2012 January

Why Meditate — When I Could Be Sweeping the Garage?

January 24, 2012 By Barbara Leave a Comment

My husband Jon, in a quiet moment. Photo by Barbara Falconer Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I’ve tried meditating a few times – a very few times. I’m well read on the subject, however. Indeed, I’ve spent way more time reading about meditation than I’ve spent doing it.

Why would I want to just sit there observing my mind, I reason, when I could be outdoors pulling dead blossoms off the shamelessly prolific rhododendron in our front yard? Those blossoms snap off their stems with such a satisfying pop.

(I do nothing to make that plant bloom. Yet year after year it sucks up dirt and rainwater and blasts dozens of grandiose purple-blue blossoms into our tiny front yard. Hardly anybody notices this plant or its outrageous flowers. It produces them anyway.)

So – why would I want to just sit there, meditating? I could be calling my son [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Openers Tagged With: bloomin' newman, don't miss, meditation, sylvia boorstein, thomas merton

GodsBigBlog: What Ever Happened to God?

January 10, 2012 By Barbara Leave a Comment

NASA photo - Spiral Nebula

Wondering what happened to God — and GodsBigBlog?

It’s moved to another location, to its very own blog at http://GodsBigBlog.com.

I was getting complaints from some of my dear secular humanist friends that God was taking over my Writing Room and getting way too much ink.

They were having to slog through my posts on the Bible. Some of the posts are hopeful (the one about how my atheist friend loves the Universe). Some of them are cranky (e.g. my pique at reading about God promising to clear out all those annoying Hittites and Jebusites and Girgashites from the Promised Land so the Israelites could have it to themselves). All of the posts tend toward the irreverent.

Seriously, blogs are supposed to have a focus. Some people want to read about my adventures with Christian scripture. Others don’t. So GodsBigBlog.com is getting a niche of its own.

For those friends and readers who want to hear about my life, sans the musings on the Bible, this blog will continue to be about reading, writing, being alive in the here and now — and my rocky, all-over-the-map spiritual journey.

Now’s a good time to think about whether you’d like to subscribe to this blog — and/or to www.GodsBigBlog.com. Just click on that orange RSS blob to your right on this page or on the GodsBigBlog home page. (Note: AOL users may have trouble with the RSS feed. Sorry.) Or get an email subscription. See you there.

Filed Under: The Writing Room Tagged With: god, godsbigblog, secular humanist

The Writing Room: Can This Guy Make Me a Star?

January 9, 2012 By Barbara 1 Comment

Jeff Greenwald

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I’m getting out of my writing room long enough to take Jeff Greenwald’s Page to Stage class at the San Francisco Writers Grotto.

It starts Jan. 17. Sounds like fun. I think there are still spaces available. Join me???? Here’s the link.

Jeff is a journalist, author and stage performer. And he’s got a book out called Shopping for Buddhas. Sounds like an interesting guy. Let’s see if he can turn me into Tina Fey in four short weeks.

Seriously, I have an agenda here. I’m pretty happy with the state of my book, Finding Holy. It’s 95% written. OK, 90%. It only needs tweaking and the filling in of a few modest holes.

But I’ve got at least one agent and multitudes of editors and publicists at book publishers, big and small, telling me that Platform, with a capital P, is everything. One editor even told me that it’s easier for a publisher to fix up a book that is mediocrely written than it is to get attention for a book and author who’s got no platform.

OK, what’s Platform? It’s your credentials to write a book (which I have), but it’s also the ready-made, identifiable audience that a writer brings with her when she or her agent approaches a publisher. Giving talks, leading workshops and getting onto NPR are mighty helpful. (So does keeping this blog, btw. Help my Platform; send the link to your friends!)

Soooo. In the interest of strengtheining my Platform, I’m off to Jeff’s class next week. Let’s hope he can make me a star of stage and screen. Or, better yet, a published author.

To be continued . . .