Book Review - 7 Wonders That Will Change your Life by Glenn Beck and Keith Ablow, M.D.

First of all, I got turned off by Conservative Talk Radio quite some time ago.  Not necessarily because I disagreed with what was said.  Though there was some of that.  Mostly it was because of the divisive nature of their clamorous programs.  Beck was certainly not as bad as Limbaugh or Hannity, but all of them, in the end, were downers for me.  Chalk it up to weak character on my part if you must.  Perhaps I am an ostrich with my head in the sand, but I am far happier and far more productive if I stay away from all the hoopla.  Most of it doesn't lie within my circle of influence anyway; especially when considering where I live.

Considering that, I was reluctant to read this book.  I thought it too, would dishearten and depress me.  Oh, Contraire!  This turned out to be one of the most encouraging books I've read in a long long time.  Basically, it is the story of Beck's recovery from despair, confusion and alcoholism.  As such it is one of the more inspiring recovery stories I've read...and I've read a lot of them.

I especially enjoyed his treatment of synchronicity, "seeming coincidences actually turn out to have deep meaning and importance for...personal growth."  He called them bread crumbs and said, "Trust me:  if you just pick up the really obvious bread crumbs, you will find that you have more than enough to find your path.  It will transform your life.  God isn't trying to hide anything from you.  He is not being coy or playing game for His own amusement.  He's trying hard to show you the way."  Beck says,  "I decided to spend thirty days without dismissing any event in my life as coincidence.  Literally.  If the man at the gas pump next to mine asked me directions to a museum he was visiting, and I had recently read a magazine article about that very museum, I would go visit there.  If a woman dialed my cell phone and hung up once, then redialed and, upon hearing my voice, apologized to dialing the wrong number, I would say, "Well, may I ask who this is?"  Because maybe, just maybe, that person was supposed to enter my life in that seemingly random way.  If she hung up, so be it.  I wasn't going to dial back.  I didn't think I should have to chase bread crumbs, just pick up the ones that sort of sat still for me."

Glenn certainly made me anxious to watch for bread crumbs in my own life, which quite amazingly are more common, by far, than I expected.  Some of us might even call them tender mercies.  The key is to watch for them.

Now, I won't trouble you with any more details.  Let me just say that if you are seeking change and direction in your own life, this book is a great resource to stimulate the journey.  It most certainly has inspired and informed my own journey and I'm grateful for the great gift it was and is.

*****

Book Review - A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny

Followers of my blog will know that I am a huge fan of Louise Penny. They will also know that I've sort of reviewed this book before. This is my second time through, and I'm not through, I'll likely read it over and over. Superficially, the Chief Inspector Gamache books are about solving murders. Fundamentally, though, they are about ourselves and what goes on in our heads. As Inspector Beauvoir's grandfather once told him:

"You don't want to go into your head alone, mon petit. It's a very scary place."

I don't like to go into my own head alone for the same reason.  I think this is a primary reason for my journey back through these wonderful, soul searching books.  I feel a bit safer going into my head with Louise and her characters as my guides.

The principal theme of this volume seems to be about the junk we carry around from our childhood.  Scripts and interpretations that are skewed by misunderstanding, lies and even abuse.  It is about the crazy things we do to cope with that baggage, even murder.  In a quote regarding one of the victims we get this insight:

"Too much damage done.  We become our beliefs, and Crie believes something horrible about herself.  Has heard it all her life, and now it haunts her, in her own mother's voice.  It's the voice most of us hear in the quiet moments, whispering kindnesses or accusations.  Our mother.
'Or our father' said Gamache,..." 

As Gandhi said:

'Your beliefs become your thoughts
Your thoughts become your words
Your words become your actions
Your actions become your destiny.'

Louise Penny not only points out the problems we suffer as our common lot, but proposes real and credible solutions:

"'Let it go.  You have your own life.  Not Uncle Saul's, not your parents'.'  His face had grown very serious then, his eyes searching.  'You can't live in the past and you certainly can't undo it.  What happened to Uncle Saul has nothing to do with you.  Memories can kill, Yvette.  The past can reach right up and grab you and drag you to a place you shouldn't be......Bury your Dead.'"

But letting go, is not all that easy, it requires that we be willing to go to that most frightening place of all.

"Gamache was speaking so softly no one else could hear.  And he was speaking with open affection.  Beauvoir suddenly remembered the lesson he always hurried to forget.  Gamache was the best of them, the smartest and bravest and strongest because he was willing to go into his own head alone, and open all the doors there, and enter all the dark rooms.  And make friends with what he found..."

And having gone there, Gamache was unafraid to visit other people's heads as well, not so much critically, but empathetically.

"'...Mother...had to go all the way to India to find God and He was here all along.  She went to Kashmir and I went to the door.'
'Both long journeys,' said Gamache.  'And Kaye?'
'Kaye? I don't think she's made that journey and I think it scares her.  I think a lot of things scare Kaye.'

Gamache, or rather Louise is giving me courage to go to that scary place and yes, open all the doors.  I'm not sure about making friends yet, but I'm working on it.  Oh, the power of a truly great book!

*****