Crafting calm Projects and practices for creativity and contemplation

Shannon turns the focus she placed on beading in A String and A Prayer: How to Make and Use Prayer Beads (with coauthor Eleanor Wiley, 2002) to other crafts that can be vehicles for spiritual exploration and development. In eight chapters, the author, an interfaith minister and spiritual director, describes how the act of making things can foster in the maker feelings of calm, comfort, community, and connection with others and the divine. But as she is quick to point out in her introduction, this is not a "how-to" craft book intended to guide the reader to finished products suitable for sharing or sale. Rather, the goal is to help readers tap into the process of creativity that Shannon finds so deeply connects her to the divine. To that extent, the book is a success, with ample adaptations of established crafts to spiritual ends. Also very satisfying are interviews, woven in the text, with artists who describe how their own work informs their spirituality. The book's 40 illustrations disappoint; they are rough sketches, where actual photographs of crafted objects would have been more inspirational. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Shannon (Prayers for Healing), a San Francisco-based interfaith minister, finds spiritual calm through creating, and this collection of stories, journal prompts, inspirational quotes, and craft projects is designed to help others find their own inner peace. The author's focus is on the Christian faith, but she includes anecdotes from crafters from other faith traditions, including Judaism and paganism. The projects are fairly simple, and all focus on bringing spirituality, prayer, or meditation into the mix. Sometimes this works, such as the personal prayer flag; other times, it's a little forced, like the "sacred bath salts." VERDICT The intersection of crafts and spirituality is a popular topic, and Shannon's exploration will inspire crafters of a variety of faiths. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Crafting for Calm "I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with the arrest of attention in the midst of distraction." --Saul Bellow In this wired, wild world, it is harder than ever to truly calm oneself--everywhere we go, we are assaulted by noise, stimulation, the never-ending crawl at the bottom of our screens. As a recent Washington Post article explored, we are so caught up in our busy little worlds that sources of true beauty have trouble penetrating our rushed routines; how else to explain the fact that during a disheartening social experiment, in which world-class violinist Joshua Bell played unannounced and anonymously in a D.C. Metro station, hardly anyone (except children) bothered to stop and listen--and the collection for the renowned musician playing an hour-and-a-half in the subway was a mere $32? The 20th-century Catholic priest and writer Henri Nouwen once wrote that "Through the spiritual life we gradually move from the house of fear to the house of love"--and the same thing could be said about the creative life. By immersing ourself in our creative activity, we can still those voices around us and in us--we can enter the stillness which characterizes prayer and the "house of love." We can open ourselves and experience spaciousness. Many if not all of us will find ourselves naturally calming or "gentling" down when we carve out the space to simply be with our Creator and our crafting materials. We will find, as the artist Corita Kent wrote, that "there is an energy in the creative process that belongs in the league of those energies which can uplift, unify and harmonize all of us." Some crafts themselves are inherently calming; both the process and the product serve as vehicles for calm and even prayer. As Susan Gordon Lydon reminds us in The Knitting Sutra, "Handcrafts throughout history have often been fashioned with the aid of prayer, one prayer for each bead or each stitch, while keeping good thoughts to enhance the spiritual purpose of the object." The practices in this section offer a spectrum of sensory appeal; from the smells and touch of anointing oils, to the sounds and sight of a tabletop meditation fountain, you will find activities here to truly help you to be still, and know that God is God. Excerpted from Crafting Calm: Projects and Practices for Creativity and Contemplation by Maggie Oman Shannon All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.