Nonviolence, Maisie Dobbs, polio, and coincidences

Documentary

On Friday, I attended a viewing of "Not in Our Town" with other Crown Center residents, a documentary about stopping hate and violence in a community.  We were supposed to see the one about Billings, Montana, the first in the series (I think), but we got one about a different town.  The one we watched was also about hate in a community that rose up against it.  Patrice O'Neill, producer and director of those films, is the daughter of our Crown Center neighbor Gert.

BOOKS FINISHED since my last report

12.  Birds of a Feather (Book 2) ~ by Jacqueline Winspear, 2004, mystery (England), 9/10

"Well then, let's stand by the window. ... Maurice had taught her:  Always take the person to be questioned to a place where there's space, or where they can see few boundaries.  Space broadens the mind and gives the voice room to be heard" (pp. 21-22).

"And what did Dr. Blanche say about it then?"
"That coincidence is a messenger sent by truth.  That there are no accidents of fate" (p. 50).

Maurice's maxim:  "To solve a problem, take it for a walk" (p. 106).

Blanche smiled ... "As I have said many times, my dear, each case has a way of shining a light on something we need to know about ourselves" (p. 194).

"Let the ideas come to us instead of chasing them."
"Exactly" (p. 238).

Maurice:  "In learning about the mysths and legends of old, we learn something of ourselves.  Stories, Maisie, are never just stories.  They contain fundamental truths about the human condition" (p. 264).

"That's one more thing that I detest about war.  It's not over when it ends" (p. 266).

"May I not sit in judgment.  May I be open to hearing and accepting the truth of what I am told.  May my decisions be for the good of all concerned.  May my work bring peace" (p. 272).

"Move the body, Maisie, and you will move the mind" (p. 282).

"Resentment must give way to possibility, anger to acceptance, grief to compassion, disdain to respect — on both sides" (p. 299).

13.  Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio ~ by Peg Kehret, 1996, memoir, 9.5/10

"Why were you out of bed?" ...
"I was doing the hula," I said. ...
"The hula?"
"Alice didn't know what the hula is," explained Renée.
"So Peg was going to show her," Dorothy added.
Shaking her head in disbelief, Willie helped me into bed and warned me to stay there.  "In all my years of nursing," she said, "I've never had a polio patient try to dance the hula" (p. 102).

"Peg Schulze became Peg Kehret when I married Carl Kehret.  We have two children, Anne and Bob, and I wept for joy the day they got their first polio vaccinations" (p. 172).

Reading Now

Pardonable Lies (Book 3) ~ by Winspear, 2005, mystery (England)

"I must dash.  I've got a new patient this morning, a youngster crippled with polio, I'm afraid.  See you Saturday" (p. 45).

Did you notice a "coincidence" here?  I read in the previous Maisie Dobbs book (above) that her mentor Maurice said "coincidence is a messenger sent by truth," and the memoir is about a polio patient.  Compare all three yellow highlights in this post, and you'll see that this quote ties together these three books.  Hmm, what's going on?  Is there something I should be aware of?  I don't know, but I noticed this coincidence.  I have NEVER before read about polio in any book I remember, and yet here are two in a row!

Borrowed Book

They Will Inherit the Earth: Peace and Nonviolence in a Time of Climate Change ~ by John Dear, 2018, ethics

In the Beatitudes, Jesus says of the meek, "they will inherit the earth."  Meekness, John Dear argues, is the biblical word for nonviolence.  He makes the connection Jesus makes at the start of his Sermon on the Mount between our practice of nonviolence and our unity with creation:  our rejection of nonviolence is inevitably linked to the catastrophic effects of climate change and environmental ruin.  Drawing on personal stories of his life in the desert of New Mexico, his time as a chaplain at Yosemite, his friendship with indigenous and environmental leaders, his experience at the Standing Rock protests, as well as his work with the Vatican on a new stance on nonviolence, John Dear invites us to return to nonviolence as a way of life and a living solidarity with Mother Earth and her creatures.

Sheila Garcia gave me her copy to read.  I have a stack of my own books I had planned to read this year, partly to get rid of the stacks of books in my apartment, but there are only 160 pages in this little book.  What would you do?  Oh, wait!  Is this another coincidence?  Look again at the documentary on violence at the top of this post.  Maybe I'm supposed to read the book Sheila shared with me.  What do you think?

Bloggers gather in The Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.

A much-read library copy

The Ladies Auxiliary ~ by Tova Mirvis, 1999, fiction (Tennessee), 8/10

When free-spirited Batsheva moves into the close-knit Orthodox community of Memphis, Tennessee, the already precarious relationship between the Ladies Auxiliary and their teenage daughters is shaken to the core.  Tova Mirvis takes us into the fascinating and insular world of the Memphis Orthodox Jews, one ripe with tradition and contradiction.  This novel illuminates the timeless struggle between mothers and daughters, family and self, religious freedom and personal revelation, honoring the past and facing the future.

I rated this book 8 out of ten (meaning it's "very good"), and I live in a retirement center provided by the Jewish community in St. Louis.  The Crown Center is overflowing with activities and has a lot of very lively and involved residents.  I mentioned this book to Gert as we passed each other in the hallway, so she read it after I did.  In the meantime, Alyssa said she wanted to read it, too.  When Gert gave it back to me, she said Edie wants to be on my list of readers.  Alyssa read it and returned it to me, so I'm on my way now to hang it on Edie's door and tell her that Randi wants it next, when she's finished reading it.

Judy, Donna, and Nancy shelving books (that's a very young volunteer on the floor)

Then it will end up in the Crown Center's small library, where others may decide to join our line of folks wanting to explore the Orthodox Jewish community of Memphis, Tennessee, in a novel written by someone who obviously knows her subject.