Book club

My Meditation group has been cancelled as the facilitator felt that she'd kind of done all she could do for that group right now. She decided instead to have a book club/study group where we would read through and try to incorporate a book into our lives while meeting every two weeks to discuss the book.

Since this group is located a cancer support center, we're not going to study something practical like The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Learning how to survive during and after the zombie apocalypse doesn't do much to help us live with and beyond our cancer diagnosis, apparently.

Instead, we're studying The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. To be honest, I was a bit concerned when she told us that this was the book selection. I'm a very analytical, left-brained person and sometimes books in that category don't stand up to the kind of logical scrutiny I give them. Some have no underlying logic and the reader is asked to take the ideas completely on faith. Some have logic but that logic is clearly twisted to support only the theory presented.Those books get yelled at and then thrown across the room.

When I expressed these concerns to someone (who also said she was left-brained), she said, "well, it's been on the best-seller list for over ten years so there must be something to it." What was that about twisted logic? Believe me when I say that a book need not be good or have anything "to it" to be on the best-seller list for over ten years.

However, I'm pleased and not a little relieved to say that the book is interesting, a good read, and has ideas that could work. The premise of the book (forgive me if I'm spoiling it for you) is that if you can stop thinking all the time then you can start being, and by being, you live in the now and you have access to the most creative, joyful, peaceful energy. It is a spiritual book but definitely not a religious one, and I'm ok with spirituality.

Even though I was skeptical to begin with, I'm feeling much better about being involved in this group. I think I can get enough out of the book to participate in the group and to maybe even make some positive changes in the way I see things.