The Eclectic Reader

SPIRITUAL LITERACY by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

I know I have posted about this book before. I tend to read quite a few books at the same time. Last night this was my reading before bed. I needed it because we had just watched another downer movie on the ugly human. This book is 546 pages and thick with ideas. I am again excited about reading it.

The authors begin: “Life is a sacred adventure. Every day we encounter signs that point to the active presence of Spirit in the world around us. Spiritual literacy is the ability to read the signs written in the texts of our own experiences. Whether viewed as a gift from God or a skill to be cultivated, this facility enables us to discern and decipher a world full of meaning. Spiritual literacy is practiced in all the world’s wisdom traditions. Medieval Catholic monks called it ‘reading the book of the world.’ Muslims suggest that everything that happens outside and inside us is a letter to be read. Native Americans find their way through the wilderness by ‘reading sign.’ From ancient times to today, spiritually literate people have been able to locate within their daily life points of connection with the sacred.”

Like the Brussats, I have spent a lifetime collecting quotes and passages I have read in books , thoughts from minds that resonate with my own. The Brussats have organized their quotes into the subjects of this book which look at the spiritual aspects of everyday life. I have read the chapters on places and things.

I have been posting on FB under the heading of “A Few of My Favorite Things.” This is what I am getting at…the spiritual connection I have with each of these objects. “Things” have a bad rap. We have heard “the best things in life aren’t things,” but I don’t believe that is always true. The “things” in your life can be very spiritual.

The Brussats write: “The great Sufi teacher, musician, and poet Hazrat Inayat Khan writes: ‘Everything in life is speaking, is audible, is communicating, in spite of its apparent silence.’ As a character in a recent novel by Lynne Sharon Schwartz points out, once we have a relationship with a thing, it begins to speak intimately to us.”

Again, the Brussats: “our homes often demonstrate what the mystics know: that life consists of connections—with nature, our past, and other people.”

Spiritual Literacy is an essential book for readers who take pleasure in the world of ideas. So much to think about and so much to discuss.