Category Archives: Meditations/Liturgies

Liturgy meditations

Comfort books

Some have a talent for comfort….

Marjorie Turner Hollman helps nonfiction authors self-publish their books. She is also a disability advocate, sharing information about Easy Walks (not too many roots or rocks, relatively level with firm footing, and something of interest along the way) in open space. Let’s get in touch.

“Comfort” is a personal thing. What may bring me comfort can cause someone else discomfort. What rings true for me might be incomprehensible to you.

We seek out comfort in different ways: physically, spiritually, and emotionally. A warmer or cooler room, a favorite sweater or bathrobe, a chair that’s not too hard or too soft, but just right—these can offer physical comfort. Companions who give us support, empathy, and respect can provide emotional comfort. Many of us find spiritual comfort through ritual, sacred texts, prayer, and religious community.

And then there are books. I call certain ones my “Comfort Books.” I hunger for their soothing balm at different times. During seasons of loss or displacement, immersing myself in a different world in a story can give me clarity and calm. Many are books I’ve read before. When I pick one up, I feel confident in its power to provide familiarity and reassurance, especially at times when I have had little else to feel confident about.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

Learning to ask for help

Kayaking can be magical. Some of us need support. Volunteers with the Blackstone Heritage Corridor helped me in and back out of the boat. The paddling? That was up to me.

Marjorie Turner Hollman helps authors self-publish their books. She is also a disability advocate, sharing information about Easy Walks (not too many roots or rocks, relatively level with firm footing, and something of interest along the way) in open space. Click to learn more.

Here are some lessons I’ve learned about asking for help/support, from years of practice. The recording I made here was first shared through Michael Whitehouse’s Grateful Growth Summit. Many thanks to Michael for spurring me to meet his challenge of creating a fifteen minute talk for this event. The recording has more “what to do” suggestions than are listed here.

“Why Learning to ask for help is a good thing…for your business”:

I’ve started writing a book on why learning to ask for help is a good thing… for your business, for your personal life, and for those you enlist to help. This post is not comprehensive. Below are a few tips that I will expand on as the manuscript is developed. Let me know if you have questions or comments, please!

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

Stories Can Change Us

Looking to the future, hoping for a harvest

LISTEN:

Marjorie Turner Hollman helps authors self-publish their books. She is also a disability advocate, sharing information about Easy Walks (not too many roots or rocks, relatively level with firm footing, and something of interest along the way) in open space. Click to learn more.

Something interesting can happen when we turn up old earth in a garden. Plowing a familiar furrow may lead us to encounter, when we’re lucky, something different, perhaps a pretty fragment of an old china plate or glass bottle.

We may worry, when writing, that we are covering old ground. Or, as teachers sharing the same lesson with different classes, we review the same concepts, over and over! However, the repetition itself may, without our realizing it, bring change into our lives. And that can make all the difference.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

Common Sense

Dad helping my brother launch a water-filled rocket

LISTEN HERE:

Marjorie Turner Hollman helps authors self-publish their books. She is also a disability advocate, sharing information about Easy Walks (not too many roots or rocks, relatively level with firm footing, and something of interest along the way) in open space. Learn more.

My dad could do anything. Really. Whenever my siblings or I got stuck trying to complete any practical task, we turned to him, and predictably, he was able to fix, open, close, or repair it. Every single time.

Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

Hints of rutabaga

Dad and Mom on left, grands in pool, Ted and Betty, Grannie on the far right

LISTEN HERE:

Marjorie Turner Hollman helps authors self-publish their books. She is also a disability advocate, sharing information about Easy Walks (not too many roots or rocks, relatively level with firm footing, and something of interest along the way) in open space. Click to learn more.

The unfamiliar scent was overwhelming. I was suddenly a very young girl again and the wooden floor of my friends’ country kitchen had been transformed into polished terrazzo.

Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

No longer afraid

At the grand canyon of Yellowstone National Park. Some fears (like of heights!) are worth clinging to.

LISTEN:

Glancing through the glass window, she tucked an unruly lock of her dark, shoulder-length hair behind one ear. She leaned inside the office door, her dark eyes scanning the room; her knee-length skirt covered substantial hips.

