Richard W. shared a stream on May 26, 2022
Let Stillness Direct My Words and Actions

Let Stillness Direct My Words and Actions

Estimated reading time: 0 minutes, 46 seconds

Jan and JonLife moves so quickly as we become busy with day-to-day tasks; since I was a child,  I often stopped looking and listening.

Jan was always there to slow me down so I could look, listen and speak appropriately.

Without the love of my life, my words can often tumble out and have unfortunate consequences.

I have always liked Eckhart Tolle‘s simple but meaningful quote.

Being still – looking and listening – activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.

On my grief journey, I need to remember that words have meaning and that looking, listening, and stillness are my best and only course of action.

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Jan the Gardener

Jan’s Love Was Transformative

While I still feel the pain of her absence, I can share her love with others and positively impact their lives.

The love Jan and I shared will always be a part of me and will never die.

Richard W. Brown January 13, 2022

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Let Stillness Direct My Words and Actions
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How the Word is Passed

Read: December 2021

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How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

by Clint Smith

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith. This book was a gift from my son Jon. The New York Times selected How the Word is Passed as one of the best books published this year. Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation’s collective history, and ourselves.

How the Word is Passed is one of the best books I have read in 2021. I had read an excerpt in The Atlantic on the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. Like most of us, I had placed the book on my to-read list, where it remained lost in the cobwebs. Fortunately, my son Jon purchased the book for me.

Secondly, the book rekindled my long-lost dream of being an American Studies professor. As soon as Jan and I met, I dropped plans to leave Brooklyn and start graduate school in the fall of 1974. I made that decision primarily because of how much I loved Jan. But it was also partly that I did not have a clear vision of what my life would be like as a professor. The book provided clear examples of people like Yvonne Holden at The Whitney Plantation redefining history to be more accurate and inclusive. I probably could not have done as well as she did, but I can now see that it might have resulted in a career for me that could have been impactful.

Goodreads provides this overview for those who still need to be convinced to read this book.

It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving over 400 people on the premises. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola Prison in Louisiana, a former plantation named for the country from which most of its enslaved people arrived and which has since become one of the most gruesome maximum-security prisons in the world. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers.

In a deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country’s most essential stories are hidden in plain view-whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods—like downtown Manhattan—on which the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women and children has been deeply imprinted.

Informed by scholarship and brought alive by the story of people living today, Clint Smith’s debut work of nonfiction is a landmark work of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in understanding our country.

How the Word is Passed is one of the best books I have read this year and many prior ones. I encourage you to read it and share your comments.

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A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism

Read: February 2019

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A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism

by Carol Berkin

A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism by Carol Berkin, Presidential Professor American Colonial and Revolutionary History; Women’s History Professor at Baruch College, focuses on four crises in the first decade. Most historians view these are part of the early partisan debates in America.

Professor Berkin takes a different perspective. She focuses on how the Whiskey Rebellion, the Genet Affair, the XYZ Affair, and the Alien and Sedition Acts helped build nationalism. Despite the partisan divisions, both sides could find solutions that helped America survive its first decade. The failure to resolve anyone of these could have doomed America to failure.

The Federalists – Washington, Hamilton, and Adams – were the leaders of that first decade and managed the successive crisis of sovereignty.

A Sovereign People is one of four books from my first One Day University class.

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The Great Divide: A Novel

Read: June 2024

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The Great Divide: A Novel

by Cristina Henriquez

I began to read “The Great Divide: A Novel” by Cristina Henriquez today. The book stood out for its compassionate exploration of the lives of activists, fishmongers, laborers, journalists, neighbors, doctors, and soothsayers. It sheds light on individuals whose essential contributions history overlooks. The novel weaves these characters’ stories in a unique and compelling narrative structure.

Set against the backdrop of the yet-to-be-built Panama Canal, the book delves into the lives of various characters. Francisco, a local fisherman, resents the foreign powers vying for control of his homeland. His son, Omar, works in the excavation zone, seeking connection in a rapidly changing world.

Sixteen-year-old Ada Bunting, from Barbados, stows away in Panama to find work and fund her ailing sister’s surgery. When she encounters Omar, who collapsed after a grueling shift, she rushes to his aid, setting off a chain of events that will change their lives.

John Oswald, a scientist dedicated to eliminating malaria, is in Panama when his wife, Marian, falls ill. Witnessing Ada’s bravery and compassion, he hires her as a caregiver, setting off a tale of ambition, loyalty, and sacrifice.

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How to Love Your Daughter

Read: August 2023

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How to Love Your Daughter

by Hila Blum

I started reading a novel called “How to Love Your Daughter,” written by Hila Blum and translated by Daniella Zamir today. The book explores a complicated relationship between a mother and her grown daughter. It raises the question of how much harm we can do to our loved ones when love blinds us.

The story takes place thousands of miles away from home, where a woman finds herself peeking through well-lit windows at her two granddaughters. She has never met them before, as they are the daughters of her estranged daughter, whom she hasn’t seen in years.

The book’s central theme revolves around the woman’s attempt to understand how a once-loving relationship between her and her daughter ended up in such a distant and unfathomable state. The story shifts past and present as the woman unravels her memories and long-buried emotions. She tries to make sense of the seemingly insignificant moments of parental care that, combined, may have undermined what she valued most.

The author, Blum, skillfully delves into the complexities of family life, where a parent can easily cross the line between protectiveness and possession without even realizing it. The story leaves us wondering whether it’s possible ever to find our way back from such a point.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

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Piranesi

Read: May 2022

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Piranesi: A Novel by Susanna Clarke

by Susanna Clarke

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is about a man known as Piranesi who lives in a big house and explores the labyrinth of rooms and hopes of understanding the meaning. Is it any surprise that I would pick this book as my thirtieth of the year? As a widow, I journal and journey in a life I did not expect to live, and I still believe I will find meaning and purpose. 

In addition, a labyrinth is one of the options we have discussed for the next phase of the work in Hanson Park.

Piranesi is a page-turner, but that does not fully describe the beauty of the world that Susanna Clarke created. I highly recommend this book as it is one of my best this year. 

The Goodreads summary provides an overview of Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

For readers of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.

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Clear: A Novel

Read: April 2024

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Clear: A Novel

by Carys Davies

Today, I started reading “Clear: A Novel” by Carys Davies. It’s a stunning and exquisite novel written by an award-winning author. The story follows John, a Scottish minister who is sent to a remote island off the coast of Scotland to evict the last remaining inhabitant, Ivar. However, Ivar is unwilling to leave, and John’s wife, Mary, has severe misgivings about the task.

Shortly after arriving on the island, John falls off a cliff and is badly injured. Ivar finds him and takes him home, where he tends to his wounds. John and Ivar understand each other despite the language barrier and the fragile connection that forms.

The story takes place in the 1840s, during the Scottish Clearances, a period of forced evictions that saw many rural communities lose their homes. The novel explores the differences and connections between people, the impact of history on our beliefs, and the resilience of the human spirit.

“Clear” is a moving, unpredictable, sensitive, and spellbinding novel. It is a profound and pleasurable read that will stay with you long after you finish the last page.

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