The Accidental Pilgrim by Maggi Dawn

A brief and amusing backstory to this book: I bought The Accidental Pilgrim by Maggi Dawn along with an embarrassingly tall stack of other really intriguing books at the Yale Divinity School Student Book Supply, which is a terrific independent bookstore at YDS, last February when we were visiting the former Teen the Elder. He was in class, and joined us for the completion of the purchase since he’s a member. We then proceeded to the Marquand chapel for worship, which that day was a baptist service with very beautiful music and a wonderful sermon. I was into it, I admit, and sang along where I could and moved with the music and clapped — especially to a South African song I’ve sung with Songweavers & Songhealers (Siyahamba/We Are Marching in the Light of God). A woman who seemed roughly of my generation was seated next to me and we exchanged smiles. She also seemed moved by the service and the music.

Afterwards we had lunch, and I was showing our son the books I bought. Two were by Maggi Dawn, and he remarked casually, “Oh that’s who you sat next to in chapel.” Oh. Gosh. And swayed and clapped like a  slightly awkward privileged white middle class woman (which I am). Ahem.

Anyway, The Accidental Pilgrim is one of those books. I read it over the past couple of days at a time when I’m feeling a little at loose ends. My family is on a journey not of our own choosing right now, and the summer has been very wrapped up in it. In the end it will have changed our lives (hopefully for the better) and strengthened us individually and collectively, will have changed the way we see the world and our place(s) in it, and will have helped us see who we are and how we want to live. I hadn’t thought of it as a pilgrimage, and I hadn’t thought I needed to read about pilgrims. When I picked this up, I was here in the house alone (the Computer Scientist was away at a conference) and I made myself a comfort food dinner (poached eggs and beet greens on toast) and browsed my bookshelves. One book after the next seemed not quite right until I landed on this one.

Dawn organizes The Accidental Pilgrim around three times in her life when she was a pilgrim of sorts: in graduate school at Cambridge when she went to the Holy Land on a summer study trip, when her young son was still in a pushchair (stroller to we Americans) and she was facing doubts about what she could and couldn’t do as a woman priest and a new mother, and when she was laid up by an illness just as she and her son were going to embark on a weeklong walk on the Camino. In none of these instances did she embark on what she consciously thought of as a pilgrimage, and in each that is what she came to see herself doing.

I loved this book, and it was, like the sermon I heard that day in Marquand chapel, just what I needed. Some passages resonated with me; others spoke to me like the sort of straight talking friend who isn’t afraid to tell you the truth when you’re resisting the inevitable. For example: “. . . such a journey not only removes you from home comforts, but also forces you into the constant company of others. . . . sometimes uncomfortably so, for some dither about while others stride ahead like sergeant-majors, barking instructions to others to keep up. . . . And of course, it doesn’t take long to realize that you yourself are being seen close up by others. Any false impressions of noblesse or spiritual maturity is soon whittled away until the true picture becomes visible, but more often than not, in the midst of this dose of human reality there emerges a deepening sense of affection for, and dependence upon, others.”

I’m partway through an experience like that, at the painful realization of being seen close up by others part. Anyone who has done something challenging (intellectually, emotionally, physically, spiritually, any which way) in community will recognize the truth in Dawn’s assessment. She writes beautifully and thoughtfully on the desert fathers, famous pilgrims and pilgrimages, “‘thin places’ where earth seems to touch heaven,” poetry, theology, travel, motherhood — all in a book that’s only 151 pages including notes. A smart book, a good read, and one that has given me plenty to think about.

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Here is New York by E.B. White and Letter from New York by Helene Hanff

The former Teen the Elder is in New York this summer, and I’m glad for him. I wanted to get down to see him but it’s looking unlikely, so I’m taking a field trip of the mind instead. I picked up Letter from New York at the Five Colleges Book Sale in April, and was very excited to read it. I love 84, Charing Cross Road. Letter is a collection of six years of BBC Women’s Hour scripts (each a five minute broadcast) that Helene Hanff recorded from 1978-1984 about her “everyday life.” Much like the letters she sent to Frank Doel, they are full of her particular observations and somehow those add up to a lovely composite view of New York. Her descriptions of block parties, communal living as an apartment dweller, all the glory of Central Park throughout the seasons, the myriad free or low cost cultural opportunities in the city, doormen who drive little old ladies to the beach, and more will make you nostalgic, even if you, like I, have never lived in NYC. It’s just a charming book, a slice of Americana, from a witty and thoughtful writer who captured the humanity of living in a a place many people think of as impersonal and imposing.

