Heaven and Hearth
Marcia Z. Nelson -- 5/29/00
'Practical spirituality' titles domesticate the divine
The mundane tasks of chopping wood and carrying water epitomized spiritual practice for the Chinese Zen master who wrote the p m that inspired the title of Chop Wood, Carry Water (Tarcher, 1985), a seminal work about "practical spirituality." The topic is at least as old as the ancient answers given by the deities and prophets of various faiths to the questions of how we are to live each day. Applying spiritual wisdom to each task on every day's to-do list is once and again in vogue, as another bumper crop of spring books attests. Practical spirituality is virtually a subcategory on its own, and another harvest of books can be expected this fall.
Past issues of PW have examined books linking the spiritual with everything from food and fitness to marriage and parenting. The latest topics for how-to spiritual handbooks range from sex to sweeping to simple living. Many of these newest books explore "domestic" spirituality--viewing the house as a place for spiritual practice--while answering common questions about conduct and meaning: What do we do on days other than Friday, Saturday or Sunday? How do we find the Divine in the office, the backyard, the grocery store?
A number of publishing executives relate the bulge in spiritual how-to to a demographic one, namely, the continuing cultural influence of the baby boomers. Boomers, but also those somewhat younger and getting on in careers and years, are asking serious questions about life's meaning that lead them to religious or spiritual answers. For some explorers, it's a question of recultivating religious roots; for others raised without a tradition, it's the construction of an eclectic faith drawn from and reinforced by experience. "A lot of people are asking the question 'Is that all there is?' " says John Loudon, executive editor at Harper San Francisco, which publishes books from a number of faith traditions. "They want something they can experience, can live, not religion as a separate part of life." HSF is high on the practical aspect of several of its fall titles on Christian spirituality. Brennan Manning again brings his life credentials as a former Franciscan and recovering alcoholic to his new book, Ruthless Trust (Oct.), which further recounts the everyday experience of God's grace that made his TheRagamuffin Gospel (1993) a top seller among evangelical readers. "His honesty really cuts through to people," says Stephen Hanselman, HSF v-p and associate publisher. "Beyond that, he has got a sensibility and is drawing widely on Christian sources in his writing, and I think it makes him uniquely appealing."
Stuart Matlins, founder and publisher at Jewish Lights, is certainly happy with the practical spirituality vogue, finding in it reinforcement for his firm's vision of kindling greater consciousness of divine presence in daily life. Judaism is quintessentially a practical spiritual code, a guide to seeing and living rightly, he points out. "It is a matter of seeing God's presence in all things. That's the Jewish mystical view. Jewish Lights was founded to publish just that kind of material." He adds, "People thought there was no market for books of this kind when we started." Yet the house expects to ship its millionth book in mid-spring. Matlins hopes to further mine the market by offering an anthology of the best writing about practical Jewish spirituality in a fall release he is editing, Jewish Lights Spirituality Handbook: A Guide to Understanding, Exploring and Living a Spiritual Life (Oct.).
Domestic Spirituality
Because everyday life includes the contemporary equivalents of chopping wood and carrying water, some new books cover the at-times literal detail of domestic activity. The current cultural preoccupation with hearth and home has been seen in last year's much-commented-upon Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House (Scribner), an 884-page household reference manual by lawyer Cheryl Mendelson that blankets all things domestic from dust bunnies to liability laws. Books in the religion/spirituality category offer a spiritual take on such homey matters. Through a Zen Buddhist adjustment of the lens of perception, dust particles in a house become so many seeds of contemplation, according to Gary Thorp, author of
Sweeping Changes: Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks (Walker, Mar.). Due to its sweep across topics, Thorp's book was selected by both the One Spirit and the Country Homes & Gardens book clubs. Seekers can also put down the broom and take up knitting needles with The Knitting Goddess: Finding the Heart and Soul of Knitting Through Instruction (Hyperion, Oct.) by Deborah Bergman, a mix of how-to and spiritual reflection. Out in the yard, contemplation might be aided by The Color of Grace: Thoughts from a Garden in a Dry Land (Baker/Revell, Sept.) by Tonia Triebwasser, who uses the metaphor of gardening to trace her spiritual journey.
Back in the kitchen of the spiritually well-ordered house, a number of cookbooks feed from a smorgasbord of religious traditions. It's Zen again in Three Bowl Cookbook: The Secrets of Enlightened Cooking from the Zen Mountain Center (Tuttle, Apr.), which gives recipes as well as an explanation of the Zen monk tradition of using three bowls for meals. InCelebration of the Seasons (Liguori, Mar.) rifles the monastic recipe boxes of French Benedictine kitchens to season French peasant cooking with dashes of spiritual discipline. Both cookbooks, not coincidentally, are vegetarian, applying the spiritual idea of doing no harm by excluding animal flesh from menus. Another spiritual food title from Lantern Books, The Inner Art of Vegetarianism: Spiritual Practices for Body and Soul (June) by Carol J. Adams encourages thoughtfulness about eating.
