Five Ways of Looking at a Saint
An online course, an essay, and three books
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Darlene and I attended a wondrous little parade yesterday in Portland.
Puppets in Portland, a weeklong celebration, kicked off with the Ideal Maine Social Aid & Sanctuary Band’s following a police cruiser down Washington Avenue alongside festival artists and visitors.
The rest of the parade comprised tall and playful Shoestring Theatre puppets carried on long sticks.
My favorite was Fishman (see photo above.)
Nance Parker, Shoestring’s longtime director, today emailed me that the sea-colored character is 42 years old this year, “one of my oldest hard-working puppets.”
Is Fishman a saint?
To answer that question, consider this quote from “You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Live Like a Saint” by Jim O’Grady in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine:
“What makes a saint is exuberance and compassion, inner balance and commitment to a meaningful vocation.”
Exuberance? Check. Balance and a meaningful vocation? Check, check. Those Portland puppets make compassion bigger than life.
With that in mind, I want to share five things that are helping me to take inspiration from the saints this week:
Reading O’Grady’s wonderful essay.
Signing up for Mirabai Starr’s 7-week online course, “Awaken the Mystic Within,” which begins October 1.
Pre-ordering Mirabai’s new book, Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground, which will be released tomorrow.
Reviewing my highlights from The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. He is Jim O’Grady’s favorite saint, and the book is available for free borrowing if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.
Ordering Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice by Natalie Goldberg, Mirabai’s mentor and longtime friend. I took a writing-practice workshop from Natalie 30 years ago in Taos, New Mexico, based on her classic 1986 book Writing Down the Bones. During COVID she finally burned out on teaching writing practice. Her new book is about how she found her way back. I can’t wait to read it.