“Marisol?” she asked, hoping my co-worker was nearby. My eyes darted down the piece of paper on my desk, hoping to fix on a useful phrase. “Marisol não está aqui,” I told her. Marisol isn’t here. I read with care from my “cheat sheet,” the unfamiliar syllables of Portuguese tumbling awkwardly off my tongue. The woman nodded, drew her head back and strode off.

Continue reading

6 Comments

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

Giving and receiving

Marjorie Turner Hollman helps authors self-publish their books. She is also a disability advocate, sharing information about Easy Walks (not too many roots or rocks, relatively level with firm footing, and something of interest along the way) in open space. Link to all Marjorie’s books.

LISTEN:

It’s better to give than to receive, so they say. Maybe you’ve heard this around the holidays, when gift-giving is a big thing. For children, like “share your toys!”, the phrase is often heard as a scold. Perhaps you were resentful that someone else got something you wanted. You might have felt disappointed in a gift you received and made the mistake of letting others know.

As we grow older and have more agency, the inclination to give can take on different dynamics.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

Zen dishes

Marjorie Turner Hollman helps authors self-publish their books. She is also a disability advocate, sharing information about Easy Walks (not too many roots or rocks, relatively level with firm footing, and something of interest along the way) in open space. Link to all Marjorie’s books.

Another successful exercise of Zen Dishes

LISTEN HERE:

I returned to my home weakened, yet desperate to do anything. After surviving brain surgery that left my right side paralyzed, I was sent to a rehabilitation facility for two weeks. During my stay the staff had insisted we inmates (patients, that is) perform what they called “standing therapy.” We were encouraged, teased, and cajoled into standing for periods of fifteen minutes at a time. Most of my fellow inmates were stroke victims, almost all elderly, and they needed a lot of cajoling. I was much younger than the others, needed no cajoling, and resented the undisguised condescension in the therapists’ voices.

Continue reading

2 Comments

Filed under Meditations/Liturgies

Desmond Farm, Westford, MA

Oil painting of Desmond Farm, by Neil Dailey

GUEST POST: Neil Dailey lives in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, where his family has deep roots. He enjoys caring for and cooking for his family. He also enjoys gardening and collecting ephemera. An eclectic range of books fill his home. Henry Van Dyke’s “Poems of Tennyson,” “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Michael Connolly, Nikos Kazantzakis, Robert Wilson, Martin Limón, Anthony Everitt’s biography of Hadrian, J.T. Maxwell’s “Red Brick Road,” Faulkner, and Joseph O’Callahan’s “A History of Medieval Spain” all find space. His battered copy of “Candide,” alas, crumbled. He is also a lawyer, and practices criminal defense law full time.

Here’s a peek at the latest creation from my “art studio.” I’ve been trying my hand at oil on canvas again. The image is a place I knew as a child as “Desmond Farm.”

Fragments of stone wall and the granite outcroppings scarred the land. Each stone seemed to appear from nowhere without logic or purpose. Even so, the stones appeared with insistent determination. When I heard the old New England farmer’s joke, it made sense. “This is the best land to farm, if you want to harvest stones.” The rocks and stones jostled and interrupted an uneven landscape. In summer, the land bristled brown and gold with grasses and dry prickly weeds which waved and shimmered in the bright summer sun.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Blog Posts-Personal Histories, Meditations/Liturgies

It’s the cobbles, at Gooseberry Island

Marjorie Turner Hollman is an author, creator, observer, and disability advocate who loves the outdoors. Link to all Marjorie’s books.

Visiting Gooseberry Island on a warm day (note the shorts–not what I wear in winter)

LISTEN HERE:

One of my favorite pieces of shoreline is on the southeast coast of Massachusetts. New England is well known for its rugged, rocky coast. This little spit of land, Gooseberry Island, juts out into Long Island Sound and has some sandy beaches and oversize boulders. A causeway allows visitors to drive out onto the island.

Continue reading

Leave a comment

Filed under Blog posts--Easy Walks, Meditations/Liturgies