Clicking here will take you to the Book Review

Sarah Masters reviews the audio series

Women’s Wisdom from the Heart of Africa

Her name means "keeper of the rituals," and Sobonfu Somé tells us in this 7-hour, 6-CD set, that ritual is considered by members of the Dagara tribe of West Africa to be the key to connecting with one’s spirituality.

Sobonfu Somé is an author, teacher and authority on African women’s spirituality. Through colorful anecdotes, lively discussion and quiet reflection, she leads the listener to a better understanding of a world in which plants, trees and animals are revered as elders and the connection to nature is considered divine.

The Dagara tribe values women as the source of the world's wisdom and Sobonfu Somé is the first woman chosen by the tribal elders to share their beliefs with the West.

She poses many questions in this audio series as she ministers to women, among them: “What are your unique gifts?” “What were you born to contribute?” and, most important for Chaplains, “What can your community do to assist you?”

Sobonfu Somé is author of The Spirit of Intimacy, Welcoming Spirit Home, and Falling Out of Grace: Meditations on Loss, Healing and Wisdom.

Completed: 2004
Running Time: 7 Hours
Music: Hamza El Din
Distributor: Sounds True

If you are interested in purchasing this CD series, you can do so at www.hartleyfoundation.org. Just click on “Sages of Our Age” on the homepage, then Sobonfu Somé for more information. The cost of the 6-CD set is $69.95.

Sarah Masters is the Managing Director of the Hartley Film Foundation, a non-profit foundation dedicated to cultivation, support, production and distribution of the best documentaries and audio meditations on world religions, spirituality, ethics and well-being.

Book Review

Rev. Stephen Harding reviews

Where You Go, There I Shall:
Gleanings from the Stories of Biblical Widows

This is an intensely personal and emotionally intimate book on being a widow. Written by Jane J. Parkerton, Anne Winchell Silver, and K. Jeanne Person, they offer a gentle invitation to discover the realities of being a widow.

The book grew out of a Ruth & Naomi Circle, a support group for widows at Grace Episcopal Church, Brooklyn Heights, New York. Not surprisingly, the book’s perspective is from the perspective of Christianity, but the central themes of loss, grief, and (re-)learning to live in a new way are universal.

They have subtitled their book ‘Gleanings…’ and have structured it to help the reader to glean as much as she or he is able to at one time – and to go back frequently for more. Each chapter begins with a story of a biblical widow - Abigail, Tamar, Anna, Judith, and others—re-told by the Reverend K. Jeanne Person. Each of the biblical widows was chosen to illustrate some part of this new condition of being widowed; through each story, one gains a fuller understanding of what it is to have been half of a marriage and to have to adjust to having the other half taken away.

Jeanne follows each biblical story with questions and/or meditation topics to pray and/or reflect about for widows, and then different meditation topics for all readers. Then, Jane and Anne talk openly and frequently movingly about an issue or topic raised in the story, using their own lives as illustrations.

For example, after Jeanne tells the story of the widow with two coins (Mark 12:38-44; Luke 21:1-4), Jane and then Anne each share the issues about money that each has had to work through.

As one reads the chapters, one gains—or gleans—a fuller understanding of what it is to be a widow, because Jane and Anne share moments of their lives with the reader. Soon, the reader is invited into their lives as a family friend trusted to hear the truth. Through Jane and Anne’s courage and clear writing, one is moved at their strength and by what each woman has gone through.

The end of their prologue reads, “In gleaning, may you who are widows find yourselves becoming members of a wider circle of sister-widows who understand, support and love one another. And whoever you are, may you discover, as we have, the astounding richness of the Bible in revealing both the concerns and the life-giving friendship of widows.” (xviii)

For widows, chaplains, and clergy, this is a practical and useful book. The material is authentic, genuine, and helpful. It is a resource for chaplains and clergy for their own work with widows; it is a resource for widows themselves, and it is well done.

Parkerton, Jane J., K. Jeanne Person, Anne Winchell Silver. Where You Go, There I Shall: Gleanings from the Stories of Biblical Widows, (Cowley Publications, Cambridge, 2005) pp. 129.

Do you have thoughts about these reviews you’d like to share with your colleagues? Send an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org