Everyday Sacred:
  A Woman's Journey Home
   Sue Bender
  1995 Harper SF/HarperCollins NY USA
   ISBN: 0062512900


With simple shifts of perception, each of us can find the sacred. We can start each dawn afresh & find, at day's end, that extraordinary things have come our way. It is the small acts that make every day of our life sacred.

This lovely little book with its attractive black & white drawings by both Sue & Richard Bender brings into focus, causes to be meditated, the sacred in the everyday. Now why would this be of importance, you ask? As Sue Bender writes:

...“You should have called your book Hectic and Chaotic! my son David observed...” Whose life isn't hectic & waylaid? If our spouses don't need us then our children & our parents certainly do, or our friends, our co-workers, our clients, our cars, our cats, our canaries...you get the point. Somebody is always in need of our services & someone (often our own Great Internal Judge) is always ready to find us lacking. This woman's journey will give you some ideas on how to change that, gradually, effectively.

“The day I heard that Plain and Simple had made the New York Times best-seller list I happened to meet a...friend at the vegetable store. Glowing, I told her the remarkable news. It seemed like a miracle...‘What number are you?'...for a moment, I didn't even know what she was asking. Then I realized she wanted to know what position I had on the list.”

“That was one of those moments when everything stops and a space opens up. In that instant I could see that in this world, nothing I did would ever be enough...I was still anxious. I was fifty-eight years old and did not want to spend my remaining years feeling...something was still missing, something more that I should be doing so I could feel good about myself and the life I was leading.”

This is about trusting in the wisdom of your life, in the insights of your intuition, in the private blessings your soul murmurs when your ego is being valiant & your social persona is doing its houri dance. Everyday Sacred asks the question that shifts perceptions: Are ordinary, familiar things entitled to reverence?

Sue Bender explains wanting to see with fresh eyes what she had taken for granted. She teaches herself to be reborn into her life with the eyes of a child, glad to be present, thrilled with the miracles of everyday life & sated by wonder. This does not come easy, a lot of old, grumpy stuff has to be sloughed off, like great chips of fear, icebergs of criticism & mountains of imperfections. It's an enlightening journey both in earthly gravity & heavenly humor.

My beloved husband gave me this endearing book for a wedding anniversary. A loving & thoughtful gift to which I have returned again & again, finding healing, insight & serenity.
(05/02/99)

Rebecca