Prescriptions

My friend and her friend made a trip to New York City from Virginia recently, to Sotheby's to bid on some plaster casts being auctioned off by the Met. They stayed with my friend's aunt, who is Chinese, and she and gave them these little radios which played the Buddhist prayers. They were very helpful, my friend says, because the truck they rented kept breaking down (she had to remove the front of the dashboard to turn on the lights). Her friend was recently diagnosed with MS and it was a difficult trip for her. But the radios playing the Buddhist prayers helped them to de-stress.

In some books I have read recently, a Buddhist monk prompts a student to find Buddhism in Christianity in Vows: The Story of A Priest, A Nun, and Their Son. Another Buddhist monk speaks of a time he realized the effects of his "loose and ill-considered advice" (on himself) in "Caught in Indra's Net" by Hwansoo Kim. Blue Jean Buddha. Ed. Sumi Loundon.

Not everyone's poison is the same, so not everyone requires the same remedy. How could there be one blanket prescription for all? That makes no sense. I might know that I can enjoy visiting wineries, and be able to buy one bottle of wine and consume it slowly, moderately over the span of one week. But maybe, at this point in life, a pint of icecream is what really slays me. Last night, I read The Virgin of Bennington by Kathleen Norris with one glass of wine. I will likely do the same thing tonight.

Norris is interesting. She left New York and writes about Christianity in her grandmother's house South Dakota.

Also, the late priest Henri Nouwen, I find, has some rather nice things to communicate.