Living with Caer's Open Salon Blog

New Book Series: The Saints’ Guide to Relationships

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:05:13 -0400

Getting married? Conflicts at work? Tension with a neighbor?

Whether it’s the bedroom, the boardroom, Wall Street or a hungry child in the world, the nature of our relationships is spiritual at its core. Here is some inspired hands-on help, right on time.

Newly released from Godspeed Books & Media, The Saints’ Guide to Relationships is an inspiring, groundbreaking four-part book series that will change the way you look at your relationships – and the saints.

"The spiritual people in history whom we revere as saints have been raised up for us as models,” says author Caer Hallundbaek. “However, due to their exalted status, we often find it difficult to see how the deeply human and personal journeys of the saints relate directly to our own. And they do.”

In this series, hailed as "a vibrant, beautiful, and utterly useful guide for our own relationships today," Hallundbaek delves into the real-life relationships between some of the most beloved male and female saints in history, demonstrating their struggles, how they transformed problems, challenges they overcame with each other’s help, and how they were able to fully manifest their lives.

The result is an insightful journey from medieval Italy to modern day Trump Tower that is ideal for anyone searching for the inspiration and tools needed to avoid common relationship mistakes – and to build the kind of relationships that give us true joy, purpose, meaning and success. Each volume includes workbook space in back, with questions, notes and room for reflection.

Readers are invited to discover what the saints actually teach us about building fulfilling relationships in all areas of our lives – in love and marriage, at work, with neighbors, in community, and with God.

- Find new meaning and spiritual renewal in life
- Learn about right risk-taking for love
- Find keys to mutual love and intimacy
- Develop lifelong friendships
- Handle family conflicts
- Revitalize your marriage
- Outgrow difficulties with colleagues
- Manage gossip at work
- Recognize healthy & unhealthy attachments
- Avoid co-dependence
- Overcome obstacles that keep us from growth

The Saints' Guide To Relationships Series:
In Love & Marriage: Clare and Francis of Assisi
@ Work: Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross
In Community: Catherine of Siena and Gregory XI
In the World: Francois de Sales and Jeanne de Chantal

"An enchanting and insightful read, which invites the reader to discover the Holy in his or her own relationships and to learn from these masters how to love God in loving others."
-Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur

To learn more, visit The Saints' Guide to Relationships and learn how to improve and deepen your bonds with those around you...

On the Death of Robin Gibb: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Tue, 22 May 2012 13:05:30 -0400

The passing of Robin Gibb on May 20, following the death of his twin brother Maurice, tugs at the memory and heartstrings of those of us who recall the era when the brothers became absolute Pop Music Gods.

Whether or not you were a fan of the Brothers Gibb, their music is part of the fabric of the beloved timeframe of my youth. Theirs remains a long and meaningful journey of family, struggles, persistence and, of course, the diverse music that has bound them to each other - and to us - for nearly five decades.

Perhaps best known as the unintentional kings of disco due to their epic Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, their story actually begins much earlier, as the brothers began harmonizing together in the late 1950s. Their singing style was thoughtful and often vulnerable. As with any band of legend, their repertoire occasionally included a mystifying song, a 'what does that mean?' lyric, right alongside the Beatles, Don McLean, and other poetic wizards of the 60s and 70s.

One especially haunting example was "I Started a Joke," inspired by Robin:

I started a joke, which started the whole world crying
But I didn't see that the joke was on me

I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing
Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was on me

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I'd said

'Til I finally died, which started the whole world living
Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was on me

There were many theories about the meaning of the song and its inspiration -- including the suggestion it was about Hitler. Robin Gibb explains in a 2009 interview:

"To me, that was a very spiritual song, about faith and survival in life," he said. "It wasn't a love song, it was one of the first songs we wrote about struggling to survive emotionally alone in the world."

Due to his struggles with addiction, Robin Gibb had some experience of this isolation. Although the trademark quivering voice may have suggested meekness on the part of this Bee Gee, Robin was in fact the family rebel. In 1969, when Robin was 20, his father declared him a "ward of the state" due to his drinking.

Older brother Barry Gibb stated, "It happened so fast that we lost communication between us."

