"Reader's Digest Atlas of the Bible"

Original title: "Armchair Romp through the Holy Land"

Copyright © 2004 - 2007 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

In graduate school and independently for more than 30 years, I've studied religions other than my own, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Taoism, and others. This quest led to teaching World Religions in a small college, but I never looked much at my own tradition of Christianity until I hit retirement age and heard the flutter of angel wings.

“Why,” you ask, “didn’t you just pick up a copy of the New Testament, or the entire Christian Bible, and read it straight through?” Well, over the years I tried several times to read the Bible but never made it all the way. The narrative jumps confusingly around. I’d get bogged down in “begats.” And there was just so much I didn’t understand. Then I found the Reader's Digest Atlas of the Bible.

Atlas benefited from the Digest's high editorial standards and from the editorial leadership of Joseph Gardner, as reliable, unbiased, and canny an editor as any I know. Readers of Atlas can be confident they’re getting an impartial retelling of what’s in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. And though an army of scholars helped create Atlas, it was written for the general reader in simple language clear as glass.

In addition to the text, I'm attracted to the book’s colorful graphics on almost every page. Atlas does not just roll out dozens of maps but also puts all those ancient names and places into context. Sure, it explains the geography, history, and stories of the Bible, but it also probes deeper and wider, telling readers where the ancients lived and traveled, what they thought and looked like, even what they ate and wore.

Whether your background is Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, Atlas shows you where the momentous events described in your holy books took place and under what conditions.

Take the story of Paul. I grew up in an Episcopal church (later, I converted to Roman Catholicism)where I heard something about Paul every Sunday but didn’t have a clue who Paul was or why the rector was obsessed with him. Paul turns out to be a major figure in that key interval between the death of Jesus and the establishment of Christianity as a distinct religion. Atlas explains who Paul was, provides maps of his travels, and shows readers in a picture essay a bit of what his world looked like.

Another way you can use this book is to help plan an exciting trip to the Middle East and the Holy Land. These days, that part of the world is a little too exciting for me. I prefer an armchair romp with Atlas as my guide.

Although the Digest published Atlas in 1981 and the book is now out of print, it is still widely available not only through online booksellers but also at public libraries where a copy is probably available to borrow right now, free of charge.

Islam for Non-Muslims

Previous Book Reviews have discussed “Buddhism for Non-Buddhists” and “Hinduism for Non-Hindus.” I delayed writing “Islam for Non-Muslims” because I did not want to recommend an introductory book on Islam, one of the world’s great religions, primarily through the lens of 9/11 or the War on Terrorists. Newer introductory books frequently fall into that simplistic trap, engaging in religious or political blame games.

One way to escape the propaganda is to ignore introductions to Islam published or revised since 9/11. Earlier books offer better scholarship with less bias or outright fabrication. For that reason, I recommend Alfred Guillaume’s little book Islam, first published in 1954. The book was revised in 1956 and reissued many times thereafter, so copies are readily available through public libraries and used-book outlets.

The word Islam means “submission” or the total surrender of oneself to Allah (God). An adherent of Islam is known as a Muslim, meaning “one who submits to Allah.” Muslims number between 0.9 and 1.4 billion worldwide, making Islam the second largest religion after Christianity. Interestingly, only about 20 percent of Muslims are Arabs.

Islam is the predominant religion throughout the Middle East, as well as in parts of Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Large communities are also found in China, Western Europe, the Balkan Peninsula, and Russia.

Muslims believe that God revealed the Qur’an (Koran) to Muhammad (c.570–632 CE), God’s final prophet, and regard the Qur’an and the Sunnah (Muhammad’s words and deeds) as the fundamental sources of Islam. They do not consider Muhammad the founder of a new religion but as the restorer of the original monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets.

Almost all Muslims belong to one of two major denominations, Sunni or Shi’a. The schism developed in the late 7th century following disagreements over the religious and political leadership of the Muslim community. Roughly 85 percent of Muslims are currently Sunni, and 15 percent are Shi’a.

Adherents of Islam generally observe the Five Pillars, the five traditional duties of every Muslim: (1) Shahadah is the Muslim declaration of faith--there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet. (2) Salah is the requirement to pray five times a day. (3) Zakah, to practice alms-giving. (4) Sawm, to fast during the month of Ramadan. (5) Hajj, to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime.

Shi’a Muslims add three additional practices to the Five Pillars. The first is jihad (“struggle”), which has multiple meanings ranging from individual spiritual development to military conflict. The second practice calls for Muslims to live a virtuous life, and the third to refrain from vice and evil actions.

In addition to the pillars, Islamic law (Sharia) has developed a tradition of rulings that touch on virtually all aspects of life and society, encompassing everything from practical matters like dietary laws and banking to warfare.

As in all great world religions, Islam has an outer (or exoteric) practice and an inner (or esoteric) practice. For example, part of the Shahadah means “There is no god but God.” Exoterically, the phrase supports absolute monotheism. In the minority esoteric (mystical) view, Shahadah means that ultimately there is only one Absolute Reality; the underlying essence of life is eternal unity rather than the apparent separateness of things in the physical world.

I first met Islam face-to-face in graduate school through the study of Sufism, the mystic tradition. Sufism encompasses beliefs and practices dedicated to divine love and the cultivation of the heart. Through Sufi dancing, “whirling dervishes” report spiritual experiences of oneness with their partners and with God.

A particularly appealing Islamic practice is prostration—praying fives times a day while lying flat on one’s face. Prostration is an effective reminder of how hard we human beings must work to defeat our pride and selfishness and, instead, to cultivate submission to God. This struggle is INNER jihad. All of the world’s great religions agree that overcoming egoism is essential to a good life, a good death, and a good afterlife if there is one.

Pope Benedict XVI

In 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope and took the name Benedict XVI. Members of his fan club (http://popebenedictxvifanclub.com) and others shorten his name to “B16.” In only two-plus years, much has been written by B16 and about him. Books I can recommend to both Catholics and non-Catholics are discussed below.

Milestones: Memoirs: 1927 – 1977
Ignatius Press (1998).

If you intend to read only one book by or about the man who became B16, Milestones is that one (or first of several). In it, Ratzinger candidly answers the most important questions about himself. Prior to becoming Benedict, Ratzinger was a theologian and college professor—a deeply religious, scholarly, and ethical man. He opposed both the Nazis and the Communists, as did his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

Ratzinger cannot really be called “political,” much less politically conservative, in the ways secular Leftists mean these terms. Benedict’s view is that change should flow not FROM society TO the church but rather FROM the church TO society. His concerns are theological and religious, not political. His view and that of many of his papal predecessors is that the Catholic Church should not be flung this way and that by the constantly changing views, whims, and fads of society regardless of how popular these views might temporarily seem. Milestones is a superb introduction to the scholar now pope, whether or not you’re religious, Catholic, atheist, conservative, or liberal.

Here’s what Cardinal John O’Connor, archbishop of New York, wrote about Milestones: “Here is Cardinal Ratzinger at his most surprising. Who imagines him a teenager risking his life escaping a Nazi forced-labor camp? Or a doctoral candidate shattered by rejection of his dissertation? Or a priest telling of ‘the sufferings necessary for the priestly ministry . . . those dark nights that alone can give full shape to the radical assent a priest must give? Milestones, rich with theological insights as are all his works, gives us finally Ratzinger the person. He is a joy to meet.”

“The Ratzinger Report”
Ignatius Press (1985).

Before Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict, he gave three in-depth interviews. All three interviews became best-selling books: The Ratzinger Report (1985), Salt of the Earth (1997), and God and the World: Believing and Living in Our Time (2002). All three books are profound, but the first is perhaps the best one for general readers. In The Ratzinger Report, the future pope speaks candidly and forcefully about the state of the Church in the post-Vatican II era. The roots of the crisis troubling Catholics in the 42 years since the Council ended are analyzed with forthright clarity. The result is an uncompromising picture of the dangers threatening the faith. Ratzinger’s observations about Vatican II are as hopeful and balanced as they are clear-sighted.

The secular author of "Salt of the Earth" converted to Catholicism after interviewing Ratzinger.

Benedict XVI: The Man Who Was Ratzinger, by Michael S. Rose.
Spense Publishing (October, 2005).

Of all the biographies of Benedict I’ve read, this one rises to the top with a single important caveat: Although Rose agrees that B16 is not conventionally political, he nonetheless succumbs to describing Benedict as a political conservative. But because Rose is a conservative himself, I chose his biography rather than one of the many others written by secular Leftists because they don’t have a clue what B16 represents to the world and to the world’s 1.1 billion baptized Catholics.

Rose says Ratzinger is the most imposing intellectual ever to assume the papacy. In two decades as the chief guardian of Catholic doctrine, Ratzinger addressed every controversy facing the Church: clerical sex abuse, feminism, religious pluralism, sexual revolution and the culture of death, secularism, relativism, and militant Islam. This uncommonly rich record, Rose avers, promises a new Counter-Reformation, purifying and reorienting the Catholic Church.

