Iconography: A Writer's Meditation

by Susan S. Neville

Overview

When Susan Neville enrolls in an icon-painting class in the cellar of an Indianapolis monastery, she begins a journey into an interesting hidden world where saints are fabricated of mineral and wood, yolk and blood, earth and time. The process is tedious, and she begins to make mistakes, to become impatient; she doesn't feel ready for the challenge. To prepare herself, Neville makes a vow to write during the forty days of Lent. What emerges is a journal, a meditation, a series of confessions that we are invited to listen to as we follow Neville's sometimes painful attempts to reveal the truth and discover the mystery of her existence. In the layering of colors and moods, her writing is the spiritual equivalent of an icon. As she observes the world around her and applies the paint of language to her observations, she realizes that spirit and matter are not separate -- that now and then moments of meaning emerge from daily life, and the stillness and majesty of the universe shine through.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253110725
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	09/12/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	554,440
File size:	398 KB

About the Author

Susan Neville is the author of five collections of creative nonfiction and fiction, including Fabrication; Invention of Flight, winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction; and Indiana Winter (IUP, 1994). She teaches creative writing at Butler University and is on the faculty of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	St. Mary of Ennui	1
Book 1	Transfiguration	23
	Ash Wednesday, 2000	25
	Buying Time	27
	A Vow	30
	A False Spring	34
	Confession	41
	I Am	43
	Housekeeping	47
	A Well-Lighted Place	49
	Vocation	53
	Inside This Skin	61
	In Memoriam	69
	St. Augustine	79
	Marriage	87
	Plague Sunday	93
	Monday	96
	Those Things I Didn't Know about Death	99
	Discipline	103
	On Place and Time	110
	Synchronicity	118
	Midpoint	123
	Dusk: Third Sunday in Lent	127
	On Fragility	128
	Children	134
	Wednesday	136
	On the Cusp between Wednesday and Thursday: 11:30-12:30--Waiting to Fall Asleep	138
	A Window into Radiance	141
Book 2	Captiva	143
Book 3	Home	157
	Sunday	159
	Grace	162
	Wednesday Once Again	165
	Witness	171
	Thresholds	174
	And So	176
	Frogs and Karaoke	178
	Palm Sunday	179
	On Rivers and Cherries	182
	Tuesday	184
	Midnight, Passover	186
	Wednesday	187
	Thursday	190
	Good Friday	192
	Saturday	193
	Sunday	195
	The Joy of All Who Sorrow	201

What People are Saying About This

"In this thoughtful, often lovely book, Neville's honesty is both moving and bracing."

Ruminator Review

In this thoughtful, often lovely book, Neville's honesty is both moving and bracing.

Editorial Reviews

"In this thoughtful, often lovely book, Neville's honesty is both moving and bracing."—Ruminator Review

From the Publisher

"In this thoughtful, often lovely book, Neville's honesty is both moving and bracing." —Ruminator Review

Ruminator Review