Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour in Hewett Centre, and our Library Team offers related reading lists based on the topic of the Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service featuring Leslie Hill on Sunday, August 31, 2025 at 11 a.m. All are welcome in Hewett Centre after the Sunday service to check out some books and to have coffee and conversation.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. Dressed for Dancing: My Sojourn in the Findhorn Foundation, by Leslie Anne Hill, 2012, 921 HIL [Written by a VanU member. From Amazon: “”I wasn’t going to commit suicide, but I could imagine waking up one day and deciding not to get out of bed. Ever.” Leslie Hill can’t recover from her husband’s death. Work and therapy don’t help. Trying to escape her grief through travel, she visits a cousin who is living in the Findhorn Foundation, a New Age community in northern Scotland. Although Leslie dislikes the culture of emotional openness and transparency, she is intrigued enough to do a workshop. When a three- month visit turns into a five-year stay, she begins a journey of self-discovery that will change everything.”].
2. Pilgrimage – Story Spirit Witness Place, 2013, 808.88 HIL [Chapter by Leslie Hill, VanU member. From the Pilgrimage Magazine – About Us: “… The magazine is dedicated to exploring story, spirit, witness, and place in and beyond the American Southwest. We welcome creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, translation submissions and feature one artist per issue. …”].
3. Trusting Change: Finding Our Way Through Personal and Global Transformation, by Karen Hering, 2022, 248 HER [From LibraryThing: “… offers pastoral support and spiritual skills building for individuals on the cusp of personal change within the collective context of a world that is reshaping itself at a faster pace than ever. The book’s ten thresholding skills give readers practical tools for living on the threshold and through change, but this is not a typical “how-to” guide and its beautifully written and evocative language will connect readers with their own deeper consciousness. From the book’s first page, the reader is greeted by a warm storyteller ready to journey with them through uncertainty and change. Hering does not pretend that change is easy but notes its inevitability and some of the ways readers can participate in it, allowing them to trust it more in the future. Sharing wisdom found in nature and in metaphors, the reflections include evocative questions and creative, often embodied exercises that invite the reader into a larger story of change. …”].
4. Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, by Viktor E. Frankl, 1984, 150.19 FRA [The Julian Fears Library. From LibraryThing: “… Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl’s theory – known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos (“meaning”) – holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. …”].
5. Gentle Roads to Survival: Making Self-Healing Choices in Difficult Circumstances, by Andre Auw, 1991, 158.1 AUW [From LibraryThing: “… suggestions on handling the challenges of life by using anecdotes and experiences from his years as a therapist.”].
6. Grownupedness, by Clarissa P Green, 2020, 155 GRE [Gift of Leslie Hill. From LibraryThing: “Grownupedness is a personal memoir, rich with the insight of Clarissa P. Green’s decades-long career as a university professor and family therapist working with aging parents and their mid-life children. In finding that the search for authenticity and the desire to appear and act “grown up” was shared among those families that she counselled, Clarissa brings to life her stories, insights and personal family experiences-making her deep understanding of aging and family life available to all families or individuals struggling with age and family relationships. Using her own similar family struggles and sharing the deeply personal process of her family’s history and future interlocking through time, Clarissa explores when and how “grownupedness” emerges and evolves, what threatens or cobbles it, and what it looks and sounds like in action over time.”].
7. Always Becoming – Forever! A Journal of Conscious Living/Conscious Dying, by Clare M. Buckland and Diana C. Douglas, 1999, 921 BUC [From LibraryThing: “What is conscious dying, anyway? For three years, Clare Buckland and Diana Douglas have been asking themselves this question. This book is the result. These two women have written a remarkably honest and human account of what it means to prepare for conscious dying…and ultimately, for conscious living.”].
8. Missing Sarah: A Memoir Of Loss, by Maggie De Vries, 2008, 306.74 DEV [Written by a VanU member . From LibraryThing: “On April 14, 1998, Sarah de Vries disappeared from her usual spot on the corner of Princess and Hastings in Vancouver. She became one of the many women who had vanished from the Downtown Eastside – women, most of them sex workers and drug addicts – whose DNA would later be found on the Pickton farm. Reflecting on her adopted sister’s story, through Sarah’s own poetry and journals and the recollections of those close to her at home and downtown, Maggie uncovers the portrait of a bright, charismatic woman who found herself trapped in a downward spiral of self-loathing, prostitution, drugs, and violence. In this achingly honest book, the reader is drawn into revelations and understanding just as Maggie was. Tragic though it was in many ways, Sarah’s life had meaning.”].
9. Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth, by M. Scott Peck, 1994, 158.1 PEC [From LibraryThing: “… takes the lectures of Dr. Peck and presents his profound insights into the issues that confront and challenge all of us today: spirituality, forgiveness, relationships, and growing up. In this aid for living less simplistically, you will learn not to look for the easy answers but to think multidimensionally. You will learn to reach for the “ultimate step,” which brings you face to face with your personal spirituality. It will be this that helps you appreciate the complexity that is life. …”].
10. What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher, by Lee Gutkind, introduction by Jahana Hayes and Irvin Scott, 2016, 371.1 GUT [VanU contributor – Leslie Hill. From LibraryThing: “Teachers delve into the most difficult, rewarding, and transformative moments of their careers, as they discover that succeeding at teaching is a test not just of training or of subject matter, but of resolve, dedication, faith, and character. Whether in a New England prep school or a public school in South Central LA, a preschool in Malawi or a high school in China, the fundamental challenges of becoming a teacher are the same: finding authority, forging an authentic connection with students, and making a space where learning can occur. In these twenty personal narratives, teachers provide us with a fascinating insight into a profession that touches us all.”].
11, The Story of Your Life: Writing a Spiritual Autobiography, by Dan Wakefield, 1990, 808.2 WAK [Beacon Press Publication. From LibraryThing: “… how to write about and share our most meaningful life experiences and in so doing to see our lives in a new light. …”].
12, Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, by Stephen R. Covey, 1990, 158 COV [From LibraryThing: “… presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With insights and anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity — principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.”].
13. Always Becoming: An Autobiography, by Clare M. Buckland, 1996, 921 BUC [From LibraryThing: “Mentor, educator and Jungian analyst, Clare Buckland recounts the remarkable story of her life journey.”].
14. Living Revision: A Writer’s Craft as Spiritual Practice, by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew, 2018, 801 AND [From LibraryThing, a description from Amazon: “… guides writers through the writing and revision process. With insight and grace, Andrew asks writers to flex their spiritual muscles, helping them to transform their writing as they in turn transform themselves into more curious and reflective human beings.”].