While Benedict will undoubtedly follow John Paul’s fundamental path, Rose predicts critical departures could enable B16 to become a powerful unifying force, reviving the Church and reawakening the West’s Christian identity in its moment of crisis.

How to Be a (Bad) Birdwatcher

Before reading this book when anyone asked if I’m a birdwatcher, I said no. While reading it, however, I discovered I’m actually a bad birdwatcher. This realization produced a double bind because a bad birdwatcher, according to author Simon Barnes, is really a good birdwatcher—that is, someone who enjoys watching and listening to birds but does it without frantically searching for names in bird guides and without taking field notes.

I’d probably not have read a book about birdwatching with a wussy title like How to Be a Good Birdwatcher, but a book urging BAD birdwatching is another story. For the first 100 to 150 pages, I interrupted the reading only with reluctance. The final 50 to 100 pages were often repetitive and boring, but in the end every page was essential preparation for the book’s four final emotional pages.

All in all How to Be a (Bad) Birdwatcher (2005) is a good read. It revved my youthful interest in ogling birds and other animals, then devouring books now called masterpieces of natural history such as Osa Johnson’s I Married Adventure (1940), Rachel Carson’s best book by a nautical mile The Sea around Us (1951), J. A. Hunter’s Hunter (1952), Thomas Helm’s Shark (1961), and Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf (1963). All of these outdoor classics are still available to borrow through your public library or to purchase through bookfinder.com.

So I’m grateful to Simon Barnes, a globe-trotting sportswriter for The Times of London, for writing this intro to birdwatching. He eschews the faddish term birding apparently because there is no birding without birdwatching. Some of his countrymen, however, award the book, which has no illustrations, just two stars, as evidenced by the following excerpts from reviews posted to Amazon.co.uk:

“Beautifully written. Part autobiography, part philosophy, part user manual, part call to arms. . . .”

“How to be a bad author. This is one of the most annoying books I have ever started to read—I packed it in about halfway through. A litmus test for hobbyist authors is ‘Would you want to join this person in the activity that is written about?’ In this case, how would you like to go birding with Barnes? Answer—not at all.”

“How to be a bad author. Actually, the book isn’t that bad. It’s just that Barnes has this awful patronising style that makes me want to punch him. The subject matter is quite interesting, though I’d have appreciated more about birds and less about Barnes.”

“If you are hesitating about buying this book—don’t! This is a life-enriching book. . . . If you are already interested in birds it will open doors and overcome hurdles. . . . If you don’t feel you are at all interested in birds this book may change all that.”

“Feathered Fun. Simon Barnes’s enthusiasm . . . is highly infectious, whether or not you have ever wanted to, or even thought about, birdwatching. It is more about taking pleasure from, and wondering about, the living world around us than a guide to any specific birds. . . . Its style is conversational and witty, observant and full of insight. . . . It raises one’s awareness of the mystery of nature and rejoices in it. . . . No prior knowledge of the avian world is needed to derive intense enjoyment from this magically humourous little book.”

Oldie but Goodie

Here’s my experience of two books about cats—one new but dull, the other one old but lively.

Cats 24/7: Extraordinary Photographs of Wonderful Cats was “created,” the book brags, by Rick Smolan and David Elliot Cohen. It was published in 2005 by Chronicle Books and sold for $24.95.

A special page says “this project was made possible through the generosity of the following companies: Purina, Webshots, Lexar, Adobe, Mirra, Google, jetBlue Airways, and eBay.” These names were not printed in book type; rather, company logotypes were used, a narcissistic indulgence that added plenty to the cost but nothing to the quality.

Michael Capuzzo wrote the introduction and, amazingly, called it “The Littlest Lion,” which is so prosaic, it merits no further comment. The rest of his piece never gets beyond stringing together additional clichés such as the following:

“The family cat [is] the contented icon of the sunny household.” That line will cloud the day of any intelligent reader. “Worshipped by the Egyptians some 3,000 years ago, the cat/god cult was so powerful that if a man killed a cat, he was sentenced to death.” Only a Martian is unfamiliar with that stale fact. Nor does Capuzzo fail to include the most stultifying stereotype of all: Women love cats and men hate them.

The photographs in this book, which runs 192 pages and measures an unwieldly 9.25 by 11.5 inches, are lavishly printed in color on heavy stock. After all, the companies that sponsored the project have very deep pockets. But the photographs are pretentious, repetitious, and boring. The cats pictured all have the same deadpan expression and lack of personality on their empty faces.

When I worked in publishing, professional photographers said “all photographs of cats are crap” and no self-respecting publisher would buy them. In the sixties and seventies, we did not anticipate high tech companies run by computer geeks ignorant of books but with zillions of dollars to fling at self-indulgent projects.

The other book about cats—the good one—I found in my mother-in-law’s bookcase. Elizabeth loves cats and, besides living with cats (no one “owns” them), collects catstuff and books about them, including “The Poetry of Cats,” which I recommend highly.

Originally published in 1974 and edited by Samuel Carr, this 96-page oldie (ISBN 1-85152-047-3) collects some of the best poems and illustrations ever created about these treasured friends and sells even today for less than $10 from used-book outlets.

More than 50 poems are included by great writers, including T. S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, John Keats, Edward Lear, A. L. Rowse, Christopher Smart, Stevie Smith, William Wordsworth, W. B. Yeats, and others.

The book also reproduces scores of drawings and paintings by famous artists and illustrators such as Caldicott, Cruikshank, Hogarth, Lear, Manet, Picasso, and Renoir. Unlike the cats in the first book, the cats pictured here reflect many feline moods: comic, aristocratic, lazy, cunning, fierce, inscrutable.

The book’s illustrations evoke a range of personalities and moods precisely because they are NOT photographs. They, like the poems, are the creations of talented men and women who loved cats, understood them, and were able to render special fleeting moments, feelings, and interactions in one-of-a-kind illustrations. This creativity was identified and separated from the usual trash published about cats and then organized into a neat little book through the developed taste, sensibility, and creativity of the book’s editor, Samuel Carr.

Why don’t we see more high-quality books—as well as films and TV programs—from the major media? Because consumers appear to prefer the latest genre fiction, loaded with mechanical sex and violence. There’s so little demand for excellence, there’s no money in reproducing it. So media giants no longer value creativity and no longer seek it out. Worst of all, they may no longer even recognize it when they do see it.

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French Foreign Legion

If you’re retired military or interested in military history, you might like to pick up a book on the French Foreign Legion. Three Legion titles are suggested below: a classic novel and two nonfiction works, one written by the only woman ever to serve in the Legion.

Although this branch of the French army has lost many important battles, legionnaires have distinguished themselves through fierce, kill-or-be-killed individual combat. Recruits must be 18 to 40 years of age, pass a strict physical exam, and commit to five years’ service. Seven out of ten enlistees are rejected.

Although the Legion does not knowingly accept either French citizens or criminals, it does permit service under a false name. Some men join to escape political punishment, others to seek adventure, still others to avoid punishment for crime. Doctors, lawyers, merchants, and priests—all have served with anonymous distinction. Whatever their life stories and despite labels such as jobless, homeless, and loveless, legionnaires rank among the best soldiers in the world.

Discipline is very harsh, but the Legion never lacks recruits. More than 350,000 have served. Today, the active force numbers about 8,000. Their headquarters is located in Aubagne, France, near Marseilles.

King Louis Philippe created the Legion in 1831 for service outside France. The unit’s flag then, as now, was the tricolor. Its insignia is a small red hand grenade shooting seven flames; you can see it on the legionnaire’s classic cap, called a képi.

The Legion has served most frequently in colonial wars. But it has also fought in all of France's major military campaigns:

During World War I (1914–1918), about 45,000 fought against Germany. Of these, nearly 31,000 were killed, wounded, or missing in action—a casualty rate of 69 percent.

During World War II (1939–1945), legionnaires fought both Japan and Germany, part of the time under General Charles de Gaulle.

After World War II, the Legion continued as a haven for political refugees and former soldiers, particularly Germans. In Indochina from 1946 to 1954, the Legion fought Communist rebels and sparked the final heroic resistance at Dien Bien Phu.

After the independence of Algeria in 1962, most Legion units left Africa. In 1991, legionnaires in Saudi Arabia joined other United Nations’ forces to defeat Iraq in the Persian Gulf War. Today, most legionnaires are stationed in France or the Pacific islands controlled by France.

Suggestions for a least Legion library include the following:

• Percival Christopher Wren, Beau Geste (1924). If you’re new to the Legion, this favorite novel of men and boys might be where to start. Three English brothers join the Legion, battle both a sadistic sergeant and violent Arabs in North Africa, and unravel the mystery of a stolen jewel—the Blue Water sapphire.