I’ve read Here is New York by E.B. White before; I can’t recall where I got my copy, but it’s the original hardcover edition from 1949. it’s even briefer than Letter from New York, just 50 pages. While Hanff intends to tell her BBC listeners about life as it is, White tells readers a little about the New York he’s visiting during a heat wave, and also reminisces about a New York he knew as a younger man, before the Depression and World War II. In fact, as this small book ends, he reflects on the recent advent of advanced airpower and its potential to “quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers . . . The intimation of mortality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.” He predicted that “In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning,” “New York has a certain clear priority” as a target.  He predicted 9/11, in 1949.

So Hanff’s book is less frightening, but both books are a delight for people who love words. Hanff, describing her good friend’s Old English Sheepdog, Bentley, in Central Park after a blizzard: “Bentley loves the snow, but the drifts were high enough to bury him, and he had a special technique for surmounting them. What he did was, he hopped over the snow like a vast furry rabbit, his huge bulk curving high in midair, his four feet landing lightly and then leaping onward.” White, on a summer night, also in Central Park, “In the trees the night wind stirs, bringing the leaves to life, endowing them with speech; the electric lights illuminate the green branches from the under side, translating them into a new language.”

They both emphasize that New York is special because it is such a diverse place, teeming with people from everywhere doing everything. Or as White so eloquently describes, “A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain illusive.” Makes me want to hop on a bus or train right now!

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The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery

Longtime bookconscious readers know I am a fan of New Hamsphire authors Sy Montgomery and Howard Mansfield. I’ve written about their work several times on the blog and in the Mindful Reader column. Recently my good friend and fellow book lover Juliana gifted me with The Good Good Pig: the Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood. We each had piles of books in our arms in the checkout line of The Five Colleges Booksale and when I exclaimed over her finding Sy’s book, she let me buy it instead of buying it herself. If that’s not friendship I don’t know what is.

Anyway, I’ve been reading my own “to read” books instead of library books lately, partly because I bought a lot of books this spring, and partly because I was changing jobs, and thus libraries. Last week was kind of an unsettled one, with some stressful stuff happening (such as becoming a library director) at work and at home, so I wanted a book I knew would feed my soul, and given that, I knew I couldn’t go wrong with Sy!

The only problem with The Good Good Pig is that I want to move to Hancock, New Hampshire, and since Concord is the only place we’ve lived twice on purpose (we lived in Oklahoma twice, but only because the USMC sent us there both times) and The Computer Scientist says he is not moving any more boxes ever again, but instead will live here until he is the one being moved in a box (he has a morbid sense of humor), that’s not likely to happen. Really I just want to be Sy’s and Howard’s neighbor.

So, The Good Good Pig isn’t just about Christopher Hogwood, the runt piglet they adopted who lived to be fourteen and a valued member of their community. It’s about the many ways Christopher taught the people in his life all kinds of things — how to play, how to savor the sunlight and grass on a nice day, how to truly enjoy delicious foods, and simply, as one of Sy’s former neighbors explains, “how to love.” Sy notes that by living a long life, Christopher Hogwood showed everyone who knew him that “We need not accept the rules that our society or species, family or fate have written for us.”

This is not just a fascinating book about animals, peppered with interesting anecdotes about some of the many creatures Sy has loved, researched, communed with, written about, and felt an affinity towards, from pink dolphins to tarantulas and man eating tigers. It’s also a book about two people who fell in love with each other and the writing life and created for themselves a home and a community that fully embraced them and their work. And it’s a book about family in many forms — not only in the traditional sense of the people we come from and often find ourselves challenged by, but the family we make for ourselves, human and inter-species. Sy’s writing about her relationship with her mother is moving and inspiring — she is a model of radical acceptance even in the face of challenges, and the world would be a better place if more people were able to love their way through hurts the way Sy does.

The Good Good Pig  was just the book I hoped, soul filling, life affirming, smart, and thoughtful. We have so much to learn from animals, and although I can’t claim I am as connected to other creatures as Sy is (not many people are!) I am often impressed that my cats are so tuned into my feelings. For creatures who get a bad rap for being aloof, they can be remarkably supportive when I need it, especially the small grey tabby who will curl up against me or on me if she can sense I need her calming presence. As my Facebook friends know, she is also my zen master, running to the meditation cushion after dinner to remind me it’s time to sit and joining me as I meditate. So I totally understand how a pig could be “a big Buddha master” to his friends and neighbors.

I leave you with two peaceful cat pictures, because how could I not? They’re no 750 pound pig, but I think there are probably city ordinances against hog husbandry in Concord anyway.

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Cork Boat by John Pollack

Cork Boat is one of the titles I picked up at the Five Colleges Book Sale. Yes, I am going to read The Scapegoat; it’s our June book club pick. It hadn’t arrived yet, anyway, so I decided this would be a good distraction from the various stressful things in my life. I was right.

