A Hundred Roads to Here is a book for struggling meditators.
The wish to meditate may be strong and persistent, but there are many impediments. Every meditator knows them. They present themselves in random ways, and this book is for dipping into at random. Though they are numbered, the sections are in no particular order. They are not points to ponder during meditation, because meditation is inner silence. They were written in response to requests from individuals and groups for brief inputs at the beginning of their meditation sessions; they are not meant to lead to further reflection, but to silence, and to the meditative state which is never more than a breath away.
‘Cleanliness is next to… impossible,’ said the little boy, struggling to remember the maxim. We learn to live with mess, because life is mostly messy, but we need to do so as thoughtfully as we can, with hope and with good grace.
In this book the author tries to gather for the modern reader some of the hard-earned wisdom of Christian writers, and others, who knew tragedy and chaos in their own time, and who can therefore credibly persuade us to go on.
A book to be experienced rather than just read. There is a lesson in every line and the attentive reader will come away not only enlightened, but ultimately transformed.
Go Down to the Potter's House is the story of the first 'Potter' retreat/ workshops developed by Donagh O'Shea some 30 years ago.
These workshops combine meditation and simple meditative work with clay. The aim is to help overcome the effects of centuries of introspection and individualism and to discover in ourselves and in the Gospel a straightforward simplicity.
To cope fully with death, we need to open the mind and heart through meditation to a deeper way of living. Donagh O'Shea offers stories and reflections that invite readers to prepare for death one day at a time.
The conversations in this book reveal some of the anger, the sadness, the disaffection of ordinary people in today's Church, as well as their enduring search for hope and meaning.
Take Nothing for the Journey is a record of three months spent living in a tent in different parts of Ireland, all places that held significance for Donagh O'Shea. After 10 busy years working in a retreat centre, he needed to get away from maps of the spiritual journey, for maps can never be substitutes for the real journey, the journey to God.
The Way of the Cross offers reflections on the fourteen traditional stopping-places or stations which mark out a path by which Christians may walk in the footsteps of Jesus, identifying themselves spiritually with him.
Included in part two is a resource for more leisurely reflection on each station providing scriptural texts, and it brings us into the company of saints and mystics who have travelled this path before us.
