A BOOK FOR GROWN UPS
The Peace River Spirituality Center's book group studied Joan Chittister's Called to Question this year. It's a book for grown-ups. It deals with a life of losses both run-of-the-mill and cataclysmic. Mostly however,its a diary of disappointments that touch each of our lives at the hands of parents, chilldren, friends, institutions, beliefs, The Church, God. We can add our own personal pain to to the list.
But it's not Joan's ability to be in touch with disappointment that makes it a good study. It's not even how she faced into or made her way through the circumstances of her life. What makes it worth reading is the clarity with which she sees all of life (hers and ours). In her stories I learned that a worthy goal for this season of my life ought to be an honest assessing of who I am, where I am and where I am going. Time is too short for regrets or what if's that keep us in the past.
I found it stunning when in one of the final chapters Chittister shares that she sees two very significant chunks of her professional/religious career as times of preparation rather than the purpose of her life. What the world would call her success, the productive years, all those things that made her the voice that she is in the world today, she names as much less. I find her refusal to accept wordly praise a way of ensuring that the world not be able to define her. That assessment jumped off the page at me. Did she really see those 20 or 30 years of intentional/ intense/significant work--as simply dross? Well, maybe not dross, but not the be-all and end-all either.
Her writing betrays her saturation in the Rule of St. Benedict without her having to mention it. You can catch a glimpse in each chapter that she truly believes that all we have, all we are, and all we do is simply preparation. There's no position, no honor, nothing to glory here and now. Human accolades can only distract us into forgetting Whose we really are. It's not that we disdain success, but recognize it as the clay it is. Along those same lines, her book is a reminder of the high price we pay for following any other voice than the still small one that whispers in the silence. She delivers a consistent message to those who have never considered their earthly pursuits as below their high calling in Christ. Her personal story asks all of us to ponder the true director and direction of our lives; and she does it by questioning everything in hers.
CALLED TO QUESTION is a book for grown-ups because it takes no hostages. It invites us to lay it all down... no hiding a crumb in our pocket. It's a book for grown-ups because even in the moments we don't like it much -- it rings true. On each page we're invited to take spiritual medicine without a spoon full of sugar.
For much of my life, I wouldn't have appreciated or even understood what Chittister was saying in CALLED TO QUESTION. Maybe it's a 'coming of age' book for 50 something women who find they're at the place where they no longer need their ego to protect their soul...who no longer need to begin sentences with the word "I." In some significant ways, like other good books before it, it has set me free. BLESSINGS AND JOY TO YOU... THE CELTIC MONK [Thanks to the women who took the study journey with me over the summer]
But it's not Joan's ability to be in touch with disappointment that makes it a good study. It's not even how she faced into or made her way through the circumstances of her life. What makes it worth reading is the clarity with which she sees all of life (hers and ours). In her stories I learned that a worthy goal for this season of my life ought to be an honest assessing of who I am, where I am and where I am going. Time is too short for regrets or what if's that keep us in the past.
I found it stunning when in one of the final chapters Chittister shares that she sees two very significant chunks of her professional/religious career as times of preparation rather than the purpose of her life. What the world would call her success, the productive years, all those things that made her the voice that she is in the world today, she names as much less. I find her refusal to accept wordly praise a way of ensuring that the world not be able to define her. That assessment jumped off the page at me. Did she really see those 20 or 30 years of intentional/ intense/significant work--as simply dross? Well, maybe not dross, but not the be-all and end-all either.
Her writing betrays her saturation in the Rule of St. Benedict without her having to mention it. You can catch a glimpse in each chapter that she truly believes that all we have, all we are, and all we do is simply preparation. There's no position, no honor, nothing to glory here and now. Human accolades can only distract us into forgetting Whose we really are. It's not that we disdain success, but recognize it as the clay it is. Along those same lines, her book is a reminder of the high price we pay for following any other voice than the still small one that whispers in the silence. She delivers a consistent message to those who have never considered their earthly pursuits as below their high calling in Christ. Her personal story asks all of us to ponder the true director and direction of our lives; and she does it by questioning everything in hers.
CALLED TO QUESTION is a book for grown-ups because it takes no hostages. It invites us to lay it all down... no hiding a crumb in our pocket. It's a book for grown-ups because even in the moments we don't like it much -- it rings true. On each page we're invited to take spiritual medicine without a spoon full of sugar.
For much of my life, I wouldn't have appreciated or even understood what Chittister was saying in CALLED TO QUESTION. Maybe it's a 'coming of age' book for 50 something women who find they're at the place where they no longer need their ego to protect their soul...who no longer need to begin sentences with the word "I." In some significant ways, like other good books before it, it has set me free. BLESSINGS AND JOY TO YOU... THE CELTIC MONK [Thanks to the women who took the study journey with me over the summer]
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