Casa Chiara Hermitage: PENSIVE

Friday, July 5, 2013

PENSIVE

Sunset at Bandon Dunes

Last time we visited Bandon By The Sea I was captured by the sunset. Moments arrive, unlike any others, when experience of being is unlimited, and whatever it is that I am seems to disappear into the immensity. Inside of that Close and Endless, or in the words of Marguerite Porete: the FarNear, the surf crashes on sand, gulls call, grasses sway, and the edges of what I call myself are gone.

Is not the whole point of life to live it fully?

To stretch myself from one end of it to the other,

Pulled taut by the tension of love

Tantalized by life’s beauty

Being both star and seed, planted

In ether and in earth?

-from my novel The FarNear Journals

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I'm a writer and observer of beauty in nature and people, a singer of praise and a dreamer who stares into both light and darkness hoping to see someday the Face of God.

My journey has led from the northern lakes, to a convent on the prairie, to lifelong education including a doctorate in ministry, to a vocation of midwifery of souls, to this place, Casa Chiara, where the light shines and John Sack and I join our lives, care for nature, pray and contemplate, study and write.

Published Works: THE ROOT OF BEAUTY, THE EDGE OF TENDERNESS, THE FARNEAR JOURNALS, GYPSY BONES, ALTAR MUSIC, CIRCLE OF MYSTERIES, WOMANCHRIST, BLESSINGS, FINDING STONE, CARING COMMUNITY, A CRY IN THE DESERT.

Los Angeles Times Best Novel of 2000 for ALTAR MUSIC. Recipient of four prizes/commendations for CIRCLE OF MYSTERIES.

John R. Sack was born in Springfield, Ohio. He earned a BA in English from Yale University and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington.

As a young man, he spent two years as a Trappist monk under the tutelage of Thomas Merton, his novice master at Our Lady of Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky. In the 1970s, he trained in a Hindu ashram in Ganeshpuri, India. Spiritual awakening and transformation are common themes in both his fiction and nonfiction works.

He is the author of the internationally acclaimed novel, THE FRANCISCAN CONSPIRACY and a companion work, ANGEL'S PASSAGE. THE WOLF IN WINTER is a fictional tale of the early career of Francis of Assisi. His nonfiction YEARNING FOR THE FATHER, a guide to contemplative prayer, is the culmination of years of research and reflection on the Lord's Prayer and his exploration of numerous spiritual traditions. Other works are listed on his Amazon home page.