• Simon Murray, Legionnaire: Five Years in the French Foreign Legion (2006). A proper Englishman enlists at 19 and keeps a diary (1960–1965). His chronicle shows the Legion pushing men to their breaking point and beyond. In North African training camps, brutal officers turn recruits into cold-blooded killers. Yet Murray not only survives but also thrives, for he shares one vital trait with his hard comrades—a determination never to surrender.

• Susan Travers, with Wendy Holden, Tomorrow to Be Brave (2000). During World War II, Travers trades a life of English privilege for a life of international adventure. In North Africa, she loves the general who commands both the Foreign Legion and the Free French, and she leads a Legion convoy to freedom after being surrounded and outnumbered by Rommel and his tanks. Later, she becomes an officer, the only woman ever to serve officially in the Legion. In 2000 she writes this book, her autobiography, and in 2003 she dies at the age of 94. Her many honors for bravery include the Military Medal and the Légion d’Honneur.

Gift of a Lifetime

Several excellent books have been published in recent years intended to help seniors and others who wish to give friends and loved ones their life stories in the form of an autobiography or memoir. An “autobiography” is a nonfiction narrative of a person’s entire life to date; a “memoir” is a nonfiction account of an interesting or important theme or period in a person’s life.

Following are a few of the most popular guides to this crowded genre:
• Writing about Your Life, by William Zinsser.
• How to Write Your Own Life Story: The Classic Guide for the Nonprofessional Writer, by Lois Daniel.
• Living Legacies: How to Write, Illustrate, and Share Your Life Stories, by Duane Elgin and Coleen Ledrew.
• Writing the Stories of Your Life: How to Turn Memories into Memoir, by Elsa McKeithan.

The best way to choose which guide to read is to devote a few minutes looking through each of them to see which ones rise above the level of mere common sense. After all, you don’t have to be Shakespeare to write your autobiography, nor does it have to be any set length. Some people can sum up their lives in a few delightful pages; others may write an entire book.

You could begin writing simply by starting at the beginning–which could be your birth, or a time long before your birth or long after it–then continue simply by proceeding chronologically, using your life’s high points as frames for your thoughts and feelings as you remember them period by period up to the present day.

Instead of turning the writing into drudgery, take it easy, describe what comes naturally and immediately to mind without struggle, such as what made you laugh or cry; your childhood and youth; people you loved and loathed; your education, career, hobbies; your adventures, beliefs, dreams, fantasies, reflections, successes, failures.

Try not to write only about events, people, and places outside yourself. Get inside your own mind and heart and lay bare your most private thoughts and feelings, exploring the reasons WHY you acted as you did at different times and places. Don’t forget to write something about your spiritual or religious life, or lack of it, including your thoughts about death and the afterlife.

A memoir would focus these techniques on a special time or theme in your life, such as your service to church, temple, nation, or hometown through the military or other voluntary activity.

The value of an autobiography lies not in whether it gets published or makes a buck. A commercial publisher would probably not publish an autobiography written by someone neither famous nor infamous. But who cares? An autobiography is a lot more valuable than that because from the moment of creation it becomes a priceless family heirloom to be passed from generation to generation–a form of eternal life.

If you wish, you can self-publish your life story by making photocopies, by taking it to a local printer, or by working with an inexpensive print-on-demand (POD) publisher on the Internet. Self-publishing guarantees you will never face the pain of a publisher’s rejection slip. For a comparative database of POD publishers, see http://www.dehanna.com/database.htm; scroll down for the information.

An autobiography or memoir is something you write then give away to those you love who also love you. If you die before they do, your writing will be a way for them to visit you beyond the grave. But even while you’re still alive, your life story is guaranteed to become an instant Best Seller–within your own circle of family and friends.

This article is a much revised version of an article that appeared first in the October 2004 issue of Northwest Prime Time (Seattle) and is reproduced with permission.

Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

Gospel of Thomas

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

In 1945, twelve ancient books were found sealed in a jar at the base of a cliff near Nag Hammadi in upper Egypt. One of these 12 books–the Gospel of Thomas–was perhaps the greatest religious archaeological discovery of the 20th Century for the light it sheds on the origins of Christianity.

Unlike the New Testament gospels (Mark, Luke, Matthew, John), Thomas does not present a narrative of Jesus’ life. Instead, it comprises more than 100 sayings attributed to Jesus. An annotated version of Thomas from Skylight Paths (www.skylightpaths.com) makes the aphoristic sayings understandable even if readers have no previous knowledge of early Christian history or thought.

Skylight’s 2002 edition (ISBN: 1-893361-45-4) was translated from the Coptic and annotated by Stevan Davies, professor of religious studies at College Misericordia in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Davies has studied the Gospel of Thomas for more than 20 years. His other publications include the book The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Wisdom.

This edition of Thomas has a foreword by Andrew Harvey which is so bad I suggest you don’t waste time reading it. His writing is hopelessly mired in the most obnoxious sort of leftwing political bias. Instead, read Davies’s introduction and annotations. Davies explains how scholars put the gospel through rigorous scientific dating tests and determined it is a genuine first-century document, contemporaneous with or perhaps even earlier than the New Testament gospels.

Thomas, of course, was one of the 12 apostles of Jesus. He has been popularly called both Doubting Thomas and Thomas the Believer, depending on which events are emphasized. After Jesus’ death, Paul became the primary Christian missionary to the West and, according to some sources, Thomas became the missionary to the East. Later, Thomas was made a saint recognized even in India. In Edessa, Greece, where Thomas’s remains are venerated, he is known as the Apostle of India.

Thomas’s gospel sends a much different message from the New Testament gospels, and some scholars say the difference explains why it was not included in the New Testament.

Absent from Thomas is any mention of Jesus in the context of virgin birth, miracles, crucifixion, or resurrection. The gospel does not deny these traditional Christian beliefs, it simply does not say anything about them, for reasons unknown. Thomas portrays Jesus as a wisdom-loving sage, not as God or son of God. Some scholars take these omissions to mean that orthodox interpretations of Jesus were added later and may not be accurate; other scholars disagree.

Some folks think that Christianity would be destroyed as a religion if the miracles about Jesus were not accepted as literally true–that is, no virgin birth, no crucifixion, no resurrection. But no one says Buddhism is not a great world religion because miracles are not embedded in the life story of Buddha.

Why should it be any different with Christianity? With or without miracles, the life of Jesus is worthy of emulation. Jesus led such an exemplary life, he became as close to divine as a human being can become, like Buddha and other great religious figures. With or without miracles, Christians could continue to benefit from Jesus' life and words as guides to daily living.

Although Thomas is silent on some of the major tenets of traditional Christianity, he does say many of the same things the New Testament gospels say, but in Thomas they’re given a different context.

In Thomas, for example, the Kingdom of Heaven is not something God, Jesus, or anybody else will give us at some future date. Rather, the Kingdom of Heaven has always existed and continues right here, right now. It is both up there and down here, both outside us–and inside us. Perhaps most important, the Kingdom of Heaven is the Divine that we can experience and know directly in ways that benefit ourselves and others without hurting or excluding anyone.

The Gospel of Thomas is more likely to be welcomed and read by mystics both inside and outside of Christianity than by traditional Christians because mysticism is concerned with approaches to God through practice and direct experience rather than solely through faith.

Thomas’s ideas about direct communion with God are compatible with the mystical teachings found at the core of all major world religions. They’re also compatible with the teachings of the New Thought Movement. This development within Protestantism coalesced in the 1800s, spread worldwide, and helped create two denominations represented in Olympia–Unity Church and the Center for Spiritual Awakening.

So if persons who reject Christianity because they do not believe what orthodox Christians claim about Jesus will take the short time needed to read this annotated Thomas, they may discover an approach to religion that is optimistic, practical, and surprisingly ecumenical.

Famous People on Aging

Collected by Jim Mahood

At some time or other most writers sound off on the subject of aging. Following are a few favorites:

“It’s boring for a 71-year-old broad to sing about how bad she wants it, even if it is true we frequently want it badly.” —Lena Horne.

“I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.” —Harry Hershfield.

“A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes.

“Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.” —Don Marquis.

“First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down.” —Leo Rosenberg.

“So, lively brisk old fellow, don’t let age get you down. White hairs or not, you can still be a lover.” —Goethe.

“Men may become old, but they never become good.” —Oscar Wilde.

“The only good thing about the decline of my memory is that it has brought me closer to my mother, for she and I now forget everything at the same time.” —Bill Cosby.

“Old age is a shipwreck.” —Charles de Gaulle.

“Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age. . . . A man of 50 looks as old as Santa Claus to a girl of 20.” —William Feather.

“Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.” —Bertolt Brecht.

“Wisdom doesn’t automatically come with old age. Nothing does—except wrinkles. It’s true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the first place.” —Abigail Van Buren.

“There is no old age. There is, as there always was, just you." —Carol Matthau.

“The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools.” —Doug Larson.

“Sure I’m for helping the elderly. I’m going to be old myself some day.” —Lillian Carter, in her 80s.

