{"id":311,"date":"2010-02-28T20:15:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T01:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/?p=311"},"modified":"2010-02-28T20:15:46","modified_gmt":"2010-03-01T01:15:46","slug":"march-is-biography-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simplykaren.org\/wordpress\/2010\/02\/28\/march-is-biography-month\/","title":{"rendered":"March is Biography Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s the bad news: I have fallen behind on the 75 book challenge by about two books.\u00a0 I’m up to 10 but it seemed to take a long time to get through Spirituality for Our Global Community,<\/a> a choice for my book group.<\/p>\n

The prose was oddly stilted and while I’m not sure I didn’t agree with much of what he had to say, the book just didn’t inspire me to action.\u00a0 He suggested a particular theological base for global community but didn’t offer much in the way of how we might actually get there beyond a vague idea that it involved getting rid of most contemporary religions, or at least all their metaphysical aspects.\u00a0 Religion would become more cultural with no insistence on truth. \u00a0 He was a little too rational for me and seemed to dismiss mystical experiences as simply figments of the imagination.\u00a0 I just had this vision of a secular humanist world, stripped of culture diversity.<\/p>\n

In addition, he seemed to paint the world in broad, black and white strokes with many unsubstantiated facts about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket, encouraged along by organized religion.\u00a0\u00a0 But I quickly tired of being referred to as “dear reader” when he told me how, “everyone knows” and “it’s a fact ” when indeed I wasn’t sure that was so.\u00a0 In addition, he suggests that while he encourages you to think about what he says, if you ultimately don’t agree you are a naysayer and a relativist who doesn’t recognize truth when you see it staring you in the face.<\/p>\n

I found it hard to read but I finished it and now need to get caught up.\u00a0 I have an ambitious reading list for March.\u00a0 All biographies and all for my book group which meets at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Our group has been together for some time and we’re exploring new ways for choosing books.\u00a0 So, for next month, we’ve agreed to read a biography that focused on spirituality, peace or social justice.\u00a0 I am taking a broad view of that and in the interest of getting more serious about my reading, I pulled five biographies off the shelf:<\/p>\n