John Pollack was a political speechwriter when, disgusted by the gridlock in Washington (sadly, about twenty years ago), he decided to take some time off to pursue a boyhood dream: building a boat made of corks. In Cork Boat he tells the story of how he organized dozens of people — friends, relatives, neighbors, and even strangers — to help him and his good friend Garth Goldstein bring the boat to life. Along the way, he took a job writing speeches at the Clinton White House, returning to his previous job working for Michigan Congressman David Bonior after the election, and even taking a job writing for an expedition to Antarctica. None of this kept him from pursuing his dream boat, and when it was finished, getting it shipped to Portugal where he and Goldstein and an assortment of friends and family members helped them travel from Barca d’Alva to Porto on the Douro River.

It’s an enjoyable book, one that might make you want to travel off the beaten path, or cause a little wistfulness for whatever you dreamed of as a child. It’s also a good reminder that in a world often fraught with conflict, hardship, struggle, and hardship, we could all benefit from paying attention to the cork boats in our lives. Maybe no one you know is doing something on this scale, but you probably know someone who is pursuing a hobby or past time just for the joy of it, or to prove to themself that they can reach a particular goal, or to bring people together around a common purpose. If you seek those stories, they’re out there to enjoy among the din of political rancor, intolerance, and human suffering. Cork Boat is a decent place to start.*

Quick aside: for May, my book club read Waking Up White by Debby Irving. It’s written in a style I didn’t enjoy — very brief chapters with questions at the end of each, which makes it kind of choppy and occasionally repetitive — but it was thought provoking, and led to a good discussion about white privilege and racism. We decided we’d recommend it to people who haven’t really explored these issues.

*Good News Network isn’t a bad place to look, either.

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In which we discuss what I should read next

I spent a gift card today that my now former co-workers gave me as a going away gift  yesterday — I got a few books that have been on my long term “to read” radar as well as a couple of books I heard about (or heard about the authors) on the most recent episode of The Readers. In the next week I will own (in no particular order; librarians do not, contrary to popular belief, alphabetize everything):

Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban — heard about this years ago and have been meaning to read it; read and loved Linger Awhile recently after finding it at Book & Bar while the Computer Scientist and former Teen the Younger were shopping for records. Also, still haven’t gotten over how thrilling it was to see an exhibit of Russell and Lillian Hoban’s Frances manuscripts at Yale’s Beinecke Library in February, when we visited the former Teen the Elder. Sorry about the glare, there’s glass between me and the manuscript.

Heat Wave by Penelope Lively — have read her memoir, Dancing Fish and Ammonites, her story collection, The Purple Swamp Hen, and her novel How It All Began and enjoyed them all.

The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier — my grandmother introduced me to Du Maurier when I was still a girl, but I don’t think I’ve ever read anything other than Rebecca, and possibly a short story here or there. Must remedy that! I believe it was Simon and Thomas on The Readers who mentioned this one.

Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse — we had another Hesse around here that the former Teen the Younger had to read in high school and probably weeded from their shelves, but I don’t see it. When I heard Thomas and Simon mention this one on the Readers and was intrigued

Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel — I loved Station Eleven and again, when I heard Simon and Thomas talk mention that she’s written several other books, I thought to myself that I would keep an eye out for those.

Besides my new purchases, I still have the pile I got at the Five Colleges Book Sale last month:

And two I bought in South Carolina:

The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy, which is set on a fictionalized version of Daufuskie Island, which is very near where my dad lives. I’m confused by this, because the book is called a memoir on the publisher’s page and Pat Conroy’s page, but when I look up Yamacraw, the island in the book, Google redirects me to Daufuskie and uses the word fictionalized. Perhaps that will be clearer when I read it.

The Enchanted Island by Elizabeth von Arnim — for no real reason, other than it was also at the library bookshop where I bought The Water is Wide and it looked interesting, plus had a beautiful cover.

I did a big book re-org when I came home with the pile on the couch, above. I have a number of other choices that came to my attention when I did that . . . but this is probably enough to choose from, for now.

What should I read next?

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In the Shelter by Pádraig Ó Tuama

I first became familiar with Pádraig Ó Tuama and his work through an episode of On Being. The only word I can think of to describe how I felt listening to him was enchanted, in the sense of delight, not magic. Here was someone whose sense of faith and God and reconciliation and love is thoroughly grounded in the messy realities of this world but is also poetic and hope-filled. I heard him at a time when I needed to. I made a note to read his books.

Fast forward a number of months and he came along again, this time when I viewed the Trinity Institute at my church. I listened to him read during the Friday Eucharist and felt a kinship; we’re siblings alright, if we’re children of God, but here was someone who clearly feels as I feel reading in church. He felt the words, loved them, and shared that, which is how I try to read.

