I found his book,
Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About
Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives by David Snowdon, Ph.
D. a human and compassionate study of these women who have dedicated their lives
as nuns: School Sisters of Notre Dame, of the Mankato, Minnesota province.
(As a little aside, I'd like to mention that as a young girl I received
my catechism lessons from the nuns of the Baltimore, Maryland province of this
order.)
You can't help but admire the selfless service through their
time spent with the researcher and their final gift to medical science of
donating their brains to be examined for signs of the ravages of Alzheimers
disease.
What was surprising to me was that even some nuns who showed
decayed brain matter after death were still leading active lives with fully
functional communication skills. I would have thought that brain deterioration
would have meant that nearly all the time communication and higher functioning
skills would be affected.
The nuns in the study lead lives teaching or in
related services to the convent, so a wide range of women involved in various
jobs were studied. I think that is important to get a well-rounded view in the
study. After all, we each have our specialties in life, no one a carbon copy.
And though the women were all nuns, they each had their own personality and
strengths.
What tied them together as nuns would be their daily spiritual
practices, prayer, meditation, reflection: those activities that help us stay
inspired in service to humanity no matter what our tasks in the world.
I
think you'll enjoy getting to know the individual nuns as Dr. Snowdon talks
about them and seeing a close up view of mental acuity in advanced age or how
the ravages of dementia affect both the brain and daily
functioning.
Studies like this are important because depth of interaction
over a period of time gives the researcher time to see the small changes along
the way. And perhaps this research will help others learn how to age
gracefully.
Highly recommended reading!
Details -
256 page paperback; Bantam Books (April 30, 2002); Size: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
ISBN-10: 0553380923 ISBN-13: 978-0553380927
Available from
Amazon.com
Aging
with Grace by David Snowdon, Ph.D.
1a. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
|
The full title is
A New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. It is
amazing to me that Eckhart Tolle has produced a book that even outshines his
The Power of Now. I can understand why it is a selection in Oprah's Book
Club.
In
A New Earth Tolle takes us deeper and further into the
unlimited eternal within, and talks us through how to bring out eternal
insights. We find out that we are each harbingers of the new way of
understanding and thinking about who we are.
Tolle uses concrete
examples to promote each of his points so it is easy to follow along, or get
back on track if you're distracted for a while. Though the concepts may seem
esoteric the methods to understand are practical.
It seems the problem keeping us back from bringing in
unlimited consciousness and creating a new us is our ego. Not the ego that keeps
us concerned enough about personal care, but the ego that makes us look at
others as more or less than ourselves.
All of this is explained in these
ten chapters: 1. The Flowering of Human Consciousness; 2. Ego: The Current State
of Humanity; 3. The Core of Ego; 4. Role Playing: The Many Faces of the Ego; 5.
The Pain-Body; 6. Breaking Free; 7. Finding Who You Really Are; 8. The Discovery
of Inner Space; 9. Your Inner Purpose; 10. A New Earth.
One of the
insights that meant the most to me with the concept of inner spaciousness, that
the products of our creativity come from that wide open inner sanctum that has
no physical or mental constrictions.
I have found in my deepest
meditations that a field of inner vision opens up, light, bright, with no
horizon. And my vision is unlimited 360 degrees. Then I feel the peace that
passeth all understanding. This book by Eckhart Tolle helps us realize we all
live from within this space without separateness, without boundaries that these
physical bodies trick us into believing incase and limit.
I've been on
the spiritual path more than 30 years and I gained deeper insight reading this
book.
Highest recommendation.
Details: 336 pages;
paperback; Penguin; Reprint edition (January 30, 2008); 8 by 5.3 inches;
ISBN-10: 0452289963; ISBN-13: 978-0452289963
Here is the link at
Amazon.com:
A
New Earth - Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart
Tolle
