Forward from the recently published Moments of Grace
The Spirit of Love By Joan Borysenko, Ph.D
During our lives a crowd of emotions and experiences take up residence within us alongside love, sometimes obscuring it entirely. Then as when clouds pass over the sun, the greatest grace of all, the gift of life, falls into shadow. The book you’re holding in your hand is a compilation of stories that can help you part the clouds so that the love you are can shine through. In the process loss and blame, guilt and shame, loneliness and sadness are revealed for what they are, seeds of compassion waiting for the right moment to blossom. This is a book about that miraculous alchemical transmutation.
Laurie’s transformational stories, told in her authentic and lyrical voice, are evocative of the highs and lows in every woman’s life. Who can read a story after all, without searching for its counterpart in her own life? The prayer chair that served as an anchor for her family life; a solemn sacred circle taking turns holding a stillborn child; the warmth of a pot-bellied stove around which six previous generations had warmed themselves. Laurie’s generous prose connect us to her family’s living history, and through it to our own.
Taking the time to let images and memories arise is central to the lifelong process of reflection and integration that parts the clouds and reveals the glory from which we come. In becoming present to our lives mindfully without the judgment that so often shuts the door to the heart, grace has the chance to unite light and dark, love and loss, birth and death.
The exercises, activities, and rituals that Laurie provides allow us to contemplate and celebrate that grace, receiving and realizing it more deeply. As women have done since the beginning of time, Laurie weaves threads of different hues into a beautiful fabric of wholeness. ~Joan Borysenko, PhD
Moments of Grace, my recently published book, is a unique blend of memoir, poetry, and deeply felt narratives of my life’s experiences that have become a record of my journey towards God. The stories are evocative of the highs and lows in every woman’s life. Whether sharing the agony of despair with my son as he named and claimed the stillborn infant cradled in his arms, or bearing witness to a woman’s life stories inside a bleak prison cell, each chapter offers personal accounts of sacred moments where, even in the darkest of places, Light breaks through. By inviting you into my stories, I hope you will find and celebrate their counterpart in your own life experiences.
The chapters in Moments of Grace include a prayer/meditation practice that provides an anchor for every day living. It includes the holy made visible through exercises that guide readers to become bearers of presence by slowing down, shutting the doors on chaos, and becoming aware of sacredness in every thing and every one. Doing the ordinary tasks of daily life carefully and lovingly with attention and reverence can make of them a prayer. Grace surprises. It comes unsolicited in many guises and always as gift whether we expect it, believe it or deserve it. But we can ready ourselves for receptivity by practicing inner stillness.
Each of the chapters encourages you to find sacred footing in the gestures of everyday life, and includes activities, exercises and rituals designed to bring the heart-felt sense of the Holy into manifest action. Your stories remembered, stories written, stories read and stories told connect us as we accompany one another in Mystery.
You can purchase Moments of Grace on Amazon, or if you are local to Mystic, CT, at Bank Square Books in downtown Mystic
The Spirit of Love By Joan Borysenko, Ph.D
During our lives a crowd of emotions and experiences take up residence within us alongside love, sometimes obscuring it entirely. Then as when clouds pass over the sun, the greatest grace of all, the gift of life, falls into shadow. The book you’re holding in your hand is a compilation of stories that can help you part the clouds so that the love you are can shine through. In the process loss and blame, guilt and shame, loneliness and sadness are revealed for what they are, seeds of compassion waiting for the right moment to blossom. This is a book about that miraculous alchemical transmutation.
Laurie’s transformational stories, told in her authentic and lyrical voice, are evocative of the highs and lows in every woman’s life. Who can read a story after all, without searching for its counterpart in her own life? The prayer chair that served as an anchor for her family life; a solemn sacred circle taking turns holding a stillborn child; the warmth of a pot-bellied stove around which six previous generations had warmed themselves. Laurie’s generous prose connect us to her family’s living history, and through it to our own.
Taking the time to let images and memories arise is central to the lifelong process of reflection and integration that parts the clouds and reveals the glory from which we come. In becoming present to our lives mindfully without the judgment that so often shuts the door to the heart, grace has the chance to unite light and dark, love and loss, birth and death.
The exercises, activities, and rituals that Laurie provides allow us to contemplate and celebrate that grace, receiving and realizing it more deeply. As women have done since the beginning of time, Laurie weaves threads of different hues into a beautiful fabric of wholeness. ~Joan Borysenko, PhD
Moments of Grace, my recently published book, is a unique blend of memoir, poetry, and deeply felt narratives of my life’s experiences that have become a record of my journey towards God. The stories are evocative of the highs and lows in every woman’s life. Whether sharing the agony of despair with my son as he named and claimed the stillborn infant cradled in his arms, or bearing witness to a woman’s life stories inside a bleak prison cell, each chapter offers personal accounts of sacred moments where, even in the darkest of places, Light breaks through. By inviting you into my stories, I hope you will find and celebrate their counterpart in your own life experiences.
The chapters in Moments of Grace include a prayer/meditation practice that provides an anchor for every day living. It includes the holy made visible through exercises that guide readers to become bearers of presence by slowing down, shutting the doors on chaos, and becoming aware of sacredness in every thing and every one. Doing the ordinary tasks of daily life carefully and lovingly with attention and reverence can make of them a prayer. Grace surprises. It comes unsolicited in many guises and always as gift whether we expect it, believe it or deserve it. But we can ready ourselves for receptivity by practicing inner stillness.
Each of the chapters encourages you to find sacred footing in the gestures of everyday life, and includes activities, exercises and rituals designed to bring the heart-felt sense of the Holy into manifest action. Your stories remembered, stories written, stories read and stories told connect us as we accompany one another in Mystery.
You can purchase Moments of Grace on Amazon, or if you are local to Mystic, CT, at Bank Square Books in downtown Mystic