Literary Dinner Party: Thursday's Reflection

One of my favorite sections in the Sunday New York Times Book Review is the "By the Book" section. Each week an author responds to a number of questions, such as "What books are on your nightstand?" or "What books would you recommend that the President read?" 

My favorite question is "What writers, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party?" The answers are often quite esoteric and eclectic: Marcel Proust, Ovid, William Faulkner, Margaret Atwood, Charles Dickens, Harper Lee. 

I love gathering people together for good food, drink, and conversation, and love imagining favorite writers seated at my table. Wouldn't I love to have Jane Austen, Willa Cather, Louise Penny, Louise Erdrich, Jacqueline Winspear, Barbara Kingsolver, and Ann Patchett at my table? But why stop there? I wonder if Doris Kearns Goodwin, Taylor Branch, Kent Nerburn, David Brooks, and Blanche Wiesen Cook are available next Friday night. 

At the top of my list right now, however, are Barbara Brown Taylor, Reeve Lindbergh, and Joan Chittister. What a scintillating time that could be, and I have a feeling we would all get along tremendously well. 

Earlier this week I heard Barbara Brown Taylor speak at theWestminster Town Hall Forum , and she was warm and witty and clear and strong, and inspiring. Her most recent book is Holy Envy, Finding God in the Faith of Others, in which she reflects on her experiences teaching a "Religions of the World" class at a small, private liberal arts college. The book is not a textbook, however, but instead is an invitation to discover the spiritual riches God offers us in the faith of others. I loved this book. 
                 
                 Holy envy may lead you to borrow some
                 things, and you will need a place to put them, 
                 You may find spiritual guides outside your box
                 whom you may want to make room for, or some
                 neighbors from other faiths who have stopped by
                 for a visit. However it happens, your old box
                 will turn out to be too small for who you have
                 become. You will need a bigger one with more
                 windows in it--something more like a home
                 than a box, perhaps--where you can open the 
                 door to all kinds of people without fearing 
                 their faith will cancel yours out if you let them in.
                                                                p. 210

Last night I finished reading Forward from Here, Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected Adventures by Reeve Lindbergh, and I wish we were neighbors. This book was published in 2008 when she was turning 60, so she is my age. I resonate with so much of what she says about this stage of life. Like me, she is a "left-handed person with questionable motor skills," and she often spends her time reading a book when she should be sitting at her desk writing one.
                   Getting old is what I want to do. Getting old,
                   whatever the years bring, is better by far than
                   not getting old. Or, in the words of Maya 
                   Angelou, "Mostly, what I have learned so far
                   about aging, despite the creakiness of one's
                   bones and cragginess of one's once-silken skin,
                   is this: do it. By all means, do it." p. 23

                   I understand at the age of sixty, at least for a
                   blessed moment now and then, that all I really 
                   can do with the rest of my life is to laugh at 
                   myself when laughter is called for, weep when 
                   I need to, and feel all of it, every bit of it, as 
                   much as I can for as long as I can. So that's 
                   what I think I'll do. p. 199

Dare I hope that she is working on a new book about turning 70? I would so welcome that.

And then there is dear Joan Chittister, who is a constant in my life and whose books I turn to so often, especially The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully. Some days I need her wisdom about regret or fear or forgiveness or letting go or sadness, and she is always there with wisdom and openness. 
                     Each period of life has its own purpose.
                     This later one gives me time to assimilate
                     all the others. The task of this period of life,...
                     is not simply to endure the coming end of time.
                     It is to come aline in ways I have been alive
                     before. p. xv 

I am planning the menu (risotto with asparagus, maybe?) and ironing the white damask napkins. I have opened my heart to these women and am ready to open the door an welcome them to my table. 

An Invitation
Who would you like to invite to a literary dinner party? I would love to know.