The Hidden Beauty of Everyday Life Author:Kent Nerburn From the dust jacket description: — "Whether you call it God or the Great Mystery, we all share a capacity for perceiving the spiritual, deeper beauty that underlies the ordinary. The eleven short narratives here will gently awaken and enhance your ability to experience the wonders of life. — An old toolbox reminds Nerburn of those who came before... more » him; an almost comatose Father-in-law awakens memories of life and laughter. In Kent Nerburn's patiently observed moments, such connections are never forced, but emerge with total grace from the rush of life's surface.
Each chapter is a masterful fable in which Nerburn delicately distills the spiritual from the material. A young man begging on the streets is at first an object of suspicion - he's able-bodied; why isn't he working? But something about him gives Nerburn a pause, and months later he connects the man's insistent gratitude for his help with what it means to give an ailing friend his precious time.
None of these stories runs more than nine pages, which means that they are perfect for reading in stolen moments, one at a time.
Always, Nerburn includes you in the secret workings of his heart, share his prejudices and flaws. Along the way, we travel with him among such diverse places as the streets of London, a Renaissance church in Florence, and the Red Lake Indian Reservation of Minnesota. And always, he returns us gently to our lives, enriched and enlightened.
In the end, he leaves us with a kind of alchemist's approach to consciousness and empathy. Through the voice of birds, the gratitude of a young girl, the silence of a monastery, we witness him transcending the boundaries of his experience - and thus we learn to transcend ours."« less