Anyone who knows me well knows that I am an inveterate reader. I need books like I need air. So you would think the prompt Inspiring Book would be easy for me.
Not so!
There are many many books and each has its season and reason.
Inspiring Books — There are so many!
Thinking back to books I’ve recently read, one fiction book stands out for me. It is beautifully written and moving (in fact I cried and cried during parts of this book). Titled As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner it is a historical novel set in Philadelphia during WWI and the great influenza epidemic. The book gave me a picture of the scope and impact that influenza had on people of that time. And despite many losses and tragedies, there was an overall hopefulness in this book that lifted my spirit.
“I hope [Willa] still thinks butterflies are beautiful. I think they are. We shouldn’t think for a moment that just because their lives are short they shouldn’t be here.”
― Susan Meissner, As Bright as Heaven
It’s about joy
As I perused the bookshelf in my office (I limit the books that I own to what will fit onto 2 shelves of this bookshelf) three books stood out. The first is the one you see at the top of this post, A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are by Byron Katie. It is a book I go back to periodically to remind me that accepting what is, is a key practice for experiencing joy.
“Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. There’s a natural balance in things. If you go too far to one extreme, life kindly brings you back toward the center. What goes up must come down, and what comes down must go up. Up and down are different aspects of the same thing. So are inside and outside. Most people think that the world is outside them. They live life backward, running after security and approval, as if by making enough money or getting enough praise they could be happy once and for all. But nothing outside us can give us what we’re really looking for. I do my work and don’t even need to step back from it, because it never belonged to me in the first place. Nothing belongs to me. Everything comes and goes. Serenity is an open door.”
― Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are
My bookshelf today
Filled With Wisdom and Grace
The second book is dense and slow reading but beautiful and full of wisdom and grace. It’s called A Different Kind of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance, by Andy Couturier. The author visited and interviewed 11 different people who chose to live in rural Japan.
Their lives are simple, yet full of beauty, nature, art, contemplation, and delicious food. It’s a beautiful book. In the beginning of the book, there are several pages of glossy full color photographs of the people Couturier visits and interviews. There are also many small black and white photographs of the artists and their art included in the narrative.
There is a larger world surrounding us, not just the resplendent world of nature, but also our potential as people to live well, to connect with each other, to do meaningful work, and to forge a different kind of future for ourselves and for the next generation.
— Andy Couturier, A Different Kind of Luxury
Affirming What Matters Most
And the last book that stands out for me is one I discovered when I was college in the 1970’s. I think that it applies even more today than it did when it was published in 1973. It’s called Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered by E. F. Schumacher. Schumacher was a friend and colleague of an economics professor who was a mentor and friend of mine while I was in college. The things I learned from my mentor and from reading Schumacher have informed my choices and thinking throughout my life.
“An attitude to life which seeks fulfillment in the single-minded pursuit of wealth – in short, materialism – does not fit into this world, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while the environment in which it is placed is strictly limited.”
― Ernst F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
What books inspire you?
May you walk in beauty.
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