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| The Spiral Staircase |
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Book |
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04 January, 2005 |
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Perennial |
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| Description |
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Karen Armstrong speaks to the troubling years following her decision to leave the life of a Roman Catholic nun and join the secular world in 1969. What makes The Spiral Staircase: My Climb out of Darkness especially fascinating is that Armstrong already wrote about this era once--only it was a disastrous book. It was too soon for her to understand how these dark, struggling years influenced her spiritual development, and she was too immature to protect herself from being be bullied by the publishing world. As a result, she agreed to portray herself only in as "positive and lively a light as possible"--a mandate that gave her permission to deny the truth of her pain and falsify her inner experience. The inspiration for this new approach comes from TS Eliots Ash Wednesday, a series of six poems that speak to the process of spiritual recovery. Eliot metaphorically climbs a spiral staircase in these poems---turning again and again to what he does not want to see as he slowly makes progress toward the light. In revisiting her spiral climb out of her dark night of the soul, Armstrong gives readers a stunningly poignant account about the nature of spiritual growth. Upon leaving the convent, Armstrong grapples with the grief of her abandoned path and the uncertainty of her place in the world. On top of this angst, Armstrong spent years suffering from undiagnosed temporal lobe epilepsy, causing her to have frequent blackout lapses in memory and disturbing hallucinations---crippling symptoms that her psychiatrist adamantly attributed to Armstrongs denial of her femininity and sexuality. The details of this narrative may be specific to Armstrongs life, but the meaning she makes of her spiral ascent makes this a universally relevant story. All readers can glean inspiration from her insights into the nature of surrender and the possibilities of finding solace in the absence of hope. Armstrong shows us why spiritual wisdom is often a seasoned gift--no matter how much we strive for understanding, we cant force profound insights to occur simply because our publisher is waiting for them. With her elegant, humble and brave voice, she inspires readers to willingly turn our attention toward our false identities and vigilantly defended beliefs in order to better see the truth and vulnerability of our existence. Herein lies the staircase we can climb to enlightenment. --Gail Hudson, Amazon.com |
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Reviews >> |
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Up the Down Staircase
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This book is amazing! Bel Kaufman shows the problems of inner-city schools and the teachers who work there, while keeping with the light of subtle humor. It is easy to read, in that the format leaves room for breaks (the chapters are short). I would recommend this book to anyone, whether you are a t..
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The Spiral Staircase : My Climb Out of Darkness
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"I have decided to try again", Karen Armstrong writes at the beginning of The Spiral Staircase, in explaining why she is telling her life story for a second time, 20 years after doing so in Beginning the World. "We should probably all pause to confront our past from time to time, because it changes its meaning as our circumstances alter." Thats a clue to the sort of open-minded and intensive inquiry that Armstrong is capable of, which has made her, in those 20 years, a bestselling ..
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Up the Down Staircase
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This book is amazing! Bel Kaufman shows the problems of inner-city schools and the teachers who work there, while keeping with the light of subtle humor. It is easy to read, in that the format leaves room for breaks (the chapters are short). I would recommend this book to anyone, whether you are a t..
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Spiral Staircase
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"I have decided to try again", Karen Armstrong writes at the beginning of The Spiral Staircase, in explaining why she is telling her life story for a second time, 20 years after doing so in Beginning the World. "We should probably all pause to confront our past from time to time, because it changes its meaning as our circumstances alter." Thats a clue to the sort of open-minded and intensive inquiry that Armstrong is capable of, which has made her, in those 20 years, a bestselling ..
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