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The Love of Impermanent Things: A Threshold Ecology
At midlife, Mary Rose O’Reilley writes, we are called to an “archaeology of memory”—turning over a potsherd here, a fragment there—to assemble something whole out of the messiness of experience. Excavating her own life, she traces the middle-class Irish American background that shaped her, with its mix of antic humor, terror, and mysticism, and finds meaning in the seemingly smallest, most transient encounters. But O’Reilley’s purpose is less to recount these moments than it is to find the language for a different kind of story, in which the narrative of daily life opens to admit the holy and its corollary, the comic. Encouraging all of us to contemplate our own deep story, she calls hers a demo-life, in which the facts of personal history ground a narrative of consciousness and perception. Earthy and luminous, unconventional and profoundly illuminating, The Love of Impermanent Things offers a threshold ecology for readers of all ages.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published April 20, 2006
11 people are currently reading
140 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 6, 2021
This is like so many post-Annie Lamott books -- very personal and confessional and really all about making Wise Pronouncements. (Don't get me wrong. I read everything by Annie. But one of her is enough. Now she's spawned a veritable genre.) I was disheartened by the author's grumpiness -- Lord knows many other people have had many problems too -- and was impatient with the ratio of wisdom to self-congratulation about how much wisdom there was.
This falls into the Eat, Pray,Love category for me: Look! I'm writing a book about my middle class life! I was initially enchanted, but kept thinking that she had no more to say than I had. Guess I've officially merged cronedom with crankship, but this was not my cuppa tea, and I didn't finish it. Life is too short to read mediocre books. Disappointing.
This falls into the Eat, Pray,Love category for me: Look! I'm writing a book about my middle class life! I was initially enchanted, but kept thinking that she had no more to say than I had. Guess I've officially merged cronedom with crankship, but this was not my cuppa tea, and I didn't finish it. Life is too short to read mediocre books. Disappointing.
March 24, 2012
The qualities I love most in Mary Rose O’Reilley’s writing are humor, honesty, and the bestowal of permission—on herself and on the reader—to be "imperfect," to embrace uncertainty and see where it leads. The Love of Impermanent Things is subtitled “A Threshold Ecology,” and I haven’t quite figured out what she might mean by that. Human ecology is the study of communities, the patterns of relations between people and their environment. A threshold is a demarcation of a new place—and can sometimes be a breaking point. Even though I don't know what she intended with the combination of those words, each of them provides a hint as to what goes on inside the book.
O’Reilley’s “memoir” writings are, to me, reminiscent of Annie Dillard’s (as in An American Childhood or The Writing Life); they mix autobiographical facts with nostalgia-fogged memory as well as lessons learned (or learning) and ruminations on creativity. On the idea of “productivity” while at a writer’s retreat: “Should I count it a productive morning, having learned to watch drops of water stand at attention, or do I have to write a double sestina to earn my keep?” Giving herself permission to nourish creative needs, she writes, “It’s okay to throw pots all year… You don’t have to write a book… dig out the buckthorn, learn Spanish… clean your office…. Mary, just throw pots.”
O’Reilley also explores her own spiritual life, from her Catholic childhood to her call to the novitiate to Buddhism to the Society of Friends. Although this path is traced more explicitly in The Barn at the End of the World, it weaves in and out of The Love of Impermanent Things, as well. She writes of the sense of relief at discovering the use of the word “guidelines”—rather than rules—within the Quaker community, and that “Quakers are good at trying out the terrors of freedom within a circle of support.” She notes that Merton often wrote about “how difficult it was for him to live the religious life with the spiritual equipment of the artist.” She follows with this declaration from friend Parker Palmer: “I value spontaneity more than predictability, exuberance more than order, inner freedom more than the authority of tradition, the challenge of dialogue more than the guidance of a rule, eccentricity more than staying on dead center.”
