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rmorrisonmt's review against another edition
5.0
The essence of creativity and the creator. Spirituality, creativity, and the meaning of life all wrapped up in one beautiful read.
xinetr's review
3.0
I already gave this book back to the library. It reads kind of like a secondary source re-analysis might, relying heavily on quotes from Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Wendell Berry and others. A few thoughts I especially enjoyed from it went something to the effect of:
Creativity is the longest-standing habit of the Universe. Therefore it should be taught in school. And the Universe (Biology especially) doesn't just solve a problem once in one particular way and then stop. Kudos to schools that explicitly embrace creativity. There were also a few lines from the Upanishads that link joy with creativity. Where there is one there is the other.
So I have to give kudos to the district public school my children attended, where the community identified as its core values: Excellence, Openness, JOY & CREATIVITY. These values had been operating there for a while, but were only named through a long process a couple of years ago and much work is going on to see that they are uplifted, celebrated, and lived as the school's culture. Maybe this book could inspire more educational embrace of creativity.
Note, even though it was part of what I loved about this author decades ago, I'd have to say I found it hard to sustain interest in the couple Christianity-focused chapters in the middle.
Creativity is the longest-standing habit of the Universe. Therefore it should be taught in school. And the Universe (Biology especially) doesn't just solve a problem once in one particular way and then stop. Kudos to schools that explicitly embrace creativity. There were also a few lines from the Upanishads that link joy with creativity. Where there is one there is the other.
So I have to give kudos to the district public school my children attended, where the community identified as its core values: Excellence, Openness, JOY & CREATIVITY. These values had been operating there for a while, but were only named through a long process a couple of years ago and much work is going on to see that they are uplifted, celebrated, and lived as the school's culture. Maybe this book could inspire more educational embrace of creativity.
Note, even though it was part of what I loved about this author decades ago, I'd have to say I found it hard to sustain interest in the couple Christianity-focused chapters in the middle.
boureemusique's review against another edition
This won't be a real review so much as a 'lessons learned.' There were a lot of them - I like the crux of what Fox believes but he does go on and on at times. I won't be assigning a star rating, either. The book's genre is one I tend not to read, but it seems a good and very meaningful/powerful example of its kind.
"Gratitude is the ultimate enabler." ~ 24
"The work of the historical Jesus was empowerment." ~ 109
"The word 'compassion' comes from the word for 'womb' in both Hebrew and Arabic" (195).
Do not objectify anything or anyone. We are all subjects. Understanding and respecting others as worthy agents in creation is really at the crux of... pretty much all problems that plague the world today.
"Economist David Korten [whom I may have to read next] writes: 'There is no more powerful expression of a society's values than its economics institutions. In our case, we have created an economy that values money over all else, embraces inequality as if it were a virtue, and is ruthlessly destructive of life. The tragedy is that for most of us the values of global capitalism are not our values. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that we find ourselves in psychological and social distress'" (224).
"Gratitude is the ultimate enabler." ~ 24
"The work of the historical Jesus was empowerment." ~ 109
"The word 'compassion' comes from the word for 'womb' in both Hebrew and Arabic" (195).
Do not objectify anything or anyone. We are all subjects. Understanding and respecting others as worthy agents in creation is really at the crux of... pretty much all problems that plague the world today.
"Economist David Korten [whom I may have to read next] writes: 'There is no more powerful expression of a society's values than its economics institutions. In our case, we have created an economy that values money over all else, embraces inequality as if it were a virtue, and is ruthlessly destructive of life. The tragedy is that for most of us the values of global capitalism are not our values. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that we find ourselves in psychological and social distress'" (224).
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