Still it was Robin who, in 1971, made the first call to Barry to reunite with his brothers. A few years later they would rise to the kind of worldwide megastardom that is rare to acquire and even harder to sustain -- the gargantuan success of Saturday Night Fever.

Once the disco era passed, however, the Bee Gees were destined to fade somewhat along with it -- many say unjustly, as in 'guilt by association.' The disco 'typecasting' that had made them so successful was a double-edged sword that left them with a dance-music reputation, and they struggled to regain mainstream popularity thereafter.

Still waters run deep, the saying goes. And in 1997 the Bee Gees returned with a new release, their album "Still Waters."

Perhaps the most prominent and popular song from that release was "Alone" -- poppy, catchy, melodic -- and another venture into isolation:

I'm on a wheel of fortune with a twist of fate
'Cause I know it isn't heaven is it love or hate
Am I the subject of the pain
Am I the stranger in the rain

I am alone

Perhaps this is why the Bee Gees have touched my heart and that of so many others over the years: their unabashed ability to explore the loneliness of everyman -- regardless of the company of brothers, fans, worshippers, family, professionals, and anyone else in the arena -- and to do so through the enduring gift of music.

To Barry, who works hard at Stayin' Alive, my heart goes out; oddly, I too know how it feels to lose two brothers, twins, within a few years of each other. I saw their struggles with addiction and the effects it had on their health down the road... I could see the invisible string that connected them, even as one left this world. Whether it was my nature, or some unspoken message I somehow absorbed along the way, I too became the strong one. How Deep is Your Love? Very deep. Of that I am certain.

So Barry: be tender with your love - you know how easy it is to break it.

And to the other Gibb brothers - Farewell, thank you for your song, and rest in peace.

I can see a new tomorrow
Ev'rything we are will never die
Loving's such a beautiful thing

--Too Much Heaven, Bee Gees

Mother's Day: When Julia Ward Howe Changed Her Tune

Fri, 11 May 2012 08:05:12 -0400

Hers may not be a household name today, but Americans know the famous poem that Julia Ward Howe wrote at the beginning of the Civil War, when it was thought, after the Battle of Bull Run, that the war would be over in just a few weeks: the powerful anthem, Battle Hymn of the Republic.

In song, we know its epic refrain:

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
His truth is marching on

Four devastating years later, when the real effects of war had burned through the veneer of glory and nearly one million Americans were dead or maimed in a hellish landscape, Julia had a change of heart -- and words.

She saw how the spoils of war far exceeded the troops on the field as she worked with the widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides, tattered remnants of the economic devastation that followed the Civil War.

In her new cause of a Mother's Day for Peace, Julia wrote the Mother's Day Proclamation, from a place of depth that welled up within her against the carnage that she witnessed. Five years after the war ended, the result was a cry that called upon a critical common ground of women - motherhood - and the call now was a plea to disarm:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

- Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

English poet William Blake wrote two books of poetry, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The songs that emerge from our life's experience of suffering and awakening are no less innocent than the songs of childhood, but they do come from a different place of understanding.

As Julia demonstrates, our heart's song of experience is open-eyed, born of an innocence rooted in empathy, compassion and justice. However, her awakening to peace may not be as easy to set into a catchy tune with a simple refrain.

Still, it is worth a try.

----------------

Rags

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:05:07 -0400

Rags make paper

Paper makes money

Money makes banks

Banks make loans

Loans make beggars

Beggars make rags.

-Anon., found in a paper mill in Somerset, England, 19th century

The Buddy System

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:04:50 -0400

We step aside on the sidewalk in the village to let the kindergarten class pass us, two by two. The Buddy System, I recall with a smile.

The children stay connected without question, without hesitation, during their daily walk along Main Street.

“Hold hands,” their teacher calls. And they do, happily.

They do not know distance. They do not yet know separation from their peers.

They do not question the type of person their partner is.

Or what kind of house they live in. Who’s better, or who’s worse.

No burden. No judgment. No distance.

The Buddy System is harder to maintain as we grow older. We begin to have boundaries – our land, our car, our work. We learn, even create, distance between neighbors.

As we work for ourselves and to secure our own family in this challenging world, it can become difficult to remember that the other person (and their family) remains our friend.

Yet… The Buddy System works. Decade after decade.