The entire book is a quiet declaration (non-linear and often non-narrative) of a belief in exploration, letting-go, trusting, trying, trying again, holding conflicting ideas simultaneously—the master potter making the teabowl who must “in the same breath, obey the rules and transcend them.” The book is offered as memoir, and the subject headings provided by the publisher are biographical, but O’Reilley lays out her hopes in the introduction that what the reader will find out “will not be the story of [her] life, but of your own.” She invites you “not to work but to rest. Stare and ponder.”
O’Reilley’s “memoir” writings are, to me, reminiscent of Annie Dillard’s (as in An American Childhood or The Writing Life); they mix autobiographical facts with nostalgia-fogged memory as well as lessons learned (or learning) and ruminations on creativity. On the idea of “productivity” while at a writer’s retreat: “Should I count it a productive morning, having learned to watch drops of water stand at attention, or do I have to write a double sestina to earn my keep?” Giving herself permission to nourish creative needs, she writes, “It’s okay to throw pots all year… You don’t have to write a book… dig out the buckthorn, learn Spanish… clean your office…. Mary, just throw pots.”
O’Reilley also explores her own spiritual life, from her Catholic childhood to her call to the novitiate to Buddhism to the Society of Friends. Although this path is traced more explicitly in The Barn at the End of the World, it weaves in and out of The Love of Impermanent Things, as well. She writes of the sense of relief at discovering the use of the word “guidelines”—rather than rules—within the Quaker community, and that “Quakers are good at trying out the terrors of freedom within a circle of support.” She notes that Merton often wrote about “how difficult it was for him to live the religious life with the spiritual equipment of the artist.” She follows with this declaration from friend Parker Palmer: “I value spontaneity more than predictability, exuberance more than order, inner freedom more than the authority of tradition, the challenge of dialogue more than the guidance of a rule, eccentricity more than staying on dead center.”
The entire book is a quiet declaration (non-linear and often non-narrative) of a belief in exploration, letting-go, trusting, trying, trying again, holding conflicting ideas simultaneously—the master potter making the teabowl who must “in the same breath, obey the rules and transcend them.” The book is offered as memoir, and the subject headings provided by the publisher are biographical, but O’Reilley lays out her hopes in the introduction that what the reader will find out “will not be the story of [her] life, but of your own.” She invites you “not to work but to rest. Stare and ponder.”
June 17, 2009
I've never been able to answer the question: What book would you want if stranded on an island? But now I know. This is the book!! O'Reilley has been my writing hero for a while. I've read all of her books, the ones that guide teachers, her poetry, and her two phenomenal non-fiction works, this book and The Barn at the End of the World. Over and over, I wondered how O'Reilley could get right inside my head and write about what was there with clarity and sublime reason. She tightrope walks over the abyss of spiritual life with sureness and grace--always honest about the fact that there is no net and she knows what it means to fall. Her writing bowls me over again and again . . . the way she starts in one place, say regarding an owl in a tree and ends up somewhere wholly different like a Thai restaurant and the route traveled reveals some delicate insight that sends shivers up my spine. I want to sit beside her in the churches she visits--all kinds of churches in many small towns, and seek with her the one where something is happening, where the "prophetic spirit is wildly loose." I have read her explanation of the prophetic spirit at least 4 or 5 times and each time I feel like I get it but then I find myself returning to the section because I've forgotten or because I want to feel it again the way she describes it AND I want to find it on trails like the ones she hikes, in thunder storms and swimming pools and walking the dog and arguing blissfully with other artists. It was alarming and delicious and provocative to feel the texture of this book, the texture of Mary O'Reilley's perception. I will return to this book again and again.
April 1, 2015
I wanted to love this book, as I loved
The Barn at the End of the World
, but I just couldn't connect to it, though O'Reilley's detailed and unflinching writing style is as beautiful as ever. Whereas Barn takes unfamiliar experiences as makes them universally accessible (even to those of us who'd be hard-pressed to tell sheep from goat or Plum Village from plum pudding), Impermanent Things takes almost universal experiences (dealing with aging parents, spending time in Nature, having pets) and makes them inaccessible. Only when O'Reilley writes of her residency at Sitka do I feel really invited into the story; the rest of the time, she seems to intentionally hold readers at arm's length: "This is my life. My pain. My quest. You can't share it." While I applaud and encourage the quest for self that grounds this narrative, I'm not sure I needed to read 300 pages of a story into which the author did not invite me.
