Evelyn Underhill

I was browsing in the basement and came across a book by Evelyn Underhill called The Way of the Spirit.  It is actually a collection of notes from four of her retreats, discovered in her papers long after her death in 1941.  I had read her classic Mysticism some time ago, and a short pamphlet of hers on the Lord's Prayer.  I'd found this book at a used book fair in 2005, and must have read a good deal of it back then, if my underlining is any indication.  I had forgotten how much I liked her.  She has the English practicality in things spiritual, and this is exactly what I need at this time.  Here's a sample:

One of the things which can well be done in retreat is something which everyone who takes spiritual life seriously should do.  It is to decide on the balance of prayer, spiritual reading, work, recollection, recreation, and rest which will make us most effective instruments of God's will and help us to live, work, and endure on higher levels.  That is the real point, not our particular devotional preferences or daintiness.  That is the road to peace.

Forget fretting about your moods and feeling fulfilled and whatnot.  How about this:

Real saints never know how much they are doing.  What they are doing is continuing the work of incarnation through the perfect self-yielding of the soul to God, making themselves His tools, His channels of revelation to others.

or

A souls is as great as its love.

She begins her chapter entitled "Peace" with, among other things, this quote from The Imitation of Christ:

O Lord, if only my will may remain right and firm towards Thee, do with me whatsoever it shall please Thee.  For it cannot be anything but good, whatsoever Thou shalt do with me.  If it be Thou wilt that I should be in the light, blessed be Thou.  And if Thou wilt that I be in darkness, blessed be Thou.  Light and darkness, life and death, praise ye the Lord.

This is bracing stuff!  If you ever get the chance, give yourself a treat and indulge!

Two novels of interest

Hide Me Among the Graves, by Tim Powers

Restoration, by Olaf Olafsson

This is the second Tim Powers novel I’ve read this year.  If you’d told me I’d be reading a book set in London in the mid-nineteenth century, featuring Christina Rossetti (author of  In the Bleak Midwinter), her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and the poet Algernon Swinburne, I’d have been intrigued.  If you had added that there were vampires, I’d have said, “I don’t think so!”  But after reading the author’s Declare, and on the strength of a recommendation from Happy Catholic, I tackled this book.  It’s rather long, over 500 pages, and not always easy going, but well worth the time.  Tim Powers gives depth to the supernatural happenings in the novel that transcend the sensational horror genre and make this a serious novel that explores our attraction to evil and our reluctance to sever all ties to it.  He creates a London in which ghosts and ancient spirits seeking to gain power seem perfectly ‘normal’.  I recommend this without hesitation.

I picked up Restoration at the library with no prior knowledge.  It is set in Italy in World War II, and weaves together the stories of Alice Orsini, mistress of a rural estate north of Rome, and Kristin Jonsdottir, a talented art restorer who takes shelter there.  Each has her secrets and her regrets.   The secrets intertwine, but are not the main focus of the novel.  We see how the war brutally disrupts the quiet life of the estate and we witness Alice’s strength in caring for orphaned children and the farmers on her land. I enjoyed this novel.  3 star (out of five).