Carolyn J Sweers: 8 books

In Junior High, I memorized the Sermon on the Mount.  I was bored in a church membership class  and wanted a challenge.  I had little concern for what the words meant.  That changed in the mid 1990’s after I had attended a number of intensive Buddhist retreats in the Vipassana tradition.  I...

This book began in Lent as a way to continue my own engagement with the season. I am by temperament and training a philosopher whose life and work have been shaped by moments of mystic communion with that which cant be adequately described or named and is, I presume, what is pointed to by the word...

Stillness and Insight is intended to provide readers with a retreat like opportunity. It describes the values of learning to be still; values such as inner peace, a deepening sense of mystery and awe, and a recognition of the interconnectedness of all things that are. The book needs to be read intuitively...

Soul care, said Socrates, was the most important activity a human could do.  It was far more important than such common human concerns as the desire for money or honor (“likes” on Facebook?).  Socrates demonstrated by example what he meant by soul care: 1) a realistic attitude...

Stretching Exercises for the Mind is an attempt to lure people into philosophical thinking by posing a series of questions that call for reflection and discussion. My experiences as a teacher have confirmed over and over again that if people are asked the right questions, their own reflections will...

The Sermon on the Mount is a condensed summary of some of Jesus’s key teachings. Some of the teachings bear a remarkable resemblance to those of the Buddha. In fact, in the author’s experience, Buddhist insights and practices can help with an understanding, and putting into practice, Jesus’s...

In a life time of studying philosophy, I have found no philosophy more personally useful than that of the Stoics.  In two cancer experiences, 20 years apart, it was the Stoics who helped me keep perspective, taught me how to control my thoughts so that fear did not take over, and provided the ongoing...

This book is an attempt to defamiliarize the Christmas stories found in the Bible. Familiarity can result in a diminishment of wonder at the astounding news that God was manifest as a baby in a manger and that the event was announced by angels. The Christmas story is not about something that happened...