Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download In Praise of the Useless Life PDF full book. Access full book title In Praise of the Useless Life by Paul Quenon. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Paul Quenon Publisher: Ave Maria Press ISBN: 1594717605 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
Winner of two 2019 Catholic Press Association Awards: Memoir (First Place) and Cover Design (Second Place). Monastic life and its counter-cultural wisdom come alive in the stories and lessons of Br. Paul Quenon, O.C.S.O., during his more than five decades as a Trappist at the Abbey of Gethsemani. He served as a novice under Thomas Merton and he also welcomed some of the monastery's more well-known visitors, including Sr. Helen Prejean and Seamus Heaney, to Merton's hermitage. In Praise of the Useless Life includes Quenon's quiet reflections on what it means to live each day with careful attentiveness. The humble peace and simplicity of the monastery and of Quenon's daily life are beautifully portrayed in this memoir. Whether it be through the daily routine of the monastery, his love of the outdoors no matter the season, or his lively and interesting conversations with visitors (reciting Emily Dickinson with Pico Iyer, discussing Merton and poetry with Czeslaw Milosz), Quenon's gentle musings display his love for the beauty in his vocation and the people he’s encountered along the way. Inspired by his novice master Merton, the poet and photographer’s stories remind us that the beauty of life can best be seen in the "uselessness" of daily life—having a quiet chat with a friend, spending time in contemplation—in our vocations, and in the memories we make along the way.
Author: Paul Quenon Publisher: Ave Maria Press ISBN: 1594717605 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
Winner of two 2019 Catholic Press Association Awards: Memoir (First Place) and Cover Design (Second Place). Monastic life and its counter-cultural wisdom come alive in the stories and lessons of Br. Paul Quenon, O.C.S.O., during his more than five decades as a Trappist at the Abbey of Gethsemani. He served as a novice under Thomas Merton and he also welcomed some of the monastery's more well-known visitors, including Sr. Helen Prejean and Seamus Heaney, to Merton's hermitage. In Praise of the Useless Life includes Quenon's quiet reflections on what it means to live each day with careful attentiveness. The humble peace and simplicity of the monastery and of Quenon's daily life are beautifully portrayed in this memoir. Whether it be through the daily routine of the monastery, his love of the outdoors no matter the season, or his lively and interesting conversations with visitors (reciting Emily Dickinson with Pico Iyer, discussing Merton and poetry with Czeslaw Milosz), Quenon's gentle musings display his love for the beauty in his vocation and the people he’s encountered along the way. Inspired by his novice master Merton, the poet and photographer’s stories remind us that the beauty of life can best be seen in the "uselessness" of daily life—having a quiet chat with a friend, spending time in contemplation—in our vocations, and in the memories we make along the way.
Author: Judith Valente Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser ISBN: 1642970344 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
The spiritual seeker's guide to living with authenticity and integrity in troubled times. This book is a dialogue between two spiritual seekers--one a Trappist monk and the other a married professional woman. It is two people "stuttering to articulate life's universal questions from diverse contexts and perspectives." Brother Paul writes as one steeped in silence and the daily rhythms of the ancient prayer practices of monasticism. Judith Valente writes as a professional woman attempting to bring a sense of prayer and contemplation to a scattered life in the secular world. Valente uses the story of Brother Paul's interview for a PBS documentary as a jumping-off point: When asked the purpose of the Trappist life in the modern world, he said that it is "to show you don't need a purpose." The purpose of life, he said, is life. "You're to live your life." How to Be offers a window into two people living their lives on purpose (or not) and struggling to come to terms with the big issues everyone faces: faith, mortality, mystery, prayer, work. It is a book that provides insight and inspiration for those walking the spiritual path--particularly for those interested in the contemplative path.
Author: Abraham Flexner Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691174768 Category : Reference Languages : en Pages : 104
Book Description
A short, provocative book about why "useless" science often leads to humanity's greatest technological breakthroughs A forty-year tightening of funding for scientific research has meant that resources are increasingly directed toward applied or practical outcomes, with the intent of creating products of immediate value. In such a scenario, it makes sense to focus on the most identifiable and urgent problems, right? Actually, it doesn't. In his classic essay "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge," Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the man who helped bring Albert Einstein to the United States, describes a great paradox of scientific research. The search for answers to deep questions, motivated solely by curiosity and without concern for applications, often leads not only to the greatest scientific discoveries but also to the most revolutionary technological breakthroughs. In short, no quantum mechanics, no computer chips. This brief book includes Flexner's timeless 1939 essay alongside a new companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraaf, the Institute's current director, in which he shows that Flexner's defense of the value of "the unobstructed pursuit of useless knowledge" may be even more relevant today than it was in the early twentieth century. Dijkgraaf describes how basic research has led to major transformations in the past century and explains why it is an essential precondition of innovation and the first step in social and cultural change. He makes the case that society can achieve deeper understanding and practical progress today and tomorrow only by truly valuing and substantially funding the curiosity-driven "pursuit of useless knowledge" in both the sciences and the humanities.
Author: Paul Quenon, OCSO Publisher: Paraclete Press ISBN: 1640602380 Category : Poetry Languages : en Pages : 90
Book Description
After 60 years at Gethsemani Abbey, Br. Paul follows up his recent memoir, In Praise of the Useless Life, with a poetic collection that shows how to do just that – by writing poetry. Amounting to Nothing is both practical and metaphysical, a puzzling over the ultimate things of life, and a descending on the Benedictine ladder of humility to the earthly creatures surrounding a Kentucky monastery. This is less an exploration in self-knowledge than a forgetting of self in the wonders of everything. Quenon treads bare footed on the margins of mortality and immortality, with wit, thought, and hope.
Author: Joshua Isard Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press ISBN: 1935955543 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
Average suburban middle manager Nathan's life starts to unravel around him as his wife goes baby crazy, his friend wants to climb Everest, and he lends a copy of "Cat's Cradle" to a local teenage girl.
Author: Gregory K. Hillis Publisher: Liturgical Press ISBN: 0814684602 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
How Catholic was Thomas Merton? Since his death in 1968, Merton’s Catholic identity has been regularly questioned, both by those who doubt the authenticity of his Catholicism given his commitment to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and by those who admire Merton as a thinker but see him as an aberration who rebelled against his Catholicism to articulate ideas that went against the church. In this book, Gregory K. Hillis illustrates that Merton’s thought was intertwined with his identity as a Catholic priest and emerged out of a thorough immersion in the church’s liturgical, theological, and spiritual tradition. In addition to providing a substantive introduction to Merton’s life and thought, this book illustrates that Merton was fundamentally shaped by his identity as a Roman Catholic.
Author: Emmanuel Carrère Publisher: Metropolitan Books ISBN: 1429973285 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
From the acclaimed award-winning author Emmanuel Carrère, Lives Other Than My Own: A Memoir is an act of generous imagination that unflinchingly records devastating loss and, equally vividly, the wealth of human solace that follows in its wake. Selected by the New York Times as one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years In Sri Lanka, a tsunami sweeps a child out to sea, her grand-father helpless against the onrushing water. In France, a young woman succumbs to illness, leaving her husband and small children bereft. Present at both events, Emmanuel Carrère sets out to tell the story of two families—shattered and ultimately restored. What he accomplishes is nothing short of a literary miracle: a heartrending narrative of endless love, a meditation on courage and decency in the face of adversity, an intimate and reverent look at the extraordinary beauty and nobility of ordinary lives. Precise, sober, and suspenseful, as full of twists and turns as any novel, Lives Other Than My Own confronts terrifying catastrophes to illuminate the astonishing richness of human connection: a grandfather who thought he had found paradise—too soon—and now devotes himself to helping his neighbors rebuild their village; a husband so in love with his ailing wife that he carries her in his arms like a knight does his princess; and finally, Carrère himself, longtime chronicler of the tormented self, who unexpectedly finds consolation and even joy as he immerses himself in the lives of others. “Moving...Carrère’s prose is precise and measured...Through interviews with friends and relatives of both families, he creates powerful portraits that celebrate ordinary lives.”—The New Yorker “You begin this memoir thinking it will be about one thing, and it turns into something else altogether—a book at once more ordinary and more extraordinary than any first impressions might allow.”—The New York Times
Author: Joshua Fields Millburn Publisher: Celadon Books ISBN: 1250236495 Category : Self-Help Languages : en Pages : 288
Book Description
**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** "The Minimalists show you how to disconnect from our conditioned material state and reconnect to our true essence: love people and use things. This is not a book about how to live with less, but about how to live more deeply and more fully." —Jay Shetty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Like a Monk AS SEEN ON THE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARIES MINIMALISM & LESS IS NOW How might your life be better with less? Imagine a life with less: less stuff, less clutter, less stress and debt and discontent—a life with fewer distractions. Now, imagine a life with more: more time, more meaningful relationships, more growth and contribution and contentment—a life of passion, unencumbered by the trappings of the chaotic world around you. What you’re imagining is an intentional life. And to get there, you’ll have to let go of some clutter that’s in the way. In Love People, Use Things, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus move past simple decluttering to show how minimalism makes room to reevaluate and heal the seven essential relationships in our lives: stuff, truth, self, money, values, creativity, and people. They use their own experiences—and those of the people they have met along the minimalist journey—to provide a template for how to live a fuller, more meaningful life. Because once you have less, you can make room for the right kind of more.
Author: Paul Quenon
Author: Paul Quenon
Author: Judith Valente
Author: Abraham Flexner
Author: Bertrand Russell
Author: Paul Quenon, OCSO
Author: Joshua Isard
Author: Gregory K. Hillis
Author: Emmanuel Carrère
Author: Joshua Fields Millburn
Author: William Morris