Friday, 31 October 2008

Two Books that have prompted me to changes

I suppose that it is rare that a book changes your life. It is more likely that you were ready for the change and the book just gave you a little push. In the last two weeks, I have had two pushes from books I have read. In a way the two books are similar. The first I discovered at Othona during our 5 day visit this week. I was in the library trying to avoid writing, when my attention was caught by Finding Sanctuary: monastic steps for everyday life by Abbot Christopher Jamison. A few years ago there was TV series in the UK which followed 5 men who entered Worth Abbey for 40 days and 40 nights of living the monastic life. I never watched it but I heard good things about it and I have always been interested to know more. Worth Abbey is Benedictine and about three years ago I followed a bible study book about the rule of St. Benedict. So, I imagine that I was predisposed to be interested in this book. I won't go into the details today of how it affected me but I will say that it has given me pause to reflect on the stresses of life and how to obtain real sanctuary from them.
The second book is called 'The Four Hour Work Week' by Timothy Ferriss. If you had the chance to look at the YouTube video of the interview with a banker (from the Southbank Show) in a previous post, you might also have followed the link to the blog where I found it. Timothy Ferriss is the author of this blog which I initially looked at because he had some interesting things to say about learning language. As it turns out, he has interesting things to say about a lot of other subjects as well.
What do these two books have in common for me? Ah well, more of that tomorrow!

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