by Jean P. Kelly
Reviewed by Eileen Quinn Knight, Ph.D. Profiles in Catholicism
In the Introduction the author begins: “At one time, I pictured myself in a nursing home of the future where family and friends would complain about my pockets full of notes –sheds of paper with handwritten quotes-stashed there and everywhere in case I forgot good advice. I also imagined an avalanche of books, anthologies, and memoirs bristling with post-its, on a bedside stand, never shelved just in case I needed to find, in doubt-filled moments, an inspirational passage, paragraph, or prayer. Words of others-especially in books-have always offered solace to me: comfort, companionship, escape, insight, and challenge.” The author realized that spiritual reading can also be prayer. Spiritual reading offered the author not only a rest stop, but also an unexpected path toward healing that is so remarkable that she will show others the way. Spiritual reading were secular texts-fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism, stories, essays, and even music and art. Throughout each chapter, she mapped her own expedition of the heart, as places to start. The appendix offers a longer list of possibilities for the reader but more importantly, it is a guide for how to find your own unique inspirational reading. The steps she has laid out are: Read –“shimmering and settling” Reflect- Savoring and stirring” Respond—“Summoning and Serving and Receive—“Slowing and Stilling”
For the reading step, the author left the choice entirely to chance which words to devour, letting her hand select a random title form a shelf and then open the book to any page. The goal of spiritual reading is the third R: Receptivity. So even if heartache muddles her thinking and letters on the page swirl amidst tears, insights are still accessible. The technique dictates reading small selections of any text four times, slowly each with a slightly different focus. If I can’t manage that, I stop and re-read or re-listen or look again at any text that “shimmers’ with a connection to my own life. The goal is not analysis and not understanding, but rather something in between. Some adherents of the ancient spiritual discipline call this “holding the passage lightly’. The next step is respond –which some call ‘prayer’ which is accessible to me through journaling or writing. I don’t understand a text until I digest it with my pen. Words become a part of me only after I parse and pair them with my own, triangulating a path of wisdom toward spiritual enlightenment.