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On the same day, a couple of weeks ago, the Mechanics' Institute received three books about religion: one by the pastor at Glide Memorial Church, another by a local surfer about Buddhism, and the third an oral history of the People's Temple. I was immediately struck by the geographic commonality of the three titles and decided to use my featured collection this month to highlight the rich diversity of the Bay Area’s spiritual life.
Beyond the Possible : 50 years of Creating Radical Change in a Community Called Glide by Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani (287.6794 W721)
Writing with Glide founding pastor Janice Mirikitani, Reverend Cecil Williams reflects on his fifty years creating radical social change as the head of San Francisco's Memorial Glide Church.
Saltwater Buddha : A Surfer's Quest to Find Zen on the Sea by Jaimal Yogis (294.3 Y547)
“Just as in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Yogis reminds us that mindfulness doesn't have to take place only in seated meditation. Whether you're surfing or going about your 9-to-5 job, Saltwater Buddha reminds us that there is always time to grow spiritually by observing the day-to-day.” (Jeremy Snell)
Stories from Jonestown by Leigh Fondakowski (289 F673)
Fondakowski interviews survivors of the murder-suicide at the agriculture project at Jonestown, as well as People's Temple members who were not at Jonestown (elsewhere in Guyana or California) and who were “stigmatized as cultists [...] left to deal with their grief, reassemble their lives, and try to make sense of how a movement born in a gospel of racial and social justice could have gone so horrifically wrong”. (quote courtesy of Amazon.com)
Happiness is an Inside Job : Practicing for a Joyful Life by Sylvia Boorstein (294.3 B724h)
Boorstein, co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin, fuses her training as a psychotherapist with Buddhist teachings to show how one can live a more mindful, calm, and happy life.
