Friends Writing Good Books: N.S. Xavier

Promoting Wholeness and Wellness in Print and Film

Dr. N.S. Xavier is a unique person who for many years has focused upon religious understanding, psychological well-being, and spiritual wholeness. He has practiced psychiatry in Birmingham, Alabama for over 30 years. Wisdom and spirituality play a significant role in his practice, and he has been steadily writing for a number of years. 

His first book, The Two Faces of Religion, outlines very effectively the the nature of healthy vs. unhealthy religion. His second book, The Holy Region: A Wonder of  World Religions in Harmony, is a book about the Kerala region in India where people of different faiths have learned to live together in peace. Fulfillment Using Real Conscience: Practical Guide for Psychological and Spiritual Wellness is his latest.

Dr. Xavier's latest endeavor is the production of a remarkable documentary, The World's Most Enlightening Region. With this documentary, he takes us to the region of Kerala that he wrote about in his second book. This fascinating film brings the wisdom of all three of his books together as he tours an ancient region where Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Jews have lived together in harmony, even sharing in some of their celebrations.  (To see the actual documentary on YouTube, go here)

 Celebrating the Examined Life (a book review)

I should note that the following review first appeared in Christian Ethics Today as a review of Fulfilling Heart & Soul: Meeting Psychological and Spiritual Needs with Conscience. The present work is a modified and expanded version of the earlier work. 

Fulfillment Using Real Conscience

Practical Guide for Psychological and Spiritual Wellness

By N.S. Xavier, M.D.

AuthorHouse, Bloomington, IN   276 p

The unexamined life is not worth living, as Socrates famously stated.  Dr. N. S. Xavier has a remedy. He has given us a delightful book which can serve as a primer for healthy examination leading to a full and meaningful life. I had an “aha moment” right from the beginning as I read the introduction of Fulfillment Using Real Conscience: Practical Guide for Psychological and Spiritual Wellness.  The author explains the difference between conscience and the superego. The conscience uses reason, fairness, and compassion in guiding the individual toward right thinking and right actions. The superego, on the other hand, is that inner guide that is shaped by family and society. There are times when the superego may actually be in conflict with the conscience if it arises from an unhealthy family or social system. Racism and fanaticism are two examples of unhealthy prompts from a superego shaped by unhealthy societal and religions traits.

Legalism vs. Compassion

The illumination continues with the opening chapter where Dr. Xavier demonstrates how Jesus helped others to get past their superego to make use of their conscience. In the case where some men brought a woman caught in adultery to Jesus demanding that she be stoned, Jesus was able to calmly diffuse the situation to allow the men to cease from their unthinking legalistic reaction. He showed them how to use their conscience to bring fairness to the situation.

Dr. N. S. Xavier is from India and has practiced psychiatry in Birmingham for over 30 years. He writes from a deep understanding of religion and spirituality and presents a well-articulated view of healthy psychology. In Fulfillment Using Real Conscience, he draws upon examples from literature, various religious traditions, and historical figures as well as from his own experiences as a psychiatrist to illustrate healthy ways of meeting needs and finding fulfillment. We can gain insight from the likes of Lao-tze, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Boris Pasternak, Albert Camus, Jesus and the Buddha as we learn how to stop self-defeating habits and move toward a healthy identity.  There is also an intriguing story of the ancient king Asoka who reassessed his life and legacy.  King Asoka was able to transform himself and his society to one of equity and fairness by embracing Buddhism and its principles. 

A Practical Guide for Living

Writing with humor and clarity, the author provides us with a practical guide for using the conscience in making right choices and enjoying the healthy pleasures of life. We are given psychological insight that is accessible to the layperson in matters ranging from self-esteem, relationships, and sexuality to freedom and identity. Stick-on tabs may come in handy to mark particularly useful pages. There is a page that lists ways to improve self-esteem and another that lists traits of self-actualizing people. One chapter has a table that compares healthy guilt vs. unhealthy guilt and another table contrasts authentic individuality with egocentrism and dependency.  We are reminded also of the benefits of pleasure and the healthiness of laughter. For those interested in spiritual practice, an appendix includes introductory information on meditation and centering prayer.

