The following is a review of John Dear's book, The Nonviolent Life, by ESR student Christie Walkuski. Dear is the keynote speaker for ESR's 2014 Ministry of Writing Colloquium on October 31-November 1.  You can learn more about that event and register online here. As we lead up to the Colloquium, you are invited to join the ESR community in reading The Nonviolent Life during the coming month.

I am struck by Dear’s inclusion of practicing nonviolence toward self, which may sound like a lovely, uplifting and affirming exercise, but in practice is really huge spiritual work--the work of healing our own woundedness--through constant prayer, meditation and self-examination.  Tending to our own inner healing, Dear says, and learning how to be nonviolent toward ourselves and others, is the work of a lifetime, and what the spiritual life is all about. Amen to that.

You can read more from Christie here: http://esrquaker.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-nonviolent-life.html