Category Archives: TRP Book Club

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Before You Know Kindness

I’m reposting this from my other blog.  I’ve gone back to this poem time and time again over the past few days.  It’s so true you know…  before you know what kindness really is you have to know these things.  You have to have experienced the opposite.  You have to have also made a choice in your heart to not turn cynical, resigned, or let those bitter experiences taint you.  Kindness is a quality that is earned many times through suffering.  It’s at that point you may also know greatness. 

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye / The Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

 

Slow Love

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About a year ago I read Slow Love- How I lost my job, Put on my pajamas & Found happiness by Dominique Browning. I savored every page, and was sad to have it come to an end.

Dominique is in her fifties and lost her job as editor of House & Garden when the magazine folded at the end of 2007. Like so many people lately, she was suddenly out of work. At the same time her children had left home, and she ended a long love affair, as well as sold the home that she thought she would live in forever.

Having lost my knitwear design job after sixteen years in 2007, I could relate to suddenly losing the main thing that she so accurately says “defined her days, paced and regulated her life.” She had feared losing it for many years, and when it happened, it nearly flattened her. With the busyness of her work gone, she was left with plenty of time to think about life, which she writes about with bold honesty and humor. It is like reading someone’s diary.

I especially like her quote of Adam Nicolson’s from Sea Room:

 “At the back of that hurry is the knowledge that it is a screen against honesty.”

 

That is one powerful sentence.

Slow Love is about living life more slowly. As Dominique says, it is “the love that comes of an unhurried and focused attention to the simplest things, available to all of us, at any time, should we choose to engage…..Perhaps even importantly, slow love comes out of the quiet hours, out of learning from the silence that is always there when we want it.”

Slow Love is about finding peace. It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it.

Written by Louise at Lines of Beauty

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Revelation Book Club

February will kick off our TRP Book Club- all are welcome to join!

This months book overview and any discussion points will be published for March so if you read it and have an insight you’d like to share- please email us at rodgers107@me.com and I’ll publish your comment!

Think

Strait Talk for Women to Stay Smart in a Dumbed-Down World: Amazon (under $10 on Kindle!)

Review’s

“Think is a real eye-opener. Lisa Bloom brings her extraordinary passion, humor, and intelligence to the important subject of how women and girls can fight being drowned in a sea of pop culture, and lead lives that are fuller, richer, and more connected. Think educates, informs, and—thanks to Lisa’s wit and sense of humor—keeps us smiling along the way. Think is a must-read for all mothers and daughters.”

—Dr. Phil McGraw, Nationally syndicated television host and #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Lisa Bloom is a dynamo and her book is as smart, quick, and funny as she is. Think paints a clear picture of the power of tabloid culture, inspires personal change, and evokes the desire to make a difference. Best of all, Think provides a step-by-step guide on how to rescue ourselves from the belly of the beast. This book is a must-read for girls and women everywhere.”

—Rory Freedman, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Skinny Bitch

“Every woman in America needs to read Think. It made me think about how I can become more successful, influential, and compassionate. Lisa Bloom is a leader for our times. Listen to her.”

—Jane Velez-Mitchell, bestselling author and host of Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell on HLN

“Witty, insightful, and practical. Think brims with specific ideas to give women more time, happiness, and meaning in our lives. Even if it were not written by my daughter, I’d still recommend this life-changing book to everyone I know.”

—Gloria Allred, women’s and victim’s rights attorney, partner Allred, Maroko & Goldberg

“Think reads like a conversation with that best friend we all need. Funny, wise, opinionated, Lisa Bloom covers everything from Angelina Jolie to precut veggies in this how-to, what-for, this-matters guide to a meaningful and honorable life.”

—Jeffrey Toobin, CNN Legal Analyst, New Yorker writer, and author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

“Lisa Bloom is a woman of brilliance, boldness, and beauty. One of the smartest and most erudite people in the American popular culture, you debate her on TV at your own risk. In her new book, Lisa deals with one of our nation’s most pressing subjects: the need for women to use, and be appreciated for, their minds. As the father of six daughters, I am immensely grateful to Lisa for this outstanding and riveting contribution.”

—Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, New York Times bestselling author of 10 Conversations You Need to Have with Your Children