“I grow more intense as I age.” —Florida Scott-Maxwell.

“With age comes the inner, the higher life. Who would be forever young, to dwell always in externals?” —Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

“In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.” —Edith Wharton.

“A graceful and honorable old age is the childhood of immortality.” —Pindar.

This article was first published in the May, 2006, issue of The Thurston-Mason Senior News.

"A Primer of Freudian Psychology"

Review's original title: "Up with Freud, Down with Gossips"

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

Sigmund Freud was a pioneer in the study and treatment of mental illness, but interest in using the techniques of psychoanalysis, which he developed and wrote books about, has practically died out in the United States. Drug therapies have arisen to take the place of talk therapies, psychoanalysis among them. But the more apostles of later treatments despise and vilify Freud (1856 – 1939) and other talk therapists, the more convinced I become of the truth of Freud’s insights; drug treatment or no drug treatment, humans are as violent as ever.

We need more not fewer talk therapies, both secular and spiritual, just as we need more and better drug treatments. It’s time to resurrect Freud. Adults who have never been clients of a psychiatrist, psychologist, or psychoanalyst for more than a few sessions or who have never acquired through study a basic understanding of the principles of psychology, including those enunciated first by Freud, are likely crippled in human relationships. Ignorance of Freud’s defense mechanisms alone puts psychologically unaware persons at a big disadvantage.

Projection is the name Freud gave to one of the most important and socially useful defense mechanisms. Projection in psychology means attributing one’s own traits, attitudes, or unconscious motivations and desires to other persons.

It doesn’t take a lot of training to infer projection. For example, it’s easily identified in habitual gossips who talk about the inner character or condition of their victims without evidence to support their claims. I say “victims” because gossip is verbal violence.

X is a classic case, ripe for picking apart even by amateur Freudians. To start with, we know X despises homosexuals because he talks about them so much and because what he says about them is always negative. We also know X does not like Y. One day, X informs Z that Y is homosexual. When Z asks why X claims Y is homosexual, X says “I just know,” or “I can tell by his voice,” or “I can tell just by looking at him,” or other nonsense.

X usually gossips behind his victims’ backs and out of their hearing, so they can’t defend themselves. Gossip is not only violent but also cowardly.

If Z is familiar with Freud’s writings about projection, Z will immediately suspect that X, the accuser, is an unconscious homosexual and that Y, the victim, could be anything. To free X from the power of his destructive and unconscious impulses, X probably needs a good talk therapist, not drugs. The least X could expect from Freud or any good therapist is an understanding of the importance of defense mechanisms, such as projection, in everyday life.

Several good books introduce the life and thought of Sigmund Freud. At the top of my list is Calvin S. Hall’s A Primer of Freudian Psychology (1954). Chapter 4, “The Development of Personality,” includes a clear overview of the defense mechanisms in normal people: repression, projection, reaction formation, fixation, regression. The remaining chapters explore Freud’s other personality theories.

If Hall’s book awakens your interest in Freud, take a look at two books written by Freud himself: Interpretation of Dreams and Psychopathology of Everyday Life. But rather than specialize in Freud, I suggest you move on to Carl Jung by reading Calvin Hall’s A Primer of Jungian Psychology (1973), coauthored with Vernon J. Nordby. Hall’s Freud is only 127 pages long; his Jung, only 142 pages. They are the best introductions I know to Freud and Jung.

If you’re new to psychology, you may never be the same after reading and thinking about Freud and Jung. You’ll be well on the way toward questioning and understanding who you are and why you feel as you do about yourself and others. It takes guts to understand and explore what lies behind—and beyond—human emotions and motivations.

Welcome to the island of psychological understanding. Once you start exploring the island, you will never paddle back out onto the sea of ignorance, assumption, and violence that surrounds it.

“The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.”

Original title: "He’s Baaaaaaaaack. . . ."

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

He made a fortune from his best-selling book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

He’s a personal adviser not only to the heads of three-quarters of all Fortune 500 companies but also to the presidents of Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay, and South Korea.

He’s a highly successful motivational and leadership speaker who commands $65,000 an appearance and is in such demand he accepts only 1 in 100 invitations to speak.

He’s a 73-year-old Mormon grandfather from Salt Lake City who shaves his head.

He attended Harvard Business School, began writing, and hit upon the idea of the following seven strategies for success:

1. Be proactive. “We are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose, based on principles and values rather than moods and conditions. Proactive people choose not to be victims or to blame others.”

2. Begin with the end in mind. “Individuals, families, and organizations shape their own future by first creating a mental vision for any project, large or small, personal or interpersonal.”

3. Put first things first. “Organize and execute your most important priorities. Whatever the circumstances, live and be driven by the principles you value most, not by the forces around you.”

4. Think win-win. “Think in terms of abundance and opportunity rather than scarcity and adversarial competition. Don’t think selfishly (win-lose) or like a martyr (lose-win). Think ‘we,’ not ‘me’.”

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. “When we listen with the intent to understand others, rather than the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship-building.”

6. Synergize. “Look for the third alternative—not my way, not your way, but a third way that is better than either of us would come up with individually. It’s the fruit of respecting and celebrating one another’s differences.”

7. Sharpen the saw. “We need constantly to renew ourselves in the four basic areas of life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual.”

After 15 years of success with his 7 habits, he decided the world needs an 8th, so he wrote an entire book about it called “The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness.”

Why an eighth habit? Because, he says, “we have moved from an industrial model into a knowledge-worker economy that needs a new habit.” There has been a shift so “profound and so pervasive and so impactful” it affects everybody’s lives. While, previously, workers were considered mere cogs in machines, and effectiveness was the goal, today, in the new information age, “everybody has become truly important.”

In a nutshell, he says “The Eighth Habit is about finding your voice—and inspiring others to find theirs. What people want is significance. They want their voices to be heard.”

He cites a group of downtrodden and disenfranchised janitors who are suddenly handed the power to manage themselves. “You know what they do? They find their voice and motivate themselves. You don’t have to hover over them or check up on them, and you have eliminated layers and layers of bureaucracy.”

To him, “rules, regulations, and bureaucracy are a prosthesis that stands in the place of trust.” You still need supervisers to “set up the conditions for empowerment,” but, essentially, “you’re making the janitors the leaders.”

He is, of course, Stephen R. Covey, whom some writers call “the American Socrates.”

“A Man, A Can, A Grill”

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

“Dude, this cookbook is for you,” Detroit News writes.

In the crowded field of recipe books, publishers scale nosebleed heights of oddity and innovation to surmount readers’ torpor. An example is David Joachim's A Man, A Can, A Grill.

On the rare occasions when guys are forced to cook, this book figures we want fast, simple, and healthy recipes featuring huge slabs of bloody meat, gobs of hot barbecue sauce, charcoal grills, and plenty of soda or beer—not a news bulletin, but still dead true for many persons, both male and female.

Most of the recipes in the book make use of at least one food guys can yank from a can. Sometimes cans figure other ways, too. The recipe for “Beer-Can Chicken” says to quaff half a can of beer, to punch a few extra holes in the top half, to hold the chicken upright with its butt facing down, and then to slide the chicken over the can, up the chicken’s you-know-what. During cooking, beer escapes from the holes in the can to keep the chicken moist and to flavor it from the inside out.

I liked almost everything about A Man, A Can, A Grill particularly the fact that instead of flimsy paper it’s lavishly printed four-color on 43 glossy book-boards, which guys can spill crap all over then wipe clean with a shop rag.

Produced by Men’sHealth, a division of Rodale, the largest independent book publisher in the United States, this book streamlines 50 recipes for great-tasting meals—each ready in minutes—and almost every recipe is spiced with humor.

Following are highlights from the book, which costs $15.95 at bookstores. Your local public library will lend you a copy for free.

• SMOKY JOE’s BIG, SPICY BURGERS boogie out of 1 3/4 pounds of extra-lean ground beef combined with a can of sloppy joe sauce, jalapenos, Worcestershire sauce, and an egg. Slap 6 patties on the grill with the lid shut but the vents open, for 5 to 6 minutes per side for medium, or 7 to 8 minutes per side for well-done. “If you like ’em rare, you’re on your own,” Joachim writes. Makes 6 burgers you’ll wolf in seconds. Each burger contains 384 calories (the book provides a nutrition breakdown for every recipe).

• LUCA BRAZI PIZZA shoots out of canned refrigerated pizza dough combined with a can of tuna, two cans of caponata (eggplant appetizer), and a cup of shredded low-fat mozzarella. Grills in 3 to 5 minutes and makes 2 medium pizzas.

• SPAM CORDON BLEU levitates out of 2 cans of SPAM combined with a can of chunk white chicken, a can of sour cream and onion Pringles, and a can of chicken gravy. You seal the Pringles in a ziplock bag that you “beat the hell out of,” before making a sort of crumbly Pringle sauce through which to “dredge the SPAM.” Grill for 6 to 8 minutes per side, “or until the outside is crunchy brown and the cheese is melted. Slop on the sauce.” Makes 8 servings.

