, try one of Dr. Wicks’ recommended prayers, a Celtic blessing. In part, it goes like this:

A Celtic Blessing

I wish you not a path devoid of clouds,
Nor a life on a bed of roses,
Nor that you might never need regret,
Nor that you should never feel pain.

My wish for you is:
That you might be brave in times of trial …
When hope scarce can shine through.
That every gift God gave you might grow along with you
And let you give the gift of joy to all who care for you.
That you may always have a friend who is worth that name,
Whom you can trust, and who helps you in times of sadness,
Who will defy the storms of daily life at your side.

One more wish I have for you:
That in every hour of joy and pain
You may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you, now and forever.

Please tell us what you think!

     This is a good time to sign up for our Monday-morning ReadTheSpirit Planner by Email—it’s
free and you can cancel it any time you’d like to do so. The Planner
goes out each week to readers who want more of an “inside track” on
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section.

    Not only do we welcome your notes—but our readers enjoy them as well. You can do this
anytime by clicking on the “Comment” links at the end of each story.
You also can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and other social-networking sites as well.
    (Originally published at https://readthespirit.com/)

490: Readers Tell Us About … Bono, U2, a new Sikh film & MisterRogers singing

August 9, 2009 by

WELCOME!
Once again, thanks to readers like you,
we’ve got your feedback to share …

U2 Fans Cautiously Welcome
New Interest in Bono and the Boys
(And … Movie Fans Seek “Ocean of Pearls”)

WE RECEIVED QUITE A RESPONSE to our coverage of “The Gospel According to U2” this week. (Part 1 contained three inspiring gems from U2. Part 2 is an interview with Greg Garrett on his new book for small groups about the band’s spiritual message.)
    FIRST: The leading U2-and-preaching blog, “U2 Sermons,” gave us a gracious nod—and a Web link—even though our approach to U2 was described as “simplistic and generic,” compared with the more substantial work true U2 spiritual scholars have been doing for years. That comment may sound like a slap—but, remember, the folks at “U2 Sermons” have been following the band for years and they produce national conferences on this theme. They’ve mined far deeper insights than we touched upon in our introductory stories this week. (In fact, stay tuned! We may share a few future recommendations from “U2 Sermons” in coming weeks, including news about an October conference on the band.)
    I have to agree with the assessment of the U2 Sermons experts. They wrote: “Judging from the tone of the interviewer there are still people to whom the basics are quite fresh.”
    That’s right, actually. Our approach at ReadTheSpirit is to introduce our readers around the world to a huge array of spiritual themes—from the latest news on foreign films exploring post-World War II themes, to our story about the courage it sometimes takes to pray for a turbulent urban neighborhood, to news about the “first” Sikh-American feature film that’s just popping up in a few cities this summer.
    So, yes, we were sharing with you a “quite fresh” snapshot of the richly rewarding insights you’ll find in U2’s body of work. If you haven’t really been following the band, through the years, now is a great time to dive in. That’s our message.

    Then, a “Thank You!” goes to “Megan,” who carried on the conversation about Greg’s book—and our stories—over on the “U2 Sermons” page. Megan has read Greg’s book as well and liked it. She wrote: “I think that the book does a very good job of talking about the
Christian walk and uses U2’s music and life as a supplement, rather
than starting with U2’s music and supplementing it with christian
theology.”
    Now, Mary also raised 1 Question—and if our readers know more—send us an Email and help us answer this question:
    We said this: “Three of the four members would think of themselves as Christian but
they have not been part of a formal Christian organization for more
than 30 years.” Clearly, the band members have taken part in various forms of worship over the years. There’s press coverage of Bono and others doing that. But our understanding is that they’re not regularly practicing members of any specific church or denomination.
    If that’s wrong—or has changed—please, let us know via email?

WANT TO READ MORE ON THE BAND, right now? Canadian writer David Buckna sent us a couple of cool links. First, if you’re among the thousands of small groups out there looking for good discussion material—David recommends a book-length interview with Bono. Here’s a review of that Bono/U2 book that David recommends.
    Following the comments from “U2 Sermons,” we’re aware that some of you may be very serious U2 fans and you’re craving opportunities to jump into the deep end of their legacy. Well, David Buckna specializes in writing online trivia quizzes—and he’s got a 30-question U2 quiz that’ll quickly separate us newbies from you true fans.

THEN, on the new Sikh film, “Ocean of Pearls,” which we highly recommended on Thursday:
    Patrick O Emailed us from Chicago—pointing out that it’s a little tricky to find where and when this film will be screened across the U.S. It’s a wonderful feature-length drama, but it’s also an indie production slowly building an audience around the world. Finding—and viewing—”Ocean of Pearls” is almost a spiritual pilgrimage. And you can make a real difference by doing just that—going to see it.
    We didn’t list showtimes in our story, because we know readers will be referring to this review for a long time—and, instead, we put a link at the bottom of the review to the regularly updated “Screenings” page on the film’s official Web site.
    Patrick wasn’t alone. Reader Cindi T from Denver Emailed, “You know there are a lot of us who can’t get to any of the cities showing the movie. It’s the old thing about reading about all the great movies they get to see in New York or LA and the rest of us have to wait, hope or rely on Netflix—eventually.”
    Right, Cindi! However, indie film producers always are looking for just the right “connection” to snap into place—an acceptance at a film festival, a distributor spotting a favorable review and catching a screening somewhere—or perhaps local fans starting enough of a buzz that a local theater will book a showing.
    So, check out our review, if you missed it. We’ve published key links to the film’s Web site, including a trailer for the movie. And, as always, tell us what you think.

WOW! How can you ask for more?
Desperation, Drama—and a Song from Mister Rogers!!
“Spiritual Wanderer” in Layoff Land …

THIS GUY MAKES ME NERVOUS and that’s what I love about him. He’s honest. He’s funny. And, like the characters in the new Judd Apatow comedy, “Funny People,” the Wanderer invites us along on his journey—which usually becomes our journey.
    I can’t even begin to describe his latest story from his real-life experiences Wandering in Layoff Land. A friend called me after she read it and asked, “Do you think he’s in trouble?”
    I said, “Yeah. Aren’t we all?”
    She said, “No, I mean, should somebody take him out for a few beers regularly?”
    I said, “Yeah. But, sorry, I don’t drink. I do drink coffee—and I’ve actually ‘done’ coffee—and Indian food, too—with the Wanderer.”
    She cut to the chase: “Did you ask if he has firearms in his home?”
    “No,” I said. “But, don’t worry about guns. He’s got something far more dangerous—his laptop.”
    So—go on! Read the Spiritual Wanderer’s latest! And don’t miss the final lines. If you click there, you’ll hear Fred Rodgers sing the song that’ll warm any troubled heart! HERE’S THE LINK: It’s headlined “Blatant Attempt to Get on ‘Marketplace'”

PLEASE TELL US WHAT YOU THINK:

    This is a good time to sign up for our Monday-morning ReadTheSpirit Planner by Email—it’s
free and you can cancel it any time you’d like to do so. The Planner
goes out each week to readers who want more of an “inside track” on
what we’re seeing on the horizon, plus it’s got a popular “holidays”
section.

    Not only do we welcome your notes—but our readers enjoy them as well. You can do this
anytime by clicking on the “Comment” links at the end of each story.
You also can Email ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm. We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, YouTube and other social-networking sites as well.
    (Originally published at https://readthespirit.com/)