Gift from the Sea: 50th Anniversary Edition [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

I wound up reading the bulk of the book on Mothers' Day, which seemed quite appropriate, given that among the many issues Lindbergh addresses here is the need for mothers to find a balance between their own needs and those of their children and husbands. The need for time to one's self, a "room of one's own", the need for a spriritual dimension to one's existence--well, it seems so obvious that these needs have to be met if a woman--if any human being--is to be fulfilled and to be able to meet her (or his) responsibilities with joy rather than with dread. But the lessons that Anne Morrow Lindbergh taught in 1955 still need to be voiced in 2000--perhaps more than ever. Lindbergh seems prescient when she speaks of the dangers of the "life of multiplicity" which had already taken root in the immediate post-War era. We know all too well that it has not gotten any better in the past 50 years and that women's lives in particular have become more stressful and, to use Lindbergh's word, "fragmented" in the past half-century.

What distinguishes Lindbergh's book from today's current crop of self-help or New Age sprititual books though is its lyrical quality. Her careful, belletristic prose is soothing and, yes, meditative in and of itself. Reading it seems to bring about the very centeredness and balance that she seeks to describe.

Although she includes no bibliography (and rightly so, as this is not a tract), I would hope that many of her readers would be inspired to seek out the works of some of the writers she quotes in the context of these essays. She does the world a great service in suggesting how Rilke, for example, whose poetry may seem impenetrable at first, can actually speak to the concerns of our own lives.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh's thoughts are woven around her impressions gathered from her ocean-side stay away from society and civilization -- from people and things -- from noise and confusion -- from musts and don'ts.

What Anne discovers in her solitude at the beach, she offers to you the reader by way of her journal. The tiny shells she held and studied provide lessons to her and all of us.

Anne's musings about life, relationships, love, busy-ness, aging, simplicity and solitude came to me several years ago at a time I was re-assessing many things in my life. Like a grace, her words soothed me and helped me quiet my turbulent thoughts, and to gather my inmost spirit to bind the wounds, to fill myself with the good already all around me and to go forward.

I realized I could slow down my pace, choose my own path, ask for and expect some peace and quiet and harmony, because these gifts are there for all of us to enhance our lives.

Although written from a woman's perspective, Anne's gift from the sea is for all of us who hunger for the slower pace, the garden path, the sanctity in God's every creation down to the intricate sea shell in Anne's hand as she coddles it, examines its artistic swirls and ridges and colors, and listens to the lessons -- the homilies -- within its delicate curves.

A keeper of a book. You'll go back to this one, like to a favorite vacation hideaway or armchair by the fireside or corner in the garden under the stars. It'll be an old friend, a comfort and blessing.

Take a deep breath......Can you just smell the salty tang of those soft breezes off the ocean