You’ll also find these mouth-watering concoctions:

• Bad-Ass BBQ Chicken
• Big Bird with Bourbon Sauce (turkey)
• Bock-Bock Kabobs (chicken)
• Fungus-Amungus Burger (mushrooms for vegans)
• Nutty Bovine on the Barbie (beef)
• Oktoberfest Pig-Out
• Spicy Bangkok Birdies (chicken)
• Tex-Mex Longhorn
• Zorro’s Swordfish Tacos.

A Man, A Can, a Grill is the third volume in a series by David Joachim aimed at attracting males who hate to cook. The first two titles are A Man, A Can, A Plan and A Man, A Can, A Microwave. But now you’ve gotta ’cuse me, dude. I’ve worked up a hell of an appetite, so I’m headin’ for the barbie.

"Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story about Brain Science"

Original title: "Gruesome but True"

Copyright © 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

Students of neurology and psychology will likely recognize the grisly tale of Phineas Gage, a railroad construction foreman with a hole in his head. Blasting rock with gunpowder while laying track in the Green Mountains of Vermont, something goes very wrong. A tamping rod is accidentally blasted through Phineas’s head, entering under his left cheekbone.

The iron rod weighs 13 pounds, measures 3 feet 7 inches long, and is 1 and 1/4 inches in diameter along most of its length, tapering to a sharp point at one end like a spear. From under the cheekbone, the pointy end passes behind Phineas’s left eye, through the front of his brain, and out the middle of his forehead just above the hairline and slightly left of center. It takes just a fraction of a second for the rod to crash completely through Phineas’s head and land with a clang 30 feet away.

Amazingly, Phineas is left alive. The blast throws him to the ground on his back, but by the time his men rush to his aid, he is sitting up and talking. Blood pours down his face as he discusses the accident. His men gently place him in an ox cart and take him to a physician. Phineas Gage is alive, but the person of Phineas Gage, the man everyone knew and loved, died instantly in the blast. Another Phineas Gage is born with a far less appealing personality.

In Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story about Brain Science, John Fleischman explores both the neurological and psychological dimensions of this famous accident that took place in 1848 before the birth of modern medicine and psychology. Fleischman’s book of 86 pages features lots of horrific photographs illustrating how and where the tamping rod passed through Phineas’s skull.

Fleischman relates how a local physician does his best to put Phineas’s head together again, but some of the bone is missing, leaving a hole in the top of his cranium under the scalp. Eventually Phineas returns to work but discovers his social skills gone. It becomes almost impossible for him to keep a job that involves much contact with other adults. Drifting from job to job, he keeps trying to find a niche until he discovers he’s good at working with children, horses, and dogs. He leaves the United States to work as a high-speed stagecoach driver in Chile.

More than a century passes before brain science evolves to the point of understanding what happened to Phineas at the instant his head exploded. Modern neurology reveals how lucky he was, for the rod narrowly missed vital centers in his brain, such as Broca’s area that controls the ability to speak and Wernicke’s area that controls speech recognition.

Phineas’s skull, his doctors’ meticulous notes, and the iron tamping rod, which became Phineas’s constant companion throughout the rest of his life, have proven useful to generations of scientists and researchers in various fields.

In the 1990s, Antonio and Hanna Damasio, husband-and-wife team brain researchers at the University of Iowa, used data collected from Phineas to test a theory for explaining certain types of emotional unpredictability. Using modern scientific and medical techniques, the Domasios built a computer image of Phineas’s long-gone brain to study the exact route of the tamping iron through it. Phineas’s reconstructed brain matches brain scans of patients who have cortex-tumor surgery followed by sociability problems like those of Phineas.

The Domasios credit Phineas for lending support to the theory that humans are “hard wired” to be sociable, for the tamping rod carried away part of Phineas’s left frontal lobe, where the “executive” functions—the abilities to predict, to decide, and to interact socially—are thought to be located.

After the 1848 accident, 11 years will pass before epilepsy, an effect of the blast, will kill Phineas at the age of only 37. But unlike most people, who are quickly forgotten after death, Phineas’s usefulness to science and medicine continue strong more than a century and a half later.

"Publishing a Blog with Blogger"

Original title: "Blogging through Cyberspace"

Copyright © 2005, 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

If you’re languishing on the fringes of the Internet, Publishing a Blog with Blogger by Elizabeth Castro is all the help you need to plunge directly into the blogosphere, or world of blogging, arguably the most important and popular Web development in recent years.

I’m no techie, but with Castro’s colorfully illustrated little volume, I built the blog you're reading now in less than 15 minutes to archive my book reviews after they’re published in the newspaper.

Creating an archive of previously published writing is not, of course, the usual purpose of a blog. The word blog is a contraction of Web log, and it means a log, journal, diary, or the like, so most blogs are built to share thoughts, experiences, and photographs with friends, relatives, and strangers. Imagine a form of communication that combines e-mail, personal letters, journals, diaries, and photo albums, and you’ve probably described most of the blogosphere.

Corporations and other organizations use blogs for team projects in order to communicate with one another and to archive their combined progress. Journalists use blogs as a way to broadcast news and opinions not carried by more traditional media. Photographers use blogs to exhibit their newest creations. You could blog a family newspaper, group letter, or photo album.

The advantages of building a blog at blogger.com are that it’s free, well-designed, and easy to use. But Blogger, which is a division of Google, is not the only site offering free blog hosting. Two others are http://www.blogstream.com and http://www.myblogsky.com. You don’t even need Castro’s book to build a rudimentary blog and hurl it into cyberspace, as the following easy steps show:

Navigate to a blog host such as http://www.blogger.com. Click “Create Your Blog Now.” Set up a Blogger account (user name, password, etc.). Choose a template. That’s all there is to it; your blog is built. You can start posting immediately, and your posts will be visible via the Internet anywhere in the world. As you probably know, posts are your content—your text or pictures.

Blogger.com does all the difficult work such as design the layout, insert HTML (the markup language used to create Web pages), organize your posts, and archive all of the nice Comments you expect to receive from visitors. The book, which is published by Peachpit Press (http://www.peachpit.com) out of Berkeley, California, will help you with additional steps and nuances.

For example, Castro tells you how to sign in and out of your blog, publish your first post, edit an existing post, save a draft, publish a draft, create Settings, link to another blog, add formatting, add a picture, delete a post, delete obscene and other unwanted Comments, turn on Word Verification to prevent Comment spam, and arrange for notification by e-mail every time a visitor Comments.

A problem with Castro’s book, which runs 127 pages, is that it doesn’t offer much help getting your url (your Internet address) into search engines other than Google. But it does explain other ways to get exposure such as by using your url as a signature line in e-mails and newsgroup postings.

You can save 10 percent by ordering Publishing a Blog with Blogger directly from the publisher for $11.69 at http://www.peachpit.com, or you can buy a copy for $12.99 at your favorite online or bricks-and-mortar bookstore. You might also like to read a brief but excellent history of the blogosphere in the Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogosphere).

If you set up a blog, please let me know by leaving your url as a Comment on this blog. Many thanks to the South Puget Sound Macintosh Users’ Group (http://spsmac.org) for asking me to present this topic at its October 2005 meeting.

This review was originally published in the December 2005 issue of The Thurston-Mason Senior News, Olympia, WA.

"The Washington Almanac"

Original title: "Are You a Fact Person?"

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

In the 6th grade I developed the irritating habit of spouting facts drawn from almanacs, atlases, dictionaries, directories, encyclopedias, glossaries, handbooks, indexes, manuals, registers, thesauri, and other reference materials. When fact persons become journalists, or even book reviewers, regrets are few.

One of the most attractive features of fact books is the option they provide of reading them anyway you please. Instead of starting at the beginning and plodding relentlessly on to pages 2, 3, and 4, you can dive directly into page 2601 of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, now in its 86th edition, with as much gusto and as little comprehension as you’d have by starting on page 1.

Reference books have come a long way since my addiction to them 55 years ago. Nowadays you need not rely on the Periodic Table of the Elements, geologic time charts, and National Geographic maps of Mongolia for a fact fix. Nowadays you can find much more colorful troves.

A lively one is The Washington Almanac: Facts about Washington by Andrea Jarvela. Published by WestWinds Press out of Portland, Oregon, the 240-page paperback discusses the state’s “regional history, nature, geography, economy, and peoples.” If the facts hyped on the book’s back cover don’t lure you into the text, you’re just not a bona fide fact person. Facts like the following:

Beacon Rock “is the biggest single rock in the world next to Gibraltar . . . Lake Washington Floating Bridge is the longest and heaviest floating structure in the world. . . . The full-scale replica of Stonehenge, not to mention the Teapot Gas Station in Zillah, [and] the statue of Lenin in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. . . .”