Books about domestic activities are just one part of a larger current of writing about everyday life and the joys of living it, especially living it more simply. (The current is now broad enough to be mainstream, confirmed by the launch of two new magazines on the topic.) Books on the subject include Everyday Simplicity: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Growth (Sorin Books, Mar.) by Robert J. Wicks, Simple Confucianism: A Guide to Living Virtuously (Tuttle, June) by C. Alexander and Annellen Simpkins and Seeing God in the Ordinary (Hendrickson, Mar.) by Michael Frost. Also making it simple are Simple Bliss: Nirvana Made Easy (Element, Oct.) by Scott Shaw, a 101-level introduction; Simple Loving: A Path to Deeper, More Sustainable Relationships (Penguin, July) by Janet Luhrs; and The Little Book of Letting Go: A Revolutionary 30 Day Program to Cleanse Your Mind, Revive Your Soul, and Lift Your Spirit (Conari, Aug.) by Hugh Prather (if only it did windows!).
Practical Wisdom from the East
Buddhism, a non-deistic religious philosophy, shows up in many practical spirituality titles. Peter Turner, president and executive editor of Shambhala Publications, one of the country's pioneering publishers of Buddhist titles, tells PW this is because Buddhism is "a supremely practical form of spirituality, less interested in philosophy or ideology for its own sake than in the practical value of helping people wake up to their own true nature--a state of being free from suffering." A fall title from Shambhala exemplifying this practicality is Tulku Thondup's Boundless Healing (Oct.), a book of traditional Tibetan Buddhist practices aimed at helping people with their own psychological and physical healing (see In Profile in this issue). Another title dealing with healing and suffering is the paperback edition of When Things Fall Apart:
Heart Advice for Difficult Times (Sept.) by American Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, one of Shambhala's bestselling books and authors. These two follow spring releases from Shambhala on the subject of coping with pain and physical infirmity: Finding a Joyful Life in the Heart of Pain (Apr.) by chronic pain counselor Darlene Cohen and Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive (June) by Larry Rosenberg, on the realities of aging. A new title from American Buddhist writer Jack Kornfield may even find its niche in the laundry room: After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path (Bantam Dell, June).
Spiritual Sex
Today authors are also celebrating the spirituality of the bedroom, in keeping with a lineage of religious writing about sexuality that includes the storied ancient Hindu text Kama Sutra and the Old Testament Song of Songs, as well as the more recent Kosher Sex (Doubleday, 1999) by Shmuley Boteach. This summer, Harper San Francisco releases Zen Sex: The Way of Making Love (Aug.) by Philip Toshio Sudo, also the author of Zen Guitar and Zen Computer. HSF has a number of books about sexuality "where the point of view is infused with and informed by religious tradition," according to executive editor Loudon. "Kama Sutra is a sacred text, not a Playboy document," he points out. Due from HSF this fall is The Multi-Orgasmic Couple (Nov.) by Taoist master Mantak Chia and his wife, Maneewan, and Chia's student Douglas Abrams Arava and Abrams's wife, Rachel Carlton Abrams, a doctor who specializes in women's health.
The themes of sexual partnership and spiritual practice also come together in The Fashioning of Angels:
Partnership as Spiritual Practice (Swedenborg Foundation/Chrysalis Books, May) by Stephen and Robin Larsen. The book includes interviews with couples, spiritual exercises for partners and a foreword by Jean Houston and Robert Masters. Another pairing of spirituality and partnership includes Twin Souls: Finding Your True Spiritual Partner (Hazelden, Sept.) by Patricia Joudry and Maurie D. Pressman, which explains how to use spiritual discipline to find a soulmate.
The Sabbath Solution
Though many spirituality titles state their aim of expanding personal godliness beyond Saturday or Sunday, the concept of Sabbath keeping is supremely practical, the application of which creates an oasis of rest and reflection that seems more necessary than ever in today's fast-paced world. Advice for keeping the Sabbath can be found in Chariot Victor's Finding Rest When the Work Is Never Done by Patrick Klingaman (Apr.). Other Sabbath-centered reflections on the presence of God in daily life come from Doubleday, which brings out under its Image imprint A Place Like Any Other: Sabbath Blessings (Sept.) by Molly Wolf, winner of 1998's Catholic Press Association Best First Book award. Wolf's book grew from weekly Internet postings she made describing her spiritual journey. Trace Murphy, senior editor at Doubleday Religious Publishing, compares Wolf to writers such as Kathleen Norris, who seek to convey a sense of the presence of God within earthly affairs. "Molly grounds faith in everyday things, like trying to get the kids off to school or leaky plumbing," he says. "Writers like Molly are finding a real resonance with readers today because they offer the antithesis of pondering the majesty of the divine."
Other Doubleday titles offer variations on the theme of practicality. 30 Days to a More Spiritual Life (Aug.) by Shana Aborn, is a guidebook based on the author's popular article from the Ladies' Home Journal. Dorothy K. Ederer, a Dominican nun and avid golfer, takes a swing at the topic of golf as game and as spiritual metaphor in A Golfer's Day with the Master: Spiritual Wisdom from the Fairway (May). A rabbi and his wife offer a fresh look at Judaism in A Vocabulary of Jewish Tradition: A Guide to Everyday Practice and Observance (Aug.) by Abraham and Rachel Witty.
From Monday through Sunday, from the kitchen and garden to the bedroom and the boardroom, the seeking reader can find a book offering a spiritual take on nearly every aspect of daily life.
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