Divine Sparks: Collected Wisdom of the Heart

Sven Birkerts says in The Guttenburg Elegies: “I read books to read myself.”

I take notes from the books I read in my journals so I can remember how it is I read myself—and others. In looking over my journals (some 50 of them by now), I notice that the writers I most treasure are the ones who speak to my heart as well as to my mind.

Like a bower bird, I hoard shiny word-spangles. Topic areas began to take shape like shards in a kaleidoscope. Colorful flashes, repeated patterns, echoed voices began to show themselves.

The title for this work comes from the Rhineland mystic Hildegard of Bingen who reminded us:

We are all sparks of the Divine flame.

Besides other quotations of Hildegard’s, over 5,000 “remembered truths” appear in this 532 page collection arranged by topics: from “Abundance” to “Zoroastrianim.”

About 1800 different voices are collected here—some from people I’ve actually published or spoken to in my many years of book publishing. Many, such as Matthew Fox, William Sloane Coffin, Krister Stendahl, Alice Howell, and Maria Gimbutas, I met over the years, and value as spiritual teachers. Others come from my one-sided friendship with folks I meet only through their books.

Since it published in 2005, some people have told me they value this collection as a meditational tool. Others read it through once a year. Others use it for their own writing—a ready reference, indexed for easy use.

Every morning for about four months, I watched our Vermont dawn sky drizzle greys and pinks across my southern office window as I organized and entered quotations before breakfast, in order to meet my Morning Light Press deadline.  Divine Sparks became my own spiritual practice, reminiscent of the old method some still practice: Lectio divina. You read a text, memorize it, meditate on it, pray over it and eventually a dialogue takes place between the reader and various voices. I began to hear conversations as I organized the voices found here. C. S. Lewis was speaking to Flannery O’Connor. Walker Percy, W.H. Auden, Denise Levertov dialogued with Blaise Pascal, Daniel Quinn, Charles Dickens.

It is my deep desire that people using this book will find themselves surrounded and warmed by this wisdom circle.

The very first quotation carries my wish for you:

When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. –Lao Tzu

The final quotation offers a reminder for our time:

Zoroaster taught that from time to time a world teacher will be sent in order to give a new religious impetus.   Bruno Borchert, Mysticism.

A Divine Sparks quotation a day appears on I Live Inspired