Although rodeos can be found throughout the state, “the majority are held in eastern Washington,” the almanac says. “The two best known are the Ellensburg Rodeo, held each Labor Day weekend, and the Omak Stampede, with its famous and controversial . . . suicide race. The race consists of 20 riders going hell-bent for leather down a steep embankment, fording the river, climbing back up the other side, and racing to the rodeo grounds.”

Facts about Olympia center on the city’s role as capital of the state and include its Korean War Veterans’ Memorial “built in 1993 on the East Campus across the footbridge from the State Capitol Visitor Center” and its Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial “built in 1987 on the hillside east of the Insurance Building.”

Under “Military,” the almanac provides this underappreciated fact: “In addition to active military, there are more than 600,000 veterans of the armed services in the state, the largest segment being Vietnam veterans.” The War on Terrorism has doubtless pushed the number much higher.

Crammed with text boxes, photos, tables, maps, drawings, and historical tidbits—all arranged in alphabetical order—this little gem is perfect to take along on a trip. You’ll find sections on where to find “Erratics,” which are colossal boulders left over from the Ice Age, and a warning about “Red Tide”: The water need not be red to kill you.

For colorful facts to spew about America's most Northwestern state, The Washington Almanac: Facts about Washington is my number one pick.

Ernest Hemingway: King of Manly Writers

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

“It wasn’t about anything, something about making punch, and then we started fighting and I slipped and he had me down kneeling on my chest and choking me with both hands like he was trying to kill me and all the time I was trying to get the knife out of my pocket to cut him loose.”

This line launches Ernest Hemingway’s “After the Storm” in his popular collection Winner Take Nothing, first published in 1933 but still fresh in 2005 and soon to be reissued for the umpteenth time.

Hemingway (also called Hem and Papa) sculpted first lines so packed with action and adventure they seize you by the throat and thrust you into the middle of an ongoing story—a sign you’re in the hands of an expert storyteller, in Hem’s case a great storyteller.

You remember Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), he was and remains the king of manly writers. In addition to Winner Take Nothing, his most famous short fiction, novels, and nonfiction include the following:

• In Our Time, 1924, short stories on war and bullfighting. Nick Adams, the central character, is Hemingway’s alter ego.

• The Sun Also Rises, 1926. Arguably Hem’s greatest novel, renders the Lost Generation of Americans who had fought in France during World War I then expatriated themselves.

• Men without Women, 1927, short masterpieces of description, dialogue, and atmosphere, including his most anthologized story “The Killers,” in which the focus is not the hired hit men but the effect on Nick Adams of the victim’s acceptance of his own violent end. The aura of impending doom will raise your hackles.

• A Farewell to Arms, 1929, one of the world’s most skillful novels about the tragedy and destruction of World War I, perhaps all wars: “You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you” (Chapter 41).

• Death in the Afternoon, 1932, nonfiction. Bullfighting up close and personal. “I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after” (Chapter 1).

• Green Hills of Africa, 1935, big game hunting. The book where Hem famously wrote, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn” (Chapter 1).

• To Have and Have Not, 1937, novel. During the Great Depression, Harry Morgan can’t fill his boat with big game fishermen, so he turns to smuggling Chinese immigrants and illegal liquor. He dies gasping, “One man alone ain’t got . . . no chance.”

• The Snows of Kilimanjaro, 1938. A short story about a writer, Harry, who is kept by a wealthy woman. Harry goes on safari in Africa to “work the fat off his mind” and force himself to write. Instead, he develops gangrene in his leg. Just before he dies, he reviews his life and dreams of a giant frozen leopard on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro—one of the most compelling images in literature of a talented author frozen with writer’s block.

• For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940, novel about an idealistic American college professor who joins a band of guerrilla fighters during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). His mission is to dynamite a strategic bridge. He falls in love with a young Spanish woman who was raped by Fascists. They share three passionate days and nights before he successfully blows the bridge but is wounded and left to die.

• The Old Man and The Sea, 1952. After 84 days at sea without a catch, an old Cuban fisherman hooks a giant marlin, fights it for two days, then reels it alongside to harpoon and tow to port. Sharks appear. Fighting them off, the old man breaks his knife. This leaves the sharks free to eat all but the head of his huge fish—but, Hemingway writes, “a man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

In fiction, nonfiction, plays, films, and poems, Hemingway writes again and again of women, wine, adventure, bravery, hunting, fishing, fighting, war, death and wraps them all up in a distinctive style that is blade sharp, diamond clear, succinct, unadorned—manly writing that is bold, strong, and true.

This review was originally published in the October 2005 issue of The Thurston-Mason Senior News.

Two Bibles, One Religion

The book review entitled "Two Bibles, One Religion" now appears as the November 4, 2007, blog entry on another blog, which is entitled "Roman Catholic Books." Paste the following link into your browser: http://www.romancatholicbooks.blogspot.com

Three "Must-Have" Books for Writers Seeking Publication

Original title: "Beeline to Publication"

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

One of the first things many folks do in retirement is write a book and try to get it published. If you are one of them, you might reduce heartbreak and time lost by using three basic books: Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Writer’s Market, and The Elements of Style.

These three books can help writers of all twists get their work published, but as you ponder what to write about keep in mind that 85 percent of everything that gets published is nonfiction. If you decide to write a novel or the story of your life (an autobiography or memoir), the odds are definitely against you unless you’re famous—or infamous.

Poets fare a bit better. Getting poems published is the subject of another book review entitled "Poets and Poetry Outlets Burgeon"; you can find it by scrolling down to the titles listed at right under "Previous Posts."

Unknown nonfiction writers who research what they write constitute the 85 percent category and thus have the best chance of getting published. The three books discussed in this review are the minimal library for these industrious writers.

Webster’s Collegiate is the best all-around dictionary because editors who buy and publish manuscripts seem to prefer it to any other dictionary. If you use it, you and your would-be editor are likely to land on the same page in such matters as the best way to spell and use many words.

Writer’s Market provides concise instructions on how to get published. It stresses a point that might seem counterintuitive: Unknown writers should NOT write a manuscript BEFORE they find a publisher. The reason why is simple: Editors are not going to read the manuscripts of unknown writers, nor will they talk to unknowns on the telephone. There are way too many unknown writers to do that; editors don’t have the time.

Many folks claim the best way to find a publisher is to get an agent to find one for you. Sounds great, but these days it’s just as hard to find a good agent as it is to find a willing publisher, so forget about agents. Go directly to a publisher. If you find one, publish something, and your work sells, agents will find you.

After you come up with a hot idea for an article or book, you will need to research publishers for one interested in the same idea. Writer’s Market was invented for this purpose. It lists thousands of publishers, discusses the kinds of manuscripts they want right now, and is revised and updated every year, so borrow or invest in only a current copy.

After you select the likeliest publisher(s) for your work, you will need to write the all-important Query Letter. Virtually everything that gets published starts as a query letter from writer to editor and then evolves collaboratively into a manuscript.

A query letter is a one-page business letter (or e-mail) to the publisher(s) you hope will publish your work. In the letter, you summarize your fantastic idea and how you will research the information needed to develop it into an article or book. You show how your treatment of this subject surpasses all other recent published treatments of the same subject, which implies you’ve already done some homework. And you list your qualifications, if any, to write the particular work you’re proposing. If you’ve ever published anything before, say so in your query letter.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White is the third volume in our minimal library. The book can help ensure error-free query letters in such matters as grammar and punctuation. Strunk’s tiny masterpiece, revered throughout the publishing community above any competitor, supplements Webster’s Dictionary in this important aspect of the publishing process.

If a writer finds a publisher before completing the manuscript, he or she can discuss the plan for the article or book with the publisher’s editor and then go on to deliver exactly the kind of manuscript the publisher wants to publish. If a publishing company accepts YOUR book or article, get on this blog immediately and brag about it! Your posting may inspire other writers seeking professional publication.

"Or What You Will"

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

From the plot outline that follows, can you guess the title and author of the book?

A young woman named Viola and her twin brother Sebastian look very much alike. After a shipwreck they are separated, each believing the other is dead. Viola disguises herself as a boy and takes the name Cesario in order to get a job as a page for a wealthy duke named Orsino. After she works for the duke awhile, she falls in love with him.

Orsino, however, is in love with Olivia who doesn’t want to think about love while she’s mourning the death of her brother. Ever hopeful, however, Orsino sends Cesario to plead the duke’s case to Olivia, but Olivia immediately falls in love with the boy who is really Viola in disguise.

Meanwhile, Sebastian shows up and is mistaken for Cesario by Olivia who summons a priest and rushes Sebastian into marrying her. It’s only a matter of time before Viola and Sebastian meet, recognize each other--and then what?

Will Olivia and Sebastian remain together, or will Orsino try to take her away from him? Will Viola’s love for the duke remain unrequited? You will learn the answer to the question of who ends up with whom when you read the rest of this play, “Twelfth Night; or What You Will,” written around 1600 by William Shakespeare.

