Postkiwi

I’ve just finished reading M. Scott Peck’s book, “In Search of Stones: A Pilgrimage of Faith, Reason and Discovery“.

I’ve been trying to read a chapter a night, just before going to sleep. At twenty one chapters that should have taken three weeks, but I think it’s been more like three months.

In Search of Stones was worth reading and worth blogging about.

Scott Peck and his wife, Lily, in 1992 took a three week trip through the countryside of Wales, England and Scotland, visiting the many megalithic stones that mark the landscape there. Each night Peck journalled the day’s experience, along with related reflections on related aspects of life.

In 1995 the book came out, with illustrations for each day drawn by Chrisopher Peck, the son of Scott and Lily. Topics covered are reason, romance, addiction, holiness, changing, religion, aging, parenthood, money, death, pilgrimage, gratitude, peace, adventure, consideration, space, time, art, integration, despair and conclusions. Peck mines his life experience to share wisdom with his readers. I appreciated Peck’s ability to be frank and yet keep healthy boundaries around private parts of his life that include his wife and children. When considering the meaning of the many standing stones, Peck introduces the concept of over-determination. The term, first used by Freud, helps us resist simplistic reductionist explanations. It’s a useful term that can be used in a number of settings. We are influenced by so many factors and in turn we influence our environment in more ways than we could ever realise.

Scott’s first book, “The Road Less Travelled“, was written in 1978 and has been translated into over 20 languages. I like his first sentence, “Life is difficult”. Inspiring realism!

The next book, “People of the lie: The Hope for Healing of Human Evil“, was an excellent but disturbing exploration of the link between deep dishonesty and the denial of life known as evil.

The third book, published in 1985, was “What Return Can I make? Dimensions of the Christian Experience“, established Peck’s reputation as an evangelist for Christianity in a psychological framework.

The next book, “The Different Drum: Community Making and Peacetarget=”blank”", published in 1987, introduced us to the phases of community development. I found his material on emptiness particularly helpful in leading groups of people beyond task orientation. We were treated to the learnings from the Foundation for Community Encouragement, established in 1984 and disestablished in 2001.

The fifth book, “A Bed by the Window: A Novel of Mystery and Redemption“, published in 1990, was a novel set in a nursing home. Not recommended for the prudish.

That’s as much as I’d read until now.

Scott is now retired and turns 69 next month. His official web site features a biography, a list of his publications, a reference to his archives at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, and an excerpt from a conversation with theology and psychology students at Fuller in 1998, on the soul and God, on being a Christian, and pyschiatric illness.

The FCE web site is still running but is limited to the narrative its beginnings and principles.