A healthy life may need a heavy soul occasionally

How does depression make us fully human? Ronald Rolheiser considers this for the Scottish Catholic Observer under the headline "The positive side of melancholy" while quoting Thomas Moore's latest book, A Religion of One's Own.

Rolheiser writes, "First off, it’s important to see melancholy (whatever its form) as something normal and healthy within our lives. Heaviness of soul is not necessarily an indication that there is something wrong inside us. Rather, normally, it’s the soul itself signaling for our attention, asking to be heard, trying to ground us in some deeper way, and trying, as Moore puts it, to age us appropriately. But, for this to happen, we need to resist two opposite temptations, namely, to distract ourselves from the sadness or to indulge in it."

His quotations include Moore's observation: Depression "grows us up and gives us the range of human emotion and character that we need in order to deal with the seriousness of life. In classic Renaissance images, found in old medical texts and collections of remedies, depression is an old person wearing a broad-rimmed hat, in the shadows, holding his head in his hands."

Bookworm blogger connects with literary figures

At the beginning of this year, Michelle Barber writes "Meeting Your Favorite Author" as a bucket-list exercise for bookworms. After listing four living writers she'd like to meet, she writes: "Luckily, I’ve met David Whyte and Thomas Moore and they were definitely bucket list experiences."

Barber met Moore at a book signing for A Religion of One's Own (2014) in Manchester Center, Vermont:

"Moore gave a brief presentation of his latest work, responded nimbly to audience questions, and detailed some of his current scholarly interests, which we all encouraged him to publish for us … soon!

The event was entirely too brief, but hearing Moore in person gave me, again, a three dimensional experience of who he is and how his ideas live.

He also signed two books for me with very touching comments." 

She reflects "for bookworms like myself, meeting a favorite author can be the highlight of a year. It certainly deepened my love of Whyte’s and Moore’s works."

"Loss of soul" affects us individually and socially

On the Real Clear Religion site, Mark Judge writes about Thomas Moore's classic, Care of the Soul under the headline "What Happened to Our Souls?" After quoting from Moore's Introduction, Judge states:

"Rereading it in 2014, the book seems wiser than ever. With our materialism, imagination-crushing technology, political superficiality, dumb movies, Oprah confessionals, and glib Jon Stewart-snark, the Western world has lost even more soul since Care of the Soul was published in 1992. The budding illness that Moore diagnosed two decades ago has now metastasized and is threatening the life of the patient."

Judge distinguishes between soul and spirit in his observations of contemporary society, turning to music as one of the few places left where soul may be expressed. He cites U2's song "The Troubles," writing "the band observes that the loss of one's soul is far more serious than any social or political problem:

Somebody stepped inside your soul,
Somebody stepped inside your soul,
Little by little they robbed and stole,
'Til somebody else was in control."

"Human Resources" refers to real people at work

HR Examiner publishes "5 Books to Make HR (and Everything) Better" by employment lawyer Heather Bussing in which Bussing recommends Thomas Moore's Original Self: Living With Paradox and Originality (2000).

Bussing writes, "Moore finds meaning, healing, and spirit in the dark times and the things that don’t seem to make sense. He can reframe that feeling of going crazy to remind me that my linear, logical, business thinking is not the only thing going on, and not always in charge."

She concludes, "It turns out that not every thought or action, especially empathy and kindness, needs an ROI."

Moore's books may guide small business owners

The ezine for entrepreneurs, Be Inkandescent, features Thomas Moore's two books, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life (1992) and A Life at Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born to Do (2007) in its Books section for January 2015: "Thomas Moore Provides a Guide for Cultivating Sacredness in Business, and Life":

"So what better way to start 2015 than to focus on two of his titles that may shed light for owners of small businesses on ways to connect their work with the deeper parts of themselves to achieve even greater personal and professional success."