If the idea of reading a play by Shakespeare is intimidating, I suggest you take a look at the “No Fear Shakespeare” version of “Twelfth Night,” edited by John Crowther and published in 2003 by SparkNotes, an imprint of Barnes & Noble.

No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete original text of “Twelfth Night” (or any other Shakespeare play) on left-hand pages, and an easy-to-understand translation into modern standard English on facing right-hand pages. The inclusion of a complete translation makes footnotes unnecessary. In translation, Shakespeare’s gender-bending comedy on mistaken identity is completely accessible.

You can stick with the translation of “Twelfth Night,” admittedly a confusing play, until you learn the characters’ names and understand the plot, then you can turn to the original text to savor the beauty and wit of the original Shakespeare.

For an idea of the translation’s helpfulness, consider Orsino’s soliloquy on love at the start of the play. The original opaque text reads as follows: “O spirit of love . . . notwithstanding thy capacity/ Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,/ Of what validity and pitch soe’er,/ But falls into abatement and low price/ Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy/ That it alone is high fantastical.”

Now consider No Fear’s translation: “Oh, love is so restless! It makes you want everything, but it makes you sick of things a minute later, no matter how good they are. Love is so vivid and fantastical that nothing compares to it.” Opacity gone, it’s clear as glass.

Shakespeare was no one-trick magician, so the question of who ends up with whom did not keep the play alive for more than 400 years. The subplot, which reveals the humorous schemes of Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and Maria in removing the prig Malvolio from Olivia’s good graces, is a lot more responsible for the play’s continuing popularity.

Barnes and Noble Booksellers carries the entire line of No Fear Shakespeare plays, including “Twelfth Night ” (ISBN: 1-58663-851-3), which retails in paper for $4.95.

Hinduism for Non-Hindus

Together with all of the other great religions of the world, Hinduism is poorly understood in the United States. If you’d like to read just one book about it, I suggest The Hindu Tradition: Readings in Oriental Thought edited by Ainslie T. Embree.

Although the book was first published in 1966, it’s so readable and widely respected it’s still readily available on the Web. On April 17, 2005, I found 110 new and used copies listed at bookfinder.com, priced from $1.48 to $35.95 a copy. You can also borrow the book through almost any public library.

The first misconception newcomers to Hinduism might need to shuck is the belief it’s polytheistic. Many Westerners assume Hinduism is polytheistic then use the label to pigeonhole and dismiss the religion. It’s certainly true 50,000 gods and goddesses exist in Hinduism. But it’s equally true Hindus believe there’s only one God, Brahman, the Absolute. Brahman in Hinduism is similar to godhead in Christianity.

Even the poorest beggar on the streets of Calcutta will insist on the truth of the compound statement that 50,000 gods exist in Hinduism AND there is only one God, Brahman. Think of it like this: The one God Brahman has 50,000 aspects expressed creatively and artistically as 50,000 gods and goddesses. The Hindu conception is no more polytheistic than the Christian idea of Trinity. Besides, who says God is limited by human reason or logic? If God is God, he/she/it, by definition, is without limitation.

In fact, there are millions of gods in Hinduism, one god for every religious Hindu because Hindus believe God is not only up there and out there in some vague place but also right down here and inside us. The Divine, Hindus say, is not only transcendent but also immanent; that is to say, God lives not only in heaven but also pervades everyone and everything in the universe. It is in this sense that millions or billions of gods exist in Hinduism—one god, or one aspect of god, within every person, fish, and stone.

These ideas help explain the famous Hindu equation “Atman equals Brahman.” A crude translation of the Sanskrit might be “the human soul (Atman) equals God (Brahman) because they are One, not two. Hindus are not saying the human ego, personality, characteristics, actions, flaws are divinely perfect. Rather, they mean something similar to what Westerners mean when we say each human being contains a divine spark even when the spark is buried deep in the mud of imperfection.

Ultimately, of course, the Divine is beyond human reason and much must be taken on faith, although Hindus firmly believe Brahman can be experienced on Earth while still alive through meditation and in other ways.

The Oneness or monistic equation is perhaps the oldest theme in Hinduism. It pervades the ancient Vedic religion and literature, such as the Rig Veda. It flowered in the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita, and it continues today in the Vedanta branch of Hinduism so beloved around the world, as well as in the magnificent poetry of Aurobindo and Tagore.

The Oneness idea in Hinduism is not pantheism, and religious Hindus would likely be impatient or offended by the suggestion. Another important point is that not all Hindus are monists. Dualism, the belief that the Divine and the human are separate realities—the dominant religious idea of the West—is also a highly respected faith of many Hindus.

Hinduism is probably the world’s oldest living religion and is therefore, arguably, the most evolved. It never froze around any particular deity or dogmatism but continued to grow, evolve, and integrate religious ideas throughout its immense history, like a gigantic, passionately spiritual amoeba.

How far back does Hinduism go? No one knows for sure, but my guess is 5,000 to 10,000 years, although it may actually be many thousands of years older than that.

In any event, Hinduism is worth reading at least one book about, if for no other reason than to take out the garbage of misconceptions, to which I may have inadvertently added because, after all, I am not a Hindu. But Hindu or not, I've learned as much about God from Hinduism as from any other religion.

Buddhism for Non-Buddhists

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

Like many of the world’s great religions, Buddhism is poorly understood in the United States. If you want to read just one book about Buddhism for a basic understanding, then What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula is a good choice. It’s widely regarded as “the standard work.”

For more than a century, non-Buddhist Westerners have been drawn to Buddhism’s meditation technology for ending human suffering. The word technology is deliberately chosen because the advances made in Eastern religions are broadly comparable to the advances made in Western science and engineering.

For probably thousands of years, Asians have focused their intellectual and creative energies inside themselves, developing techniques appropriate to the exploration and development of mental and spiritual realms. By contrast, Westerners have focused their intellectual and creative energies outside themselves, developing technologies appropriate to the exploration and development of the material world. Asian discoveries in mental and spiritual worlds are as detailed and sophisticated as Western discoveries in science and engineering.

Eastern and Western cultures can therefore be seen as complementary--as completing each other--for neither seems complete without the other. Asians have suffered from ignorance of discoveries in Western science and engineering just as Westerners have suffered from ignorance of Asian discoveries in mental and spiritual realms. As a result, Asians are flocking to Western colleges and universities to study science and engineering, and countless Westerners are studying Asian religions and attempting to learn and practice Eastern meditation and yoga technologies.

What the Buddha Taught provides a useful introduction to Buddhist meditation technologies as they have evolved within Buddhism since Buddha’s day more than 2,500 years ago. Anyone may try meditation regardless of religious affiliation. It is possible to meditate and to study Buddhism for an entire lifetime without ever “becoming” a Buddhist and without ever relinquishing a non-Buddhist religious orientation or affiliation.

If we meditate, we may come to see, really see, that personal suffering results from the human tendency to attach to fixed ideas about people and situations despite the fact that the nature of people and situations is constantly to change. Through meditation we can trace suffering back to this contradiction in such realms as drugs, politics, relationships, sex, and even religion.

Does that realization turn meditators into uncaring nihilists who believe in nothing and do nothing in the world? The answer is NO! Meditation is directed toward ending attachment and clinging to people, ideas, and opinions. Consider the misery and violence that attachment and clinging to religious and political ideas have inflicted upon the world! As enslaving attachments are discarded through meditation, suffering diminishes.

Buddhism says we can continue to work diligently to see our ideas and beliefs realized in the world, but through meditation we can learn to do so without attachment and suffering. Some meditators find it extremely difficult to distinguish between holding an idea and clinging to one, but meditation eventually clears this confusion. Even our death grip on life itself may be understood, transcended, and redefined in a way that both ends our fear of death and reinvigorates our zest for life in the present moment.

Meditation is an extremely powerful tool, and it can deeply affect some practitioners in profound and unpredictable ways. So be warned: Anyone not mentally healthy and stable should not attempt it. Meditation should follow or accompany psychotherapy, not precede it, and beginners should be guided by more experienced practitioners.

Where is God in all this? Buddha told his followers not to waste time worrying about whether God exists. Buddhism is not a God-oriented or God-seeking religion and that’s why some folks consider Buddhism more of a psychotherapy than a religion--a technology for the inner development and self-actualization of mentally healthy individuals.

Originally published by Grove Press in 1959 and revised in 1972, What the Buddha Taught is still in print. You can probably borrow a copy from your local library or purchase one from your favorite online or brick-and-mortar bookstore.

"Poet's Market"

Original title: "Poets and Poetry Outlets Burgeon"

Copyright © 2005, 2006 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

Many poets throughout the United States—and the world for that matter—are closeted, working alone in “splendid isolation.” And many of them may not be familiar with technological advances that have made small print runs more affordable for publishers, thus paving the passage of poets to print.

