I read a new resource this week that is helpful in creating space in our lives for God. The book is called Soulistry – Artistry of the Soul: Creative Ways to Nurture Your Spirituality by June Mack Maffin. Using one of my favorite practices, journaling, Maffin provides 80 inspirational quotes and spiritual reflection questions to explore. As I read this beautifully written and encouraging book, a sense of peace fell over my heart. Her questions following the quotes are some of the best thought-provoking ones I have seen. She introduces topics not always explored like the spirituality of play, doing what you think you cannot do, and risking frustration. Often when we dig deeper into new words, we see God with fresh new eyes.
She writes, “Journal writings are meant to be personal conversations – with yourself; with yourself and God. Writing your responses to the Soul-Questions can clarify what you believe/think about certain relationships, issues, life, yourself. This is your opportunity to know yourself more deeply and to make time to listen, to think, to pray, to meditate about what you believe – really believe. You may find that your responses to the Soul-Questions raise additional questions and if so, record those questions in your Soulistry Journal for consideration at a later time.”
June Mack Maffin presently lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada and “delights in facilitating Soulistry retreats and workshops, working on her next book, and nurturing others on their journey as Creative Spirituality Artists.”
She has her Masters in Divinity, a doctorate in Pastoral Care, and is ordained in the Anglican Church of Canada. Her experience is vast in such areas as a radio and television personality and writer; book author, provincial information officer, high school educator, wife, mother, group facilitator, counselor, book and magazine editor, spiritual director, retreat leader, Anglican priest, school chaplain, and Creative Spirituality Artist.
Soulistry will be available as an e-book from Amazon in November and then in book format by March also on Amazon and local bookstores. Pre-orders will be available by January.
If you are hungry to grow deeper with God, I encourage you to explore Soulistry to help nourish your spiritual life.
“Soulistry- Artistry of the Soul: Creative Ways to Nurture Your Spirituality” leads us into a creative journey in finding our authentic selves as co-creators of a new Earth. Traveling through Soulistry, stopping to drink in the 80 quotes of wisdom, Journal Prompts, and listening to your heart’s response in answering the Soul-Questions, brings the reader into a sacred journey.
The gift of this book by author June Maffin is that it leads us to greater understanding and loving of our true selves as well as a deeper knowing and loving of Creator. It helps us to think outside the box about our political, social and environmental beliefs, ever expanding our nurturing relationships to others.
Every day we wake up to new possibilities for co-creating a new Earth of justice and peace for all Creation. Instead of turning on the news that bombards us with stories of fear and anger take time out with Soulistry. Find a quiet comfortable place where you can gaze upon nature. Visualize yourself as whole and consciously evolving into the person needed for shaping today. Read the Journal Prompts that matter to you, or randomly or sequentially go through the book. Let the Soulistry Soul-Questions flow through you going deep inside. Let the heart answers arise like the morning sun with all the brilliance of a new day dawning. Share the wisdom, your insights and dreams with others forming a sacred circle that loves and nurtures each one as co-creators of the new.
I have had the honor of reviewing June Maffin’s upcoming book, Soulistry, which you should run out and pre-order from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, or whatever bookseller you favor. It is a guide to creating a moving inner screen, so to speak, of your soul’s life.
As I worked through the book, I thought about my own journal, which is this blog. Since St. John’s Day 2007, I have called it “BishopBlogging.” But it really isn’t about a bishop so much as it is my own inner life—at least the part I am willing to share publicly. (Of course, is anything really private anymore?)
Soulistry is one guide — a very good guide — among many to finding out who you are. “To thine own self be true” is a famous quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius sermonising his son Laertes in Act I, scene 3. In Elizabethan English it meant not “tell yourself the truth about yourself” as often rendered today. It meant, in American slang, “always look out for Number One.” A little play on words, which Google cannot find, occurred to me as I read June’s MS: “to thine own true self, be.”
Finding out who you are at this moment in time and space is critically important to everything else in life. So from now on this will be the title of my blog. And I hope, Gentle Reader, that you will continue to find in this virtual place some pleasure in reading, as one man, who just happens to be a bishop, tries to find a little bit of truth and just be. You know… Être. Sein. Esse. Ser (or is it Estar?). είναι. In any language, just be. Right now. Tomorrow, we’ll see.
{Bishop Pierre Whalon’s blog “To Thine Own True Self, Be” July 3, 2010}
“Soulistry-Artistry of the Soul: Creative Ways to Nurture Your Spirituality” by June Mack Maffin, should come with a warning label. “Warning: this book propels us into God-time, into God-space!”
If we take the book’s provocative Soul-Questions seriously, answers well up from our souls and we will be motivated to go further into ourselves than perhaps we have ever gone.
I did and confronted new information about myself which opened me to transcendence. I encourage you to read this book and encounter the Divine in new ways.
Sr. Gloriamarie Amalfitano, Community of Solitude www.communityofsolitude.com
Journaling is good for the soul. “Soulistry” is a name coined from “soul” and “artistry” used by June Maffin to help readers discover in creative ways the deep mysteries that are hidden in our souls. It’s about “spirituality,” in other words, but Dr. Maffin does this in a very nuanced and developed way that avoids the usual vague platitudes.
“Soulistry-Artistry of the Soul: Creative Ways to Nurture Your Spirituality” gives an excellent series of signposts to your interior life, a way of discovering your true self as you are now, and finding creative ways to re-shaping that self in a healthier direction. In other words, deeper.
Everyone will find something useful, whoever they are. For Soulistry is about life and death and new life, those things which are the stuff of human being that we all share, and yet that each of us experiences in a unique way. Find out for your self.
Bishop Pierre Whalon is bishop of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, a composer, author, musician and prolific blogger. His blog can be found at: http://bishopblogging.org/
If you’d like more information about Soulistry, Soulistry the book or the author, set your browser to: www.soulistry.com
Change is difficult and requires work, so much so that many people are not willing to make the effort.
June Maffin has marked the trail for all of us seeking a deeper and more meaningful life.
The Soulistry Journal-Prompts (quotes) that June chose and the accompanying Soulistry Soul-Questions provide a map and a compass for the trip within.
Like so many explorers who kept a diary of their adventures, this guide to journal keeping gently asks the questions that only the traveler can answer.
Mary Lawler Artist Marketing Director for ArtId (www.artid.com)
To learn more about Soulistry, the Soulistry book or its author, set your browser to www.soulistry.com
June Maffin is a Creative Spirituality Artist, workshop leader, and author of several books books. She lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. [more]