There is advice in the book for integrating past experiences in beneficial ways rather than being trapped in unhealthy cycles. Fulfillment Using Real Conscience provides means for achieving forgiveness and reconciliation as well as methods for finding hope. The author consistently demonstrates how conscience can raise self-esteem in cases where the superego may be causing unhealthy guilt. Of course, professional help is recommended for anyone with issues or problems that are beyond the scope of self-examination.

For the Modern Spiritual Pilgrim

In the search for deeper meaning, there is guidance for those in religious traditions as well as for those who are more secular in their orientation. The modern spiritual pilgrim will find affirmation in the concept of using conscience to integrate scientific knowledge with spiritual life. Whether we are religious or secular in our orientation, we can live lives of superficiality or we can find a deeper purpose. Self-examination and conscience can help us to remove some of the spiritual and psychological defenses that often keep us from living at a deeper level.

Sigmund Freud gave us the concept of the superego. N.S. Xavier has liberated the conscience from the superego to give us method of examination for individual growth and societal development. He writes with a frankness and honesty not often seen in books on spirituality, and offers a practical application of spiritual values not always evident in self-help guides. We are shown how to better understand our own needs as well as others’ needs, and then how to go about meeting those needs in a healthy way. Fulfillment Using Real Conscience is a groundbreaking work of insight that will encourage the individual reader. It would also be a dynamic tool for small group study or for courses in counseling, ethics, or spirituality/religion.

< Previous post

-

Friends Writing Good Books: Lida Inge Hill

Journal of a Cottage Garden

Lida Hill with copies of her book

I met Lida Hill at the SPAFER RoadHouse study group that meets once a month (the group currently meets at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Cahaba Heights at 10:00 a.m. on the second Saturday of each month). I was surprised to learn last summer that she had a book about to hit the press. The book, Journal of a Cottage Garden, is a beautiful work that combines her artistic talents in water colors with her love of gardening. One learns quite quickly that she has a preference for native plants over more exotic varieties.

The Birmingham Botanical Gardens blog featured Lida and her book last September. In that article she states,

Having taken a course, "Journaling with Pen and Watercolor," I decided to create a journal showing the trees and shrubs in my yard. In it I would distinguish between the native and non-natives. I wanted to have a conversation starter to share my new passion. Of course the only way to include names and text in a blank, spiral, watercolor journal was to use my own handwriting/printing. People who saw it convinced me to publish it. Now that the one book has become many, I have a larger audience. As I write and give programs, I share my enthusiasm with even more people.  








A page from her journal










From the author's promotional statement:

Lida Hill’s passion for native plants inspired the journey from personal journal for family and friends to published journal for an unlimited audience. “Journal of a Cottage Garden” is a watercolor journal in the artist’s own handwriting featuring familiar trees and shrubs found in many Southern gardens. With homespun humor, Lida gives facts, personal comments and Latin and common names of 30 plants she shares her home with. Identifying which ones are native, she writes about the value for our environment of the natives over non-natives often noting the invasive ones.

A Gardener's Inspiration

I was given a copy of Ms. Hill's book after working with her on a photo shoot to help her get a shot for her book cover. My wife especially loved the layout of the book and the information that the author shares. We live in a cottage on a corner lot, and my wife has directed me in many landscaping and planting endeavors. Lida's book provides a "blueprint" so to speak, of her own landscaping at her lovely cottage. She then has page after page written in her own hand and illustrated with her own water color paintings of plants from her yard.

Signed copies of Journal of a Cottage Garden can be purchased in Birmingham, AL at The Dandelion, Crestline Pharmacy, Leaf and Petal at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, Little Hardware and the Birmingham Museum of Art. It is also available at the Goat Hill Museum Gift Shop and Old Alabama Town in Montgomery as well as shops in upstate New York. Personalized signatures can be ordered through dawntoduskpress@gmail.com.

Another example of the author's work

< Previous Post                                                                                                                              Next post >



-

Friends Writing Good Books: Rick Watson

Life Changes: Enjoy the Ride

Rick Watson
(Photo from author's website)

I met Rick Watson a few years back at the Alabama Writer's Conclave. I found out that he was a blogger, which interested me because I had just begun my Not Dark Yet blog about six months before. Rick's wife Jilda also blogs, so we all got more acquainted, following each other's blogs. I soon found out that Rick grew up in West Jefferson where my wife grew up, and that he has a home spun manner about the stories he tells. He writes a weekly column for The Daily Mountain Eagle in Jasper, Alabama and has had articles featured in other newspapers in the region, including 280 Living, The Tannehill Trader, and 78 Magazine. Rick also does freelance writing for Village Living in Mountain Brook, The Hoover Sun, and The Homewood Star.

