ONE Book? (Week-end Assignment #8)

I cannot choose an only one, 

Not in the rain, not in the sun.

There's not one book describing me --                                                                  

But I'm impressed; I'm down to three!

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee:

If you want to know about my childhood, Scout Finch is your girl.  I lived outside, not in, the small, sleepy town, and my cohorts were my brothers Kevin and David, rather than Jem and Dill, but everything else is about the same.  Oh -- and we rode bikes past our version of Boo Radley's house.  It would have been too far to reach curled up inside a tire.

Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris:

If you want to know about my spiritual life, start here.  She explains it all more lyrically than I ever could.  (Short version: disaffected Protestant finds Mystery and Spirit in the 1,500-year-old tradition of the Benedictines.)

The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer:

And if you want to know about some of my all-encompassing goals for my work (and entire) life, Parker Palmer wrote the book in 1998.  It's not a how-to methodology book or a theoretical book or a book about braving the wilds of certain types of challenging classrooms. It's about being an authentic person.  It's about identity, integrity, and community, and is, therefore, applicable to any profession.  He could have called it The Courage To Live.

Walked: 3 miles.

Walked this past week: 24 miles.