Carlo Alcos, Interview #128

Name: Carlo Alcos

Where you live: Nelson, British Columbia, Canada

What you do as a vocation or avocation?  

Freelance writer, Editor of Brave New Traveler

Your two favorite books: Ishmael by Daniel Quinn - it was the book that planted the seed that started me on a spiritual journey, way before I even knew what "spirituality" was. It was the idea that things could be a lot different than they are, whereas before I kind of just took it for granted that things have to be this way and couldn't imagine anything else. And High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - I'm a romantic and I love music. This is the perfect combo.

Your two favorite songs: At the moment, Say, Hey (I Love You) by Michael Franti and Wordless Chorus by My Morning Jacket.

Why you are interested in spirituality? Because I think it's imperative to be. It's how we connect with the bigger picture, how we come to understand that everything is connected, and it just feels good. It feels like the right thing to do, the right way to live, not even so much in an intellectual way...it just feels right, in the heart. It allows me to openly be how I am, and to be loving and compassionate to others. It's how I want to live my life right now.


Your favorite quote: I'm currently reading Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, so I'll pick one from there: "The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living."


Your favorite web sites: To be perfectly honest, I enjoy reading articles from a wide range of sites, so don't particularly have any "favorites". They usually cross my attention through Facebook or Twitter, or through my colleagues at Matador. I spend so much time online for "work" that I try to get my eyes off the screen whenever I can.


Your hero? I draw inspiration from anyone who dares to do what they really want to do in life, and do so with consideration for all beings, and who just genuinely love living.
 
A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? Learning lessons always surprise me because they're never the lesson I think I am learning or am supposed to learn. It's only ever in retrospect that I've come to realize that, hey, that was meant to happen because I learned this.


A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?" Where I'm living right now: Nelson, BC. I initially came for three months, then decided to stay for the winter. Then decided to stay for the summer. Now I'm seriously considering staying for the next winter too. It's a place that draws you in and keeps you here. There is something very special about this place, a small town of around 10,000 people, snuggled in a valley, surrounded by mountains, on the shore of a big lake. The community is amazing, I've never met so many people who are so readily willing to open up and share themselves in a really vulnerable way. Nelson is the kind of place where people still smile and say hi when you pass them on the street.

  I edit and write at Brave New Traveler

     I also co-founded and write articles about relationships 
     (with others and with ourselves) at Confronting Love.
     I keep a personal blog at Vagabonderz.com.

Janelle Hertzler, Interview #127

Name: Janelle Hertzler
 
Where you live: South-Central Virginia
 
What you do as a vocation or avocation? I work with people who are dealing with grief, loss, and trauma. I am developing my website www.journey-through-grief.com as a primary source of connection with these folks. I am also a spiritual director and retreat leader.
 
Your two favorite books: It is hard to narrow it down to two. I would have to say any memoir or story that is real and honest and inspires hope. Paula D'Arcy's The Gift of the Red Bird and Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies and Plan B. Also any of Mary Oliver's books of poetry.
 
Your two favorite songs: Paul Gurr's Come as You Are and David Haas' You are Mine (I Will Come to You in the Silence)

Why you are interested in spirituality? It is the one thing that can stop the hamster of my mind as it spins on its never-ending wheels. 

 
Your favorite quote:  "In difficult times always carry something beautiful inside." - Blaise Pascal

Your favorite web sites: ordinary blogs where people honestly engage their questions and doubts and inspire their readers to a deeper sense of peace and trust
 
Your hero? A friend of mine, who through a genetic disease, is losing her eyesight. She is dealing with her loss with such honest grit and beautiful openness of spirit.
 
A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? To live the questions more fully and with more grace.
 
A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?" Sitting beside the river on my brother-in-law's farm or most places in nature.
 
Janelle's site: www.journey-through-grief.com

 

Christine Garvin, Interview #126

Name: Christine Garvin

Where you live: Black Mountain, NC

What you do as a vocation or avocation? Holistic Health and Nutrition Educator/Writer

Your two favorite books: The Wisdom of the Enneagram (Riso and Hudson), The Purpose of Your Life (Carol Adrienne)

Your two favorite songs: Express Yourself (Madonna), Mellow Mood (Bob Marley and most other versions)

Why you are interested in spirituality? Spirituality is what keeps me grounded and connected to what's real and important, while living in a world of constant chaos. 

Your favorite quote: “To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.” - Woody Allen

 Your favorite web sites: Mercola.com (for health);  Zenhabits.net/ (for spirit/ilfe), Theoatmeal.com (for laughter)


Your hero? The people who make it through the hardships of life with grace and gratitude.


A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? The present moment really is all we have, so why spend so much time jumping into the future and the past?

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?" The Blue Ridge Mountains around Asheville, NC; Mendocino, CA; in front of my altar

Holistic health website: Living Holistically - www.holisticwithhumor.com

Love and Relationships site: Confronting Love - www.confrontinglove.com 

   Follow me at www.twitter.com/livingholistic

Meredith Gould, Interview #125

Name:  Meredith Gould 

Where you live:  Baltimore, Maryland 

What you do as a vocation or avocation?
For vocation: write about faith and spiritual life; For work: write about health and healthcare. For fun: collect cheesy religious kitsch, but not indiscriminately so. 

Your two favorite books:
Among many faves: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving and Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics by Marsha Sinetar 

Your two favorite songs:
Calling All Angels (Jane Siberry); One of Us (Joan Osborne) 

Why you are interested in spirituality?  
Pondering essential essence is a never-ending adventure that I also find calming and comforting. It’s a mystic thing. 

