In Acedie and Me, the writer Kathleen Norris asks her readers to think about the tasks and chores of a day as "acts of hospitality" to yourself. That is a perspective where you are a guest and a host at the same time. When you organize and maintain your life so that things work out and move forward for you, you are playing the role of host. As a guest, you have needs and … [Read more...] about Acts of Hospitality
Observation
Field Trip to the Library
Take yourself on a field trip to the library. Go for a wander. Commit to finding something unexpected. Go down an aisle that you wouldn't ordinarily frequent. Pluck a book or two just to see what could be in it. Or lug an oversize book to a table and slowly turn the pages to enjoy the stunning photographs. The library also has plenty of interesting things that … [Read more...] about Field Trip to the Library
Read the World
The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire famously said that although we often think of reading in terms of reading words, the true activity of reading or literacy is reading the world. Write about some of the ways that you read that do not involve the reading of words. When we read words, we take in information from the printed page in order to understand something or share in … [Read more...] about Read the World
Categories of Clothes
Write about your clothes by category. That is, group them somehow, and write something about the different groups of clothes. You can group them in dozens of different ways: by location, by function, by color. Comfortable clothes could be a group. So could clothes that you would never wear to church. Clothes you love, clothes you hate, clothes you keep but never … [Read more...] about Categories of Clothes
What You Don’t Know
Write a series of sentences that have two parts. In the first part, state something that you know. It can be anything that you are sure of. Begin with the words, "I know..." Begin the second part of the sentence with the phrase, "...but I don't know..." Write whatever comes to mind. If the second part of the sentence doesn't seem related to the first part, don't worry … [Read more...] about What You Don’t Know