How the Light Gets in: Writing as a Spiritual Practice
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"'When I begin to write, I open myself and wait. And when I turn toward an inner spiritual awareness, I open myself and wait.' With that insight, Pat Schneider invites readers to contemplate their lives through spiritual observation and exploratory writing. In seventeen concise thematic chapters that include meditations on topics such as fear, prayer, forgiveness, social justice, and death, How the Light Gets In gracefully guides readers through the philosophical and spiritual questions that face everyone in the course of meeting life's challenges. Praised as a 'fuse lighter' by author Julia Cameron and 'the wisest teacher of writing I know' by the celebrated writing guru Peter Elbow, Pat Schneider has lived a life of writing and teaching, passion and compassion. With How the Light Gets In, she delves beyond the typical 'how-to's' of writing to offer an extended rumination on two inner paths, and how they can run as one. Schneider's book is distinct from the many others in the popular spirituality and creative writing genre by virtue of its approach, using one's lived experience--including the experience of writing--as a springboard for expressing the often ineffable events that define everyday life. Her belief that writing about one's own life leads to greater consciousness, satisfaction, and wisdom energizes the book and carries the reader elegantly through difficult topics. As Schneider writes, 'All of us live in relation to mystery, and becoming conscious of that relationship can be a beginning point for a spiritual practice--whether we experience mystery in nature, in ecstatic love, in the eyes of our children, our friends, the animals we love, or in more strange experiences of intuition, synchronicity, or prescience.'"--Provided by publisher.
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Pat Schneider has been deeply involved in spirituality since college, and she's led writing groups for many years. This book is the culmination of her work with the intersection between writing and spirituality.
Quotes from the book:
Writing is for me the surest way to find out where I am and to open the gate to where I might go next.
Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 7). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
Although my understanding of spirituality has changed throughout my life, the central experience has not changed: There has been for me a deep and a continual sense of presence, and there have been experiences of meeting, or encounter, with that presence.
Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 10). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
Although my understanding of spirituality has changed throughout my life, the central experience has not changed: There has been for me a deep and a continual sense of presence, and there have been experiences of meeting, or encounter, with that presence.
Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 10). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
When we write deeply—that is, when we write what we know and do not know we know—we encounter mystery. Similarly, when we pray deeply, we encounter mystery.
Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (pp. 10-11). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
Putting words onto paper—when it is done as an honest act of search or connection, rather than as an act of manipulation, performance, self-aggrandizement or self-protection—is a holy act.
Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 15). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
Meister Eckardt says, “The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which [God] sees me.”
Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 16). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
In our writing practice, though, I teach my workshop members that the open sesame into writing is almost always a concrete image, almost never a general idea.
Schneider, Pat. How the Light Gets In (p. 57). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