October 22, 2018
I finished this book last month and forgot to send it along on Goodreads. A neighbor loaned it to me.
This Catholic/Quaker who practices Zen Buddhism writes her memories in a most exciting and interesting way. I could not put the book down and found every page filled with drama, humor, scary parts and mysticism. She is honest and brings in the basics of her faith and religious/spiritual life.
Fantastic. I will read it again in the future.
This Catholic/Quaker who practices Zen Buddhism writes her memories in a most exciting and interesting way. I could not put the book down and found every page filled with drama, humor, scary parts and mysticism. She is honest and brings in the basics of her faith and religious/spiritual life.
Fantastic. I will read it again in the future.
October 30, 2021
Not to start this review like a hipster recipe blog, but I came across this used copy in an overstuffed bookstore in the Smoky Mountains this summer. I'm not sure why it called to me but I found it incredibly meaningful, as O'Reilly grew up Irish Catholic and spends a lot of time exploring how that framework has influenced her relationships.
The end of the book moves through her navigating the loss of her mother, including dealing with the managed/facility healthcare system. She also does volunteer wilderness vet work and shares the stories of all the animals she works with and on. I just found it to be a lovely book that you can digest a few chapters at a time, but has a lot to say.
The end of the book moves through her navigating the loss of her mother, including dealing with the managed/facility healthcare system. She also does volunteer wilderness vet work and shares the stories of all the animals she works with and on. I just found it to be a lovely book that you can digest a few chapters at a time, but has a lot to say.
September 5, 2021
Thank you Mary Rose. I really needed that.
February 28, 2011
Awkward to use the star gauge here—3 stars overall, but a few gorgeous 5-star essays, among them: “Mercy” (about Sacred Harp singing and wildlife rehabilitation), “The Soul Flies in Circles,” “The Luckiest People” (asking the question: “Do you think God is honored because you abase yourself?”), and “The Teabowl of the Heart.” The work she does in this book on caregiving for a dying difficult mother feels very important to me and very helpful for someone in her same shoes (I could imagine her work on this matter to be a true companion to someone in this caregiver situation); and I love what I learn from O’Reilley about wildlife rehabilitation, saving the insignificant miniscule things: bats, mice, crows. And there are some stunner sentences. But the collection as a whole (302 pgs) feels unedited; though I appreciate how every life-detail is considered worthy material for art-making, there is more situating and drumming-up included here than maybe needs to be. For sure, the book gets better once we’re past the situating intro material which is apologetic (in both senses of the word) for the collection’s lack of cohesive narrative—I usually prefer essays as-is, without much help in arranging or categorizing them.
I do love nearly all of her essay openers—often comic, always imagistic, poetic. Here’s one: “For one day only at the beginning of summer, the peonies are gathered into a drama that outweighs any container I possess. There heads are too big for their support system. Like blowsy intellectuals, they miss their moment and lean forward into a slow dissolve…” (58)
And I do love her humor and candidness in talking about her spiritual path (she’s an amalgam: Catholic, Quaker, Buddhist)—I resonated deeply with many sentences, like: “When you set yourself up a spiritual program, a pilgrimage, or a retreat, it’s inevitable that your plans fall into ruins from the get-go. If you miss your train or break an ankle in whatever Kathmandu of the soul you are visiting, it’s a sure sign you are on the path.” (210)
Overall, I feel a strong affinity with this writer and person, but I found myself quarrelsome or impatient at times with this book – I like her poems (Half Wild) and her work on teaching (Radical Presence) better. This book is a kind of spiritual autobiography, and that genre is ever suspect for me (though I write it, or maybe *because* I write it). (Admittedly, I may be less hospitable to this collection right now because, at the moment, I’m personally off the track of essay writing.) I say “suspect” because there’s some slight self-congratulation here—just a drop—the kind that often belongs to folks who choose not to have a TV, folks who preach while self-deprecating themselves as preachers, and folks who are educated and somewhat sophisticated in their spiritual searchings (honest and vulnerable as those searchings are) and when they attend backwoods churches they find themselves kind for not deeming the congregants insane or idiotic. There’s a dose of all that here, and it puts up a block for me, though I still think the book is worth reading, and MR is still one of my favorite people at work in the world.
