Tell Me What You're Reading No. 51: Elizabeth Lesser - Broken Open/ Marrow/ Our Town/ Tom Lake
Elizabeth Lesser discussed on my Podcast the founding of Omega Institute - internationally recognized for its wellness, spirituality, creativity, and social change workshops and conferences - as well her beautiful and inspiring books about finding protection and blessings in the broken moments of our lives; enjoying the passage of time; realizing what we have in life; appreciating every moment we are alive - Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow - and about being present to each moment; being who you are, answering the call of your soul, authenticity; unconditional love; learning to avoid straining against pain; being impeccable with our words; understanding that the only purpose of life is to shine the light you were given - Marrow: Love, Loss & What Matters Most. Elizabeth also discussed Thornton Wilder’s classic play, Our Town, and Ann Pachette’s magnificent novel, Tom Lake, and the themes they share with her books.
Elizabeth is one of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100 - a collection of leaders who are using their voices and talent to elevate humanity - and a two time TED talker - “Take The Other to Lunch” and “Say your truths and seek them in others”
What Elizabeth is Reading
Our Town, by Thornton Wilder
Reviews The Pulitzer Prize | The Guardian | The Wall Street Journal | The New York Times | HuffPost
The New Yorker - Robert Gottlieb on Thornton Wilder
The Washington Post - Paul Newman on Broadway as the Stage Manager
Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett
Reviews The New York Times | The New Yorker | PBS | NPR | The Washington Post | The Guardian | Washington Independent Review of Books | San Francisco Chronicle | The Times | The Harvard Crimson | Chattanooga Times Free Press | Book Marks
What Howard is Reading
The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese
Just as “Cutting for Stone” by Abraham Verghese introduced me to Ethiopia, The Covenant of Water'' introduced me to Southwestern India. I previously knew nothing about either region. Each captures the time and the essence of its geographic location, and each introduces us to multiple fully developed, vivid and, for the most part, appealing characters. I loved “Cutting for Stone”, and “The Covenant of Water” - a compelling, multi-generational tale told over the course of a century - is also really great.
Reviews NPR | The New York Times | The Guardian | The Washington Post | The Hindu | The Los Angeles Times | The Des Moines Register | The Wall Street Journal | Star Tribune
Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, by Heather Cox Richardson
The state of the nation is perilous, and as I read Democracy Awakening, I was reminded of several other texts that offered a similar critical perspective. A People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, These Truths, A History of the United States, by Jill Lepore, Twilight of Democracy – The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, by Anne Applebaum, and The Nine - Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, by Jeffrey Toobin. Perilous.
Reviews The Washington Post | The Guardian | The New Yorker | The New York Times | New York Journal of Books | Boston College
Here is New York, by E.B. White
Less perilous during the 1940s is the New York City described by E.B. White in his wonderful essays in Here is New York, a lovely book written in 1949. White, who wrote for The New Yorker for over 50 years, offers his reflections on and appreciation for the New York City of the 1940s, and many of his observations are timeless.
Reviews New York Review of Books | New York Daily News | The New York Times | Baltimore Sun
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, by Elizabeth Lesser
Elizabeth’s beautiful book about finding protection and blessings in the broken moments of our lives; enjoying the passage of time; realizing what we have in life; appreciating every moment we are alive.
Reviews, etc. Spirituality and Practice | Maria Shriver | Publishers Weekly | YouTube
Marrow: Love, Loss & What Matters Most, by Elizabeth Lesser
A beautiful and moving memoir about Elizabeth and her younger sister, Maggie, the process they went through when Elizabeth was found to be a perfect match for the bone marrow transplant Maggie needed to save her life, and the process they went through when Maggie’s cancer tragically returned. Elizabeth assumed a huge amount of the responsibility for caring for her sister through these times.
Other Mentions
Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan - teacher of meditation and of the traditions of the East Indian Chishti Sufi order of Sufism; renaissance man, a true polymath, fought in WWII - he was Elizabeth's real college education “for everything”.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Catholic mystic, Parisian intellectual who believed in evolution, banished to China and to Poughkeepsie.
The “Omega Point,” the point of unity toward which all of life is evolving. Everything is evolving towards something good and wise
Rumi Jalaluddin Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet, mystic, saint, Sufi, an enlightened man, a lifelong scholar of the Koran and Islam, a Muslim
Ram Das born Richard Alpert; also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and writer.
