Contemplify Nonrequired Reading List Email for March 31, 2017
Contemplify Nonrequired Reading List Email for March 31, 2017
The March NonRequired Reading List
Contemplifyers,
“You will find most books worth reading are worth reading twice.”
- John Morley said that1
That’s true isn’t it? The books that bring me back for a second, third or fourth round are the ones that continue to speak to me after I initially put them down. Sometimes I put a book aside and mysteriously find it right back in my hands again. When I finished the last page of Three Marriages by David Whyte, I immediately, and without forethought, returned to page one. The book resonated at such a cellular level that an immediate revisit was non-negotiable.
Then there are some books that get tossed aside after a mere 40 pages. I get the joke (or don’t), put it down, and amicably part ways. There are a number of spiritual or philosophical classics I’ve put down over the years to never see again (hope they are getting by ok). Leaving a book unfinished used to gnaw at me. My fear was that I left a potential gem of enlightenment unread. I no longer have the chutzpah for such enlightened regrets. Instead, I try to attend to the texts that resonate with the state of my soul. My relationship to reading matures as I align myself to this more discerning approach. By doing so, I’ve also discovered a whole slew of thought-provoking creative outputs in unlikely places.2
I hope that rings true for you as well as you seek resonance in whatever pages, screens or bathroom etchings that come across your purview. I offer a few reading materials that are kindling my own examined life:
+ Three Iconic Musicians on Artistic Creation — and Its Importance Now by Wyatt Mason (New York Times Style Magazine)
No one has ever accused me of being fashionable. I can count the number of times I have flipped through a style magazine on one finger...but if articles like “Three Iconic Musicians on Artistic Creation — and Its Importance Now” generally inhabit the sleek, cologne infused fashion pages then I am in. The hook for me was the cover story of Tom Waits, Kendrick Lamar3 and Beck. The angle that the author Wyatt Mason tees up for these three musical savants begins with his reflection on a Leonard Cohen interview weeks before he died:
Asked about the inspiration for a particular line for a particular song, [Leonard] Cohen answered, instead, with the most persuasive explanation I’ve encountered of what artistic inspiration might actually involve. At critical moments, from our depths, out of an impulse not for glory, not for wealth, not for fame, not for power, but out of an appetite to serve — serve something larger than ourselves, however one might define it — the emergency inside us finally speaks.
Each of the three forementioned musicians speaks to the creative emergency that pours out through their craft from unexpected origins. Tom Waits stumbles into an eloquent metaphor that binds it all together (in a way that only Tom Waits can) through a memory about being a firefighter when he was a young man.
“It was an emergency, and when dealing with emergent behavior there is nothing to do but respond. I was in the moment. And it was not the fire I imagined or dreamed of. It was the fire I got.”
Paying attention to the creative fire is not navel-gazing, but fidelity to the emergency at hand. I never thought a magazine trying to sell me the latest trends could house such contemplative imaginations.
+ Q & A with Bill Flanagan (BobDylan.com)
Bob Dylan is 75. The bard of creative evolution has yet to hang up his harmonica. Dylan has been a fascination of mine since I was a boy (you can listen to my guest Tom Mischke’s own intrigue on the life of Bob Dylan in this Contemplify episode). Yet, the man remains a mystery. In this interview with renowned rock journalist Bill Flanagan, Dylan sidesteps any questions that try to pin him down,
Question: Some of your opening acts and co-bills, even very big names, have expressed disappointment that you don’t hang out or socialize on the road. Why is that?
Dylan: Beats me – why would they want to hang out with me anyway? I hang out with my band on the road.
As you read the interview the message becomes clear, Dylan wants to talk about the things that last. In a period of heightened celebrity access, Dylan refuses to play the game. The myth grows in spite of it all. The man from northern Minnesota can’t dismantle the mythic Dylan already immortalized on a marble pedestal. Despite this fact, he still has his nose to the ground following the muse of creative authenticity. Dylan is currently resurrecting songs from the American songbook because of their timeless voice. Forget nostalgia or regurgitating pop standards, Dylan continues to create from a place of timelessness that transcends expectations of how a 75 year old living myth should carry on.
+ Building a Community of Love: bell hooks and Thich Nhat Hanh by bell hooks (Lion's Roar)
Love is fierce. In this brief exchange between two master teachers you will find a light touch on matters of the deepest importance. The cornerstone of their banter is love. bell hooks tees up the conversation for the readers by sharing her preferred definition of love,
“Of all the definitions of love that abound in our universe, a special favorite of mine is the one offered in The Road Less Traveled by psychoanalyst M. Scott Peck. Defining love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth,” he draws on the work of Erich Fromm to emphasize again and again that love is first and foremost exemplified by action—by practice—not solely by feeling.”
Keep that definition in mind as you read their conversation. In hopes of whetting your appetite for this short buffet table of wisdom, here are some of the questions they toss back and forth to one another:
What is your thinking about why people are moving away from love, and how we can be part of moving our society towards love?
Is justice possible without equality?
What can love do for fear?
And what if people perceive rightly and still act unjustly?
The fierce love they embody is the zest of life. May it catch the imaginations of all us seeking to build a community of love.
Contemplify Update
The two most recent episodes of Contemplify…
027: Art is Resonance: The Ambient Internal Landscape of Musician and Ecopsychologist Russell James Pyle
026: In Rhythm with Life: Alana Levandoski on Being a Contemplative Artisan and Collaborating with James Finley
Next on Contemplify…
028: Washing Dishes with Thich Nhat Hahn and Hitchhiking to Thomas Merton: Jim Forest on a Life Worthy of Such Friendships
Jim Forest is the author of numerous books, including The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers. He serves as International Secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. In this episode, Jim shares tales about his friendships with Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hahn. The gentle straightforward nature of this conversation rallies around a pilgrim way of living in pursuit of embodying love and justice. Jim offers reflective wisdom on marriage, works of mercy, and guidance for those in the earlier stages of life.
This is the next episode available from Contemplify through these fine outlets: iTunes, Stitcher, Podbean, Overcast or Google Play
Listen well + read often,
Paul
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This is not to say I don’t imbibe in media for the pure sake of giddy laughter. Rewatching old Bill Murray clips on David Letterman is a favorite pastime of mine. Here is one of my favorites.
To hear Barbara Holmes talk about the contemplative nature of Kendrick Lamar check out Contemplify Episode 16.