Here are a couple passages I loved:
117 “Zen practice and Quaker stillness have given me a pretty good approach to the routine stresses of life; what contemplative practice allows, however, is a space for the underlying issues to rise. We make ourselves into vessels: the vessels fill with suffering, not only our own. This paradox is inevitably discovered on the spiritual path. Perhaps we begin to meditate to escape our problems, but we find that instead we have created a threshold over which the traumas of the inner world can emerge into the light. Worse yet (or better yet) we grow excruciatingly sensitive to the suffering of others. ‘Damn,’ says one of my young friends, ‘I’m discovering that the prayer for a compassionate heart is always answered.’”
137-8 “Opal light wanes into indigo, setting off the moon. I mourn for everything that changes: gray on the dog’s muzzle, love in its seasons, babies outgrowing their newborn clothing. I grieve for my grandmothers’ recipes, children who do not stay, colors, and finally fabric and lastly thread. I grieve for wallpaper pulling back from the damp kitchen corner, becoming, anyhow, outdated, and for the habit of gathering there I grieve. Grieve room to room for the carpet torn by the cat, and for the cat, and thus on and on, wind pulling grief through the chimney of every house in the world…”
I do love nearly all of her essay openers—often comic, always imagistic, poetic. Here’s one: “For one day only at the beginning of summer, the peonies are gathered into a drama that outweighs any container I possess. There heads are too big for their support system. Like blowsy intellectuals, they miss their moment and lean forward into a slow dissolve…” (58)
And I do love her humor and candidness in talking about her spiritual path (she’s an amalgam: Catholic, Quaker, Buddhist)—I resonated deeply with many sentences, like: “When you set yourself up a spiritual program, a pilgrimage, or a retreat, it’s inevitable that your plans fall into ruins from the get-go. If you miss your train or break an ankle in whatever Kathmandu of the soul you are visiting, it’s a sure sign you are on the path.” (210)
Overall, I feel a strong affinity with this writer and person, but I found myself quarrelsome or impatient at times with this book – I like her poems (Half Wild) and her work on teaching (Radical Presence) better. This book is a kind of spiritual autobiography, and that genre is ever suspect for me (though I write it, or maybe *because* I write it). (Admittedly, I may be less hospitable to this collection right now because, at the moment, I’m personally off the track of essay writing.) I say “suspect” because there’s some slight self-congratulation here—just a drop—the kind that often belongs to folks who choose not to have a TV, folks who preach while self-deprecating themselves as preachers, and folks who are educated and somewhat sophisticated in their spiritual searchings (honest and vulnerable as those searchings are) and when they attend backwoods churches they find themselves kind for not deeming the congregants insane or idiotic. There’s a dose of all that here, and it puts up a block for me, though I still think the book is worth reading, and MR is still one of my favorite people at work in the world.
Here are a couple passages I loved:
117 “Zen practice and Quaker stillness have given me a pretty good approach to the routine stresses of life; what contemplative practice allows, however, is a space for the underlying issues to rise. We make ourselves into vessels: the vessels fill with suffering, not only our own. This paradox is inevitably discovered on the spiritual path. Perhaps we begin to meditate to escape our problems, but we find that instead we have created a threshold over which the traumas of the inner world can emerge into the light. Worse yet (or better yet) we grow excruciatingly sensitive to the suffering of others. ‘Damn,’ says one of my young friends, ‘I’m discovering that the prayer for a compassionate heart is always answered.’”