Your favorite quote:
Hate to be greedy, but here are two: "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” Friedrich Nietzsche and  “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”  Muriel Rukeseyer 

Your favorite web sites: I’m going to respond with a few blogs that never fail to make me gasp and laugh, sometimes gasping with laughter:
 Nag on the Lake; 
Post It Notes From My Idiot Boss; 
Hyperbole and a Half; and 
Story of the Day from StoryPeople

Your hero?
St. Teresa of Avila 

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn?  
God’s will, not mine, be done – even when I make a fuss. 

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"  
Wherever there are mountains. 

Personal blog: More Meredith Gould
Blog for IgnatianSpirituality.com: dotMagis
Personal website: MeredithGould.com
Selected books of mine:
Deliberate Acts of Kindness: Service as a Spiritual Practice (Doubleday);  
Why Is There a Menorah on the Altar? Jewish Roots of Christian Worship (Seabury).

John Horgan, Interview #124

Name: John Horgan
 
Where you live: Cold Spring, NY
 
What you do as a vocation or avocation? Thinking, writing, gabbing.
 
Your two favorite books: Ficciones by Borges, Varieties of Religious Experience, by James
 
Your two favorite songs: Are You Experienced, Hendrix, The End, The Doors (what can I say, I'm an old acid head)
 
Why you are interested in spirituality? Even hard-core atheists are interested in spirituality, whether or not they admit or realize it. And like I said, I'm an old acid head.
 
Your favorite quote: "We don't know enough to be pessimistic." Norman Cousins
 
Your favorite web sites: ??
 
Your hero? I don't really have heros. We're all bozos on this bus.
 
A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? Every moment of your life is a friggin miracle.
 
A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?" On the Hudson River, in my girlfriend's apartment, in my apartment if my kids are there.

Personal website:
johnhorgan.org

Blog for Scientific American:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/cross-check/

Editor's Note: Check out John's other books too: The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight of the Scientific Age… and Where Was God on September 11? (A Scientist Asks a Ground Zero Pastor…

Jennifer Grant, Interview #123

Name: Jennifer Grant

Where you live: suburban Chicago

What you do as a vocation or avocation? I’m a writer.

Your two favorite books: 

(Oooh, hard to choose, of course, so I went with first two that came to mind.) 

Call it Sleep by Henry Roth

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Your two favorite songs: 

Into the Mystic by Van Morrison

One Day by Matisyahu

Why you are interested in spirituality?

I am a grateful believer in Christ, have been a member of the Episcopal church for most of my life, and have been blessed to have had a few brushes with the Divine - inescapable, unmistakable ones - over the years.

  

Your favorite quote:

"So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering." - Brenda Ueland

 Or,

from a song lyric in Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” (the song is “I Know Things Now” which is full of good quotes):

“Nice is different than good.”

Your favorite web sites: 

I like salon.com, bbc.com, and Wikipedia.org. 

Your hero?
American abolitionist and suffragist Lucy Stone.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn?

I am working on “being still” (and knowing that God is God - Psalm 46:10).  Giving attention to my four children, my marriage, my community and my writing work fills my days to the brim. I am careful about to whom and to what I give my time, but too often fall into the traps of multitasking and “busy-ness.”  I have been at work in a deliberate way since last fall to see God in the people and events around me.  To watch, listen, and wait more carefully for God.

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"
Last year I had the privilege of visiting Botswana and spending a few days in the Okavango Delta and I still catch my breath to remember its beauty and the sense of sheer wonder in God’s creation I experienced there. Sometimes I almost say, “It’s a magical place,” but then I correct myself.  It’s a spiritual place, overflowing with signs of God’s creativity and love.

 Jennifer's websites:

jennifergrant.com

loveyoumorebook.com

Kelsey Timmerman, Interview #122

Name: Kelsey Timmerman

Where you live: Muncie, IN

What you do as a vocation or avocation?  Goer of places. Writer of things. Teller of stories. Whether laughing at the world with garment workers in Cambodia or talking with college students in Indiana, discussing SCUBA diving with lobster divers in Nicaragua or addressing a nonprofit in Florida, playing PlayStation with students in Kosovo or challenging high school students in the U.S. to see the world differently, I seek to connect people through words and pictures. I believe that if we reduce global issues to the stories of individual people, we can better see ourselves, our parents, our sons and daughters, and our hopes and struggles in one another.

Your two favorite books: 1) Dracula 2) Huckleberry Finn

Your two favorite songs: 1) Children of the Sun by Billy Thorpe. I think I’m the songs biggest (possibly only) fan. I got pulled over once for dancing too much to the song while driving. 2) Where the Streets Have No Name by U2

Why you are interested in spirituality?  Because I’ve seen little girls laugh in Hell.  Let me explain: I visited a dump in Cambodia where adults scavenged for recyclable earning $1/day and their kids picked through old trash for 25-cents per day.  The sight and the smell of the place made me want to vomit, but the image I’ll never forget is a little girl throwing her head back and laughing.

Your favorite quote: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” - Einstein

Your favorite web sites: www.worldhum.com

Your hero?  Mark Twain, for changing minds regardless of how reluctant through laughter.

A spiritual lesson you hope to learn? How to balance my compassion for my family, community, and the world.

A place in the world where you feel spiritually "connected?"  I feel most spiritually connected underwater peering over the continental shelf into the abyss surrounded by a school of fish.  It’s good to be reminded that their are places that only imagination and belief in something larger than ourselves can take us. 

My website is : www.kelseytimmerman.com

I’m the author of Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People That Make Our Clothes    http://whereamiwearing.com