The Love of Impermanent Things

Author's Bio:

Mary Rose O’Reilley is the author of The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker Buddhist Shepherd (Milkweed Editions, 2000). She also is the author of several books about teaching, including The Garden at Night: Burnout and Breakdown in the Teaching Life. Most recently, she won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets for her first book of poetry, Half Wild. A professor of English at the University of St. Thomas, she lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Quotes:

"In this consistently engaging book, which she doesn't want to call either a collection of essays or a memoir, the author honors the ephemeral things of life, a softer way of knowing that accentuates inwardness and a jolly delight in both the comic and the transcendent as 'showstoppers.' . . . Read this book and you will see shards of your own life come into focus through O'Reilley's observations and confessions. She will help you see your own spirituality as a creative force that melds contemplation, action, prophetic outrage, and intuitive energy."—Spirituality & Practice

Praise for Mary Rose O'Reilley's Previous Work:

“Her rich, allusive prose draws on Catholicism, Quakerism, Buddhism, monastic tradition, Shakespeare and the Bible. Her short vignettes are luminous with faith matters, yet full of the earthy details of animal husbandry, resulting in a style that’s a cross between Kathleen Norris and James Herriot.”—Publishers Weekly

“O’Reilley’s year-long journey through sheep pens and pastures provides a powerful antidote to the clichéd out-of-body enlightenment formula so prevalent among today’s seekers. This unabashedly awkward self-portrait shows us how finding ourselves can sometimes mean living ‘fully in the world.’”—Utne Reader

“This wonderful, thought-provoking, many-leveled book should be read. Read it slowly; read it aloud; savor it. There’s so much here: spiritual direction, reexamining a life’s work, raising and loving and letting go of children. . . . But most of all, there’s honesty, a spirit of adventure, and a deep hunger for discovering a true path.”—Friends Journal

“O’Reilley, in spillovers of graceful prose honed on both theoretical and experiential knowledge, is actually writing a memorable spiritual autobiography. . . . Worthy ideas—many expressed with elegance, many comedic—are on every page.”—Colman McCarthy, Washington Post Book World

“This splendid book—with its improbable mix of animal husbandry, intentional community, academic life, rural experience, and Quakerish Zen—offers both wise-cracking fun and wise companionship on the spiritual journey. Read it and laugh. Read it and weep. Read it and grow. This is a flat-out fabulous book!”—Parker J. Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

“As we read of this enormously inspiring woman’s personal sojourn, we, too, are inspired to transcend our own hectic lives.”—Spirit of Change