Enough already, I thought. Read his books! I got myself In the Shelter and intended it as my Lent reading; then my church had other offerings so I set it aside for Easter, and here I am. I’ve been reading it for a couple of weeks. I finished it this morning and sadly, I accidentally gathered it up with my sheets and washed it. Fortunately it’s a pretty sturdy paperback, and I’m trying to let it dry out. It will want re-reading.

I’m taking a class called Notes from a Seeker at church, about spiritual writing, and one of our assignments is to read spiritual memoirs. This is that — Pádraig (if he’s my brother, I’m calling him by name) shares in his writing his deep connection to God, a connection he’s had from an early age, one that he hung onto even when he was made to feel  less-than, even to the extreme of undergoing exorcisms and other un-caring treatment by fellow Christians, simply because he is gay.

Yet he also shares his delight in other humans (even when they’re not delightful, even when he’s not delighted with himself) and his love of language. He has a playful way with words (he’s also a poet), and an intellectual way, examining their meaning and exploring their nuances. I love this.

But his meaning is not playful, it’s serious, and he gets to the heart of some of the most challenging things around — otherness, fear, pain, self-loathing, uncertainty. I love this section, where he describes the dilemma of testimony — “the telling of the story of conversion, or re-conversion, of enlightenment or change.” In other words, so much of spiritual writing and talk. People hear this testimony and are impacted, for better or worse, as Pádraig explains:

“Upon whom is the burden of words? I don’t know. I don’t think there is an answer. I cannot dampen gladness because it will burden the unglad. But I cannot proclaim gladness as a promise that will only shackle the already bound. Faith shelters some, and it shadows others. It loosens some, and it binds others. Is this the judgement of the message or the messenger, the one praying or the prayer prayed? I don’t know.

Hello to what we do not know.

What I do know is that it can help to find the words to tell the truth of where you are now. If you can find the courage to name ‘here’ — especially in the place where you do not wish to be — it can help you be there. Instead of resenting another’s words of gladness or pain, it may be possible to hear it as simply another location. They are there and I am here.”

That is how I’ve prayed these last couple of weeks, “I am here.” It’s a contemplative practice anyone, or any faith or none at all can try. Name where you are. Even if you do not wish to be in that place. I can’t explain why, but it’s peaceful.

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Barking to the Choir by Gregory Boyle

This follow up to Boyle’s Tattoos on the Heart, is every bit as compelling. Boyle is a master at telling stories about his work at Homeboy Industries, and then summarizing in a sentence or two the beauty and mystery of love at the heart of that work. That people who have lived through such hell have create home for each other every day at Homeboy Industries is inspiring and humbling. What’s the problem with Congress, for example, if former enemies can not only work together but care for one another?

Boyle has a knack for the summarizing sentence, the nugget that gets at the heart of what he’s been telling through anecdotes about the men and women who are his Homeboy family. After a story about running into a homie at Target and chatting about his life now, Boyle writes, “The goal is not perfection but a wholeness anchored in grateful living.”

If it’s a knottier subject — like the ego — it may take more than one sentence but Boyle is still incredibly lucid. He talks about a speaking engagement where he was “swamped” by fans after, but one woman waited to tell him, “I have nothing but hate for you and your organization” because her “son was killed by a gang member.” Boyle writes about feeling “stunned,” and wishes he could have heard the woman’s story in more detail, for her own benefit, so that she could be heard. He goes on to say “Nonetheless, it returned me to my true home, anchored and grounded far from any adulation. . . and though the sting was sharp, I knew not to take it personally. . . . One can choose to let suffering be the elevator to a heightened place of humble loving. . . . the opposite of clinging is not letting go but cherishing. This is the goal of the practice of humility. That having a ‘light grasp’ on life prepares the way for cherishing what is right in front of us.” Wow.

Barking to the Choir: the Power of Radical Kinship isn’t just a feel-good book about incredible work with people who society casts as “bad guys.” Boyle answers his detractors more directly in this book, and also speaks truth about police brutality (although towards the end he also calls out a thoughtful officer who appears to have found his own way to do Boyle-style compassionate work on the job). But mainly what’s a little tough about this book is that Boyle’s entire attitude of abundance and well being coming from unwavering hospitality, boundless love, and “radical kinship” — of the ubuntu style, there is no I without you — is so counter to what we are seeing all around us right now.

Which makes me hope that we are simply not keeping our eyes — the eyes of our hearts, not just the eyes of our faces — open enough. That we have to seek those stories, (Good News Network is on of my sources) that counter the dominant narrative of separateness and other. Boyle says it better: “If we could simply drop the burden of our own judgments, we could see with clarity and then compassion would be possible.” See, then love. Boyle wants us to know it’s that simple.

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