The Stuff of a Lifetime: Self, Sense, Soul, and Spirit in Human Experience
A book to help people be. Not just something to read, this one is something to use ... to dip into, think over, lay aside, forget about as you go live a little more, and then come back to. It is to help you see what you are doing with your life, and also see what your doing is doing to you!
A tool for finding and using your "stuff," the book is an aid in answering that lingering question -- often put humorously, yet seldom completely in jest -- "What are you going to be when you grow up?"
Addressing its readers as individuals on every page, the book invites them to makes use of it in whatever way suits them best; then it takes them on a wide-ranging expedition into the realms of their own experience, walking with them each step of the way: into their life's special moments, into its day-to-day routines; also into its turning points, its endings and beginnings . . . and even the gaps and pauses in between . . . as the search continues throughout for signs of the "more" that is there, the rest of what they are outside their picture of themselves -- so that they may from then on be better acquainted with and guided by their own uniqueness. Through specially designed tasks and awareness exercizes, the book can enkindle, in those who are ready, the desire to reclaim their bodies, recover their souls, and re-enter the world.
In its chapter on "Seeing the Soul," the book features such renowned figures as actor James Cagney, writer Nikos Kazantzakis, the provocative prize-winning Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, Thomas Jefferson, philosopher-theologian Paul Tillich, and the pioneering bioenergetic therapist Stanley Keleman.
There is a glossary of all key terms and concepts, and the book ends with an extensive annotated bibliography entitled "For Those Who Want To Read More," which cites other books that can further the understanding of life and deepen one's experience of it.
(Note: For the Author's Guild Back-in-Print edition, the dedications and annotated bibliography are revised, updated, and greatly expanded. The new title is: The Stuff of a Lifetime: Self, Sense, Soul, and Spirit in Human Experience)