When I started my apprenticeship at church for my seminary degree, I had to compile a list of reading I was going to do during the apprenticeship. Though I have a long list of books that I can’t wait to read, I collected titles from people that I now work with; I wanted to know what books had made a difference in their lives. This week I picked up the first one, Sacred Fire by Ronald Rolheiser.
Rolheiser was on my list but Domestic Monastery was the book that piqued my interest. It still does and I was told that it’s short; I’ll pick it up eventually. Sacred Fire was one that I had paid no attention to, at least not until my apprenticeship supervisor at church told me that he reads it every year.1
Sacred Fire is a book for the middle part of life. He takes the opening chapters to recap The Holy Longing, the book he wrote about the first part of life. I’ve been reading that section slowly because I know the boys are inching toward puberty and that awkward restlessness that develops as we try to find ourselves and our places.
Rolheiser writes “For him, whatever the burden, the next forty to fifty years will be fairly clear; that is the duties and responsibilities he has taken on will pretty much dictate his life.” A few pages earlier he said, “As we sort out more who we are, make permanent commitments, and take on more and more responsibilities, we soon find ourselves beset by a new set of struggles: disappointment, tiredness, boredom, frustration, resentment.”
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