Member: peacemover

Looking forward to hearing your reactions. Have fun - it's a wild ride.

posted by bgthedoor at 11:10 pm (EST) on Nov 11, 2008

Thanks for the kind words - I haven't checked this site for months so sorry for the long delay. The book I am working on now has a number of snippets from my posts in them - we'll see how it goes over.

posted by bgthedoor at 10:30 pm (EST) on Nov 11, 2008

Thanks for letting me know about the books. I was actually getting worried that they might have gotten lost in the mail or something, heh.

posted by DeusExLibrus at 11:18 pm (EST) on Sep 29, 2008

Sorry about your computer, but thanks for letting me know. I'll keep an eye out.

posted by DeusExLibrus at 12:39 am (EST) on Sep 13, 2008

Hmm, no wonder I like Borg, I'm a Panentheist. Haven't gotten the books yet, but I'll let you know when they get here.

posted by DeusExLibrus at 2:38 am (EST) on Sep 12, 2008

Hi Peacemover!

In order to understand the path my life has taken, I'd have to take you back sixteen years to when I was five. My mother, brother, and I went out to a Jack-in-the-Box for lunch, and I ended up with E-Coli. This was back in the early 90's when kids were ending up in the hospital and dying from the outbreak. I was extremely lucky. I ended up spending a month and a half in bed, sick as a dog, which, you can imagine for a preschooler was not a fun way to spend six weeks. Still, I dodged a major bullet, by all rights I should be dead.

When I was seven, my appendix burst, and was not caught for a week, during which I had a checkup which included probing my stomach. I finally ended up in the ER in the early morning when I woke up throwing up neon green. I spent two weeks of hell in Children's hospital being treated little better than a chunk of meat, never seeing an actual doctor, being woken up in the middle of the night to have blood drawn. The first time I had my feeding tube removed, it had to be put back a mere hour or two later. Still, I survived because my body had moved my appendix down away from my vital organs and walled it off from the rest of my body. I had dodged another bullet.

Because of my father's upbringing, which I won't get into here, my brother and I never attended church as kids. When I hit high school I became progressively disenchanted with society, pop-culture, the whole mememe egotistical drama, and decided two things. One: Someone (God) must want me here, because by all rights I should be dead twice over. Two: People who have more money than they know what to do with are miserable, and so is everybody else to one degree or another, so there's gotta be another reason we're here. There has to be something better, more fulfilling than this. I hit on religion, and it made sense to me. I felt like I finally had a mission in life: to do my best to understand why we're here through the investigation of religious and spiritual truth, and to be of service to others.

After finding my spiritual base in a sort of blend of Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism, I found Unitarian Universalism, which emphasizes the personal search for truth and service to others, and I feel like I've finally found a home of sorts. I'm planning to go on to seminary or theology school after college and join the UU ministry as the result of the beginning of a life of questing and looking for truth. There's a bit more to the story than this, but this is essentially my path over the past 16 years. I'd be happy to elaborate or answer any questions you might have. I look forward to speaking with you more, and may well be borrowing a couple books from you in the future in my continuing quest for understanding.

posted by DeusExLibrus at 1:28 am (EST) on Aug 28, 2008

Peace mover - we share some of the most interesting books across a range of subjects. I really appreciate the way you Review your books.

Question. In one Review, you write that "Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book 'The Cost of Discipleship' is a tremendously inspiring, insightful and penetrating look into Christian discipleship." Do you know any Disciples near you?

I grew up among Believers and as I get older, I suspect I will be more comfortable around them than with others whose engagement with life seems untethered or unusual. Not sure this will be possible, of course, since...well, how many Believers are left? I feel like they both "left the building" long ago,

posted by keylawk at 8:21 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2008

I'm majoring in Religious Studies in college, and seriously considering going on to seminary. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it, but I'm seriously considering becoming a chaplain or minister. I'd love to talk to you sometime, feel free to send me a PM.

posted by DeusExLibrus at 9:34 pm (EST) on Jul 22, 2008

Hello Peacemover!

I see that we share some reading interests. There is nothing I enjoy more than a good autobiography/memoir or biography. I just finished a couple that I thought you might like. The first is "The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness" by Elyn R. Saks. Saks is an endowed professor of law at the University of Southern California. She tells the story of her life as a person with schizophrenia. The second, also a memoir, is "The Invisible Wall: a Love Story that Broke Barriers" by Harry Bernstein. Bernstein writes about his life in a small English town just before WWI, where he grew up on a street with Christians on one side and Jews on the other. He writes about how the tragedies and joys of their shared human experience helped them find their way through the invisible wall that separated them.

I would love to hear any recommendations you have -- memoirs, American history, spirituality.

Best Wishes,

InCahoots

posted by InCahoots at 11:23 pm (EST) on Apr 11, 2008