Poet’s Market, edited by Nancy Breen and Erika Kruse, collects, organizes, and categorizes what is now a multitude of possible markets. If you’ve ever dreamed of publishing your poems, thumb through the 2005 edition of this resource from Writer’s Digest Books. You can obtain the book directly from Writer’s Digest, or through Amazon.com and other organizations. Earlier editions are not so helpful because individual publications pass in to and out of existence so quickly.

Although it's easier to get poems published than ever before, it's still a challenge best met by studying the advice given in Poet’s Market. For instance, unless you’re already a famous poet, it’s unlikely you’ll make the pages of a famous magazine until you’ve been published many times elsewhere in more obscure publications. So begin at the beginning and forget renowned journals until later.

If you take the advice given in Poet’s Market, you stand a good chance of eventually realizing your dreams somewhere. PM gives you the names and addresses of publishers willing--free of charge--to publish previously unpublished poets. The book describes each such market and tells you what types of poems each wants now. The book also lists and describes publishers more suited to experienced, established, or previously published poets. Finding the “correct” market for your poem makes a good beginning, then study current and back issues until you know your target as well as the cover of your dictionary.

Next is presentation, finding the most effective way to present your work, and to whom. PM explains the mechanics step by step. Please don’t think this isn’t vitally necessary. Most editors are picky, and the longer they’ve been editing, the pickier they get. I know because I’ve been one. No coffee-stained envelopes, please. No perfumed, colored, or odd-sized paper. Use common sense. Type your work on unlined 8.5- by 11-inch white bond, vertical orientation. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling all should be correct for the poem’s and the publication’s purposes.

If departures from traditional conventions are made, editors and other readers should be able to see they were consciously made for good reasons and within the context of the poet’s full knowledge of the “rules.” Ignorance of customary practice are as obvious to editors as traffic lights flashing red. Busy editors look for reasons to reject submissions; don’t help them.

Some publishers accept e-mail submissions. Follow each publisher’s directions exactly. And mail your work to the particular individual, if any, named by PM; this makes an actual human being responsible for your work.

Be prepared to mail your poem(s) out many times and to endure many rejection slips, some perhaps humiliating, before it’s finally accepted. But which is worse: waiting awhile or never trying?

What should you do if your family and friends have never heard of the obscure, crudely printed journal that finally accepts your baby? Dismiss it. When a publisher writes to say he or she wants to publish your poem, your day is made. Once your work is published and for the rest of your life, you’ll be able to say you’re a published poet. Through the wonders of technology, your achievement will be available for anyone in the world to read, perhaps for as long as human eyes exist to read it. The pain of writing, editing, preparation, and rejection will be replaced by the euphoria of hard-won success.

"Quicker and Easier Crossword Puzzles"

Original title: "Enigmatologists Welcome"

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

What’s a five-letter word that means “walk through mud,” a seven-letter word for “wide-brimmed hat,” a six-letter expression for “no-goodnik”? These clues appear in Will Shortz’s new book Quicker and Easier Crossword Puzzles published by The New York Times company and St. Martin’s Paperbacks in 2005. Answers to the questions appear at the end of the review.

The New York Times is the #1 name in crosswords, cranking out zillions of puzzles in the daily paper and in books such as Crosswords to Boost Your Brainpower, Crosswords for Your Breakfast Table, Crosswords for the Work Week, Daily Crosswords, Easy Crosswords, Large-Print Crosswords, Sunday Crosswords, Tough Crosswords, and crosswords for “young solvers.” This wide selection permits buffs to match the size and difficulty of puzzles to their own preferences, knowledge, and wits.

For Quicker and Easier, a 288-page mass-market (small format) paperback, Shortz assembled 130 puzzles (and solutions) by many different writers, not just his own puzzles; Shortz, after all, is the editor of the book, not its author. The names of contributors to the book such as Alan Arbesfeld, Marjorie Berg, Sarah Keller, Todd McClary, Nancy Salomon, and many others may ring familiar to devotees of the Times’s huge oeuvre.

Shortz’s new book is popular because it combines easy and difficult clues within a range that promotes the expansion of useful vocabulary, not just words, phrases, and terms you meet only in crossword puzzles. These are puzzles originally published in the Monday and Tuesday papers where the easiest puzzles appear.

Who works crossword puzzles? A great many senior citizens do. As we age, physicians, psychologists, and others encourage us to challenge our minds in ways to keep them sharp as a deer knife. Often, the advice is to study a foreign language, but at this age I’d rather improve my English because English is more widely written and spoken throughout the world than any other language in history.

Crosswords not only build vocabulary but can also teach resourcefulness and problem-solving skills. For instance: Successful puzzle-decoders learn to stick with problems until solution despite errors and the urge to quit. They learn to crack difficult clues by approaching them from several angles simultaneously. And they learn to be guided partly by intuition and the subconscious by working holistically on puzzles rather than by focusing only on a single clue or tiny section. This strategy also takes words you only recognize passively but do not really “know” or use and converts them to more functional, active vocabulary, thus reducing instances of “at a loss for words.”

Other individuals who gravitate to crosswords include word lovers, bookworms, writers, and puzzle nuts of all ages, sizes, and descriptions. Perhaps the classic New York Times crossword-puzzle fanatic is the daily subway commuter. Even strap hangers can turn their interminably long, hot, crowded rides into engrossing, productive sessions. The Times can be folded a certain way so only the puzzle is visible, forming a rectangle just big enough to completely block out the face of the stranger with his elbow in your ribs. The rest of the paper provides a hard enough surface to write on.

Where can you find this little gem? Bookfinder.com lists more than a dozen sellers of the book, including Abebooks.com, Alibris.com, Amazon.com, BooksAMillion.com, and Half.com. If you don’t insist on working puzzles only from the Times, you can find free crosswords at www.crosswordpuzzlegames.com, www.bestcrosswords.com, and www.quizland.com/cotd.htm.

By the way, Barnes & Noble book stores often devote an entire carousel to the Times’s large-format crossword-puzzle books.

Shortz is the only man in the world with a degree in “enigmatology.” He has been the crossword editor of The Times since 1993, is the puzzle master of NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, and is founder and director of the annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. On 60 Minutes, Steve Kroft called him “the crossword king.” Shortz can be reached at http://www.crosswordtournament.com.

Answers: slosh, skimmer, bad egg.

"Essential Shakespeare Handbook"

Original title: "Short-Winded Guide to All of Shakespeare"

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Mahood. All rights reserved.

At last a comprehensive book about Shakespeare that’s easy and lively to read. The Essential Shakespeare Handbook is “easy” because the text by Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding is absolutely clear and everywhere concise despite its anchor in modern scholarship. The book is “lively” not only because of its stimulating text but also because of its hundreds of colorful and imaginative illustrations.

Readers familiar with lush Web content may feel right at home here. But though the book’s 480 pages are loaded with both visual and verbal content, they don’t make your head spin. Instead, they radiate the classic calm of a fine art book.

Published by DK in April 2004, the book has three sections: The first contains an overview of Shakespeare’s life (1564–1616), writings, and influence. This section also summarizes the history of Shakespeare’s era—the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods—which took their names from Queen Elizabeth I and King James I, respectively. During that time, the provincial island of England became a world power, and her medieval population became a great modern society.

Among the most important influences on Shakespeare and his world were discoveries in science and astronomy that shattered Ptolemy’s view of Earth motionless at the center of the universe. This egocentric view had ruled European thought since the 2nd Century A.D. In its place, Copernicus put forth the unnerving view that Earth and all the other planets were mere satellites constantly circling the sun. The Copernican idea was bitterly opposed both theologically and scientifically, which led to widespread doubt and skepticism during Shakespeare’s time that found expression in his famous plays Hamlet and Measure for Measure.

The second section of the handbook offers synopses of all 39 of Shakespeare’s plays, arranged first by type (histories, comedies, tragedies, and romances), then by date of composition. In addition to readable plot summaries, this section also touches on the extensive performance history of the plays between Shakespeare’s time and the present day. For example, the 10 pages devoted to Macbeth include images from productions by Ingmar Bergman, Angelo Longoni, Orson Welles, and Akira Kurosawa, demonstrating Shakespeare’s worldwide modern influence.

The third section of the handbook is devoted to Shakespeare’s nondramatic work—the narrative poems that brought him fame and fortune during his lifetime and the lyric poems (the sonnets) so popular in our time. From 1592 to 1594, an outbreak of the plague forced the theaters in London to close, so Shakespeare turned from writing plays to writing poems. In those days, playwrights were regarded as disreputable fellows, but poets were highly praised and respected. Shakespeare’s narrative poem Venus and Adonis offered a classical theme trendy then, but it was probably the poem’s erotic content that made it a best seller. Between first release in 1593 and the poet’s death in 1616, Venus and Adonis burned through nine editions.

You can likely borrow the Essential Shakespeare Handbook from your local library. But if you’re a Shakespeare buff or enjoy attending performances of Shakespeare’s plays, such as those at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival near Ashland, you might prefer to own a copy. The book’s graphics alone, small in size but large in number, are worth the book’s retail price of $25.