137-8 “Opal light wanes into indigo, setting off the moon. I mourn for everything that changes: gray on the dog’s muzzle, love in its seasons, babies outgrowing their newborn clothing. I grieve for my grandmothers’ recipes, children who do not stay, colors, and finally fabric and lastly thread. I grieve for wallpaper pulling back from the damp kitchen corner, becoming, anyhow, outdated, and for the habit of gathering there I grieve. Grieve room to room for the carpet torn by the cat, and for the cat, and thus on and on, wind pulling grief through the chimney of every house in the world…”
June 26, 2017
This is the second O'Reilley book I've had the pleasure to read in the last two weeks. I'm intrigued by people's sense of place, and by people who live by their values and by people of faith who question and examine their beliefs, and evolve along with them. I would describe O'Reilley as a Renaissance woman, a woman of many interests and a life long learner. I find her journey fascinating, and one perhaps best understood by women who have achieved a certain age.
As I suspected as I read O'Reilly, if the number of Goodreads reviews of this book by men is a good indication, her writing appeals to women in particular.
The one criticism I will make about O'Reilly's writing - this was more true of "The Barn at the End of the World," than "The Love of Impermanent Things" - is that on occasion, when writing about abstract concepts, O'Reilley writes herself into a confusing corner, where it's difficult to understand what she is attempting to explain.
As I suspected as I read O'Reilly, if the number of Goodreads reviews of this book by men is a good indication, her writing appeals to women in particular.
The one criticism I will make about O'Reilly's writing - this was more true of "The Barn at the End of the World," than "The Love of Impermanent Things" - is that on occasion, when writing about abstract concepts, O'Reilley writes herself into a confusing corner, where it's difficult to understand what she is attempting to explain.
July 21, 2011
I found this book difficult to read, and at times wanted to shake the author. She seems sometimes wantonly clueless, and her attempts to cover it up with unusual turns of phrase leave me staring at those poetic words wondering what in the world they're doing in this book. She probably writes beautiful poetry. Still, now that I've finished the book I am glad I read it. Her journey across the realm of self takes her into places we all eventually must go, and it is helpful to have her insight in preparation for our own travels. Even if we can not agree with all of her opinions, it is easy to respect them.
February 28, 2012
This 2006 part-memoir, part spirituality notebook, is very engaging and provocative.
She was raised Irish Catholic, then as an adult, is a non-believer Quaker and Buddhist.
Yet her narrative of contemplation and action is serious and not a muddle at all.
A threshold ecology starts in the in-between spaces between moments and events. A liminal
experience that transcends words and theories. In dreams, in deep silence, in acute
attention of the natural world and its inhabitants. Animals take up a large part of her
communion. Fascinating experiences are related in this exploratory work of how to live
one's life.
She was raised Irish Catholic, then as an adult, is a non-believer Quaker and Buddhist.
Yet her narrative of contemplation and action is serious and not a muddle at all.
A threshold ecology starts in the in-between spaces between moments and events. A liminal
experience that transcends words and theories. In dreams, in deep silence, in acute
attention of the natural world and its inhabitants. Animals take up a large part of her
communion. Fascinating experiences are related in this exploratory work of how to live
one's life.
August 20, 2009
I read this when it first came out and return to it often, in order to be fed and nurtured and inspired. So many topics here: family, ecology, memory, spirituality, teaching, relationships, animals, the self and the world... I could go on and on about how much I love this book, which sometimes feels (selfishly) as if it were written just for me, since O'Reilley describes so much I've felt but didn't know I felt, or didn't know how to put it into words. She is smart, passionate, a lyrical and sensitive writer... also sometimes, for added bonus points, very funny.
September 2, 2008
A very inspirational book combining memoir, nature writing, spirituality and religious studies, literature and poetry, and ceramics! The author is very contemplative...sometimes so much so that she is angst