Life Changes: Just Breathe, is a collection of some of his best columns, and it is actually his third collection of essays. When Life Changes was about to hit the press, Rick asked me to read it and write a brief review for the back cover. Here is what I wrote as it appears on the back cover:

One of the best things about this delightful collection of essays is that Rick Watson shows us the value of an examined life. My guess is that you will relate immediately to the brief episodes that Rick shares in Life Changes. It doesn’t take long to read one, and then you’re hooked on reading the next. He may be driving down the road, sitting in the kitchen, or sitting on an old five-gallon paint can by the barn. Wherever he goes, he takes the time to reflect on life. Thankfully, he has shared those reflections with us. You’ll find something for every season of the year and every season of life in these pages. ~ Charles Kinnaird 

Rick has a page at Amazon which features all of his books at http://www.amazon.com/Rick-Watson/e/B001KDX1DE/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

If you would like an autographed copy, he will gladly accommodate you if you go to his personal blog site, Life 101 at http://www.rickwatson-writer.com/p/books.html                                                                                                                                                       ~ 

< Previous Post                                                                                                                              Next Post >
-

Friends Writing Good Books: Chervis Isom

Chervis Isom
(Photo from author's website)

I met Chervis Isom one summer a few years back at the Alabama Writers' Conclave. We struck up a friendship and had some nice discussions in between conference sessions. Since that time we have met periodically for lively discussions about writing, living in the South, and life in general. His book, The Newspaper Boy, came out in 2014, and I wrote a review in July of that year. It is a story about “Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era.”  I found the book to be engaging, informative, and instructive on many levels.

I mentioned in my review that  "I learned important details about how local government was structured, and how speeches by a rabble-rousing Ace Carter of the White Citizens Council revved up the populace in an attempt to preserve segregation." In fact, when Donald Trump was first gaining momentum in the presidential race, I immediately saw some similarities between his campaign and Ace Carter's demagoguery in Birmingham during the 1950s. I contacted Cheris for his input and observations on today's political climate and wrote about that in another blog post earlier this year.

Here is the review I shared in July of 2014:

 

The Newspaper Boy: A Memoir that Looks into the Heart of a City 

 

I just finished reading a very important book. The Newspaper Boy, by Chervis Isom, is a well-written and entertaining memoir, subtitled, “Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era.” I first met Chervis a few years ago at the Alabama Writers’ Conclave and have always enjoyed my conversations with him. When news of his book came out, I was eager to get a copy.

The Newspaper Boy is fascinating on several different levels. It is delightful and engaging as a story about a boy growing up in a working class family, going to school, discovering girls, and getting his first job delivering papers. It is also an important first-hand account of an historical time in the city of Birmingham. I have written before on this blog about civil rights and growing up in the Deep South under the apartheid of racial segregation, but in reading Chervis Isom’s memoir, I gained a much clearer picture of what was happening in Birmingham during those days leading up to the civil rights movement. I learned important details about how local government was structured, and how speeches by a rabble-rousing Ace Carter of the White Citizens Council revved up the populace in an attempt to preserve segregation. I also learned about the important work of some open-minded civic leaders such as David Vann and Abraham Berkowitz.

It was inspiring for me to read about how an ordinary young fellow growing up in a society steeped in racism began to question a way of life that had once been accepted without question. It is a story about being able to listen to another point of view and thereby beginning a slow process of change. It is a story about how a liberal arts education can propel a young college student to approach life with a much broader view. It is a story about quietly finding liberation from the shackles of cultural ignorance.

For more information about this important book, you can visit the author’s website for The Newspaper Boy at http://www.thenewspaperboy.net . To read a very fine interview with the author in Weld, go here. For another review of the book, go here. The Newspaper Boy is a thoughtful reflection of a life lived during times of change. It is also a book that is important for our time as we face new hopes and challenges for building a city that works for the benefit of all.

< Previous Post                                                                                                               Next Post>

-