Robert J. Wicks has published more than 30 books and is presently on the faculty of Loyola College in Baltimore. He specializes in the treatment and mentoring of professional helpers and healers — physicians, nurses, priests, vowed religious, ministers, psychotherapists, and teachers. This volume brings together pieces from five of his most notable books: Living a Gentle, Passionate Life; After 50; Seeds of Sensitivity; Touching the Holy; and Living Simply in an Anxious World. The themes covered here are experiencing the lord, availability, clarity, and ordinariness.
Most of the passages are a paragraph or two, making this book a fine reader for daily meditations. Here's a sample: "One of the most compassionate things we can actually do for others is to develop greater self-esteem ourselves. People who know themselves and are at peace always have something to share — no matter how difficult the situation turns out to be. They are alive, and those who encounter them enjoy the possibility of living with more clarity and meaning in their lives because of the gentle space they offer. People who are in touch with their own gifts, who are grateful to God for them, and who seek to nurture these talents in themselves are like oases for the worried, poor, depressed, and oppressed of the world. They are a 'place' of true refuge."
