Some of our sportsmen may enjoy this brief analogy. Assume that you are an avid lover of football, and played all during high school and college. Add to this the many years you watched all of the pro football games on TV and even coached Little League. So many of your friends came to you for instruction on how to understand the game, so you decide it is a noble idea to write a book and share your insights. No doubt whatsoever that this is going to help many people who have only an elementary layman’s idea of the game.
Ah, but match Rob Barrows’ book with another author who is so impassioned with the game that he travels to every team in both leagues, studies personally with all of the coaches and players, and has privileged access to all of their playbooks and tapes.
Although I agree with Alison that commentators are able to share their experience and help us to discover a point of view that was difficult to grasp, can we not discern that their written opinion would embrace only their own limited sphere of expertise?
I had an inspiration to look up something yesterday that I had read in *Teresa of Avila *by Marcelle Auclair. This is what we find in the book’s forward:
All through her life Marcelle Auclair assiduously studied the writings of Teresa of Avila. She admired in her an essentially “modern” woman: inventive, practical, gallant and intrepid, with tremendous organizational capacities, whose genius permitted her to break through the restrictions of her time. Madame Auclair decided to retranslate the saint’s writings and to write her life. With characteristic determination, she attempted to obtain the seemingly impossible (it had never been done before) – an authorization from the Holy See to enter the Carmelite cloisters in Spain and to gather authentic background material for her projected work. The permission was granted. (by Pope Pius XII) On her return to Paris she gave up all her professional obligations and for two years virtually went into retreat, devoting her entire time to the accomplishment of what is no doubt the most vivid existing biography of this great saint.
It is interesting to note that the writer of the forward refers to her as the “great” saint, which was so offensive to another reader on the forum recently.
If ever a book was capable of giving authentic background on St. Teresa, I would admit that this one does, for she examined all of the annals within every cloister which St. Teresa founded, and has shared this precious information in her book. St. Teresa, out of humility and a desire to be hidden for the most part, often avoided naming people and situations, using catch phrases such as, “This saintly gentleman, this holy confessor, I knew a person who …, etc.” Madame Auclair obtained the details.
Her book gives vivid accounts of her conversion to a deeper walk with Christ, the difficulties in making her foundations, some of her mystical experiences, and many unspeakable circumstances connected with her death. We encounter the events of St. Teresa living out her vocation day to day, in a way that is missing entirely in any of her writings. For those who want a practical, but authentic peek into
sanctity in action, I highly recommend it. Buzzcut’s site still sells it, and I found that it is much less expensive than Amazon. I have the Image Books’ 1959 copy.
I had to chuckle as I read Springbreeze’s notion that I have all of these books stored on my computer, for it is so untrue, as are some of her other comments by which she analyzed me. It is simply that I have spent so many years in them that whenever something is being discussed, I can remember almost exactly where to find the reference. Many of my pages of
extra importance are pinched down, but on the whole, I have the information stored in “internal memory.”
You may wonder about my purpose in sharing this, and I’ll get to it a bit later. This post was my way of agreeing that we may truly find help from commentators, but this help should be considered in the context which it is shared - namely, that it is personal opinion, based on the author’s limitations.
Then, when I find myself refreshed, I go back and try to tackle John and Teresa again!
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oops, I’m very sorry about that!
…don’t sell yourself short, friend.