“Everything I know about a loving God I learned from someone else. Whether I read it, overheard it, or spied it in action, it was wisdom passed on to me. As the African proverb says, ‘You don’t need to be tall to see the moon.’ Just stand where you are. Sooner or later the moon will appear. Sooner or later I’ll see the God in you.” – Rosemary Cunningham
Several weeks after September 11, the magazine Spirituality and Health gathered submissions from its readers to create a piece on ways to nourish your soul. Readers were invited to reflect on their daily lives and to share the simple actions that nourished them. The magazine asked, “How do you feed your soul? Have you done something spontaneous on a particular occasion? Or do you have a daily ritual that deepens your connection to your essential self, to the world, and to God?”
Responses came via e-mail from all over the world and many of them became a magazine article. Fifty of those responses are now contained in the book Fifty Ways to Feed Your Soul, edited by Rosemary Cunningham.
At 80 pages long, this small hardback book features sepia color photographs and fifty ideas and practices that have brought some measure of comfort, connectedness, and clarity to a sometimes chaotic world. Here are a few of the nourishing tips you’ll find in this book:
Create Your Own Prayer Book
“I use a black-paper spiral notebook and cut out pictures from nature magazines of peaceful scenes to create my own inspirational prayer book. When I come across a wonderful quotation or prayer I like, I copy it into my book with silver, gold, or milky-gel colored pens and paste a nature scene across from it. Just leafing through my personal prayer book calms me and gives me courage to face my day.” – R. Jane Williams, Pennsylvania
Live in the Middle
“I carry two little strips of paper, one in my left pocket and one in my right. My rabbi gave them to me around the time of Yom Kippur. On one is written, ‘For my sake the universe was created’, on the other, ‘I am but dust.” Somehow I manage to say in the middle.” – Gale Maleskey
Catch the Enthusiasm
“I nourish my soul by watching my three-year-old daughter eat. When something she’s eating is delicious, my heart actually quivers. Her enthusiasm for life and sustenance is contagious.” – Viva Delgado, California
Fifty Ways to Feed Your Soul provides practical and gentle ways to feed your spirit, and these ideas will surely inspire dozens more. This slim volume of treasures would make a lovely gift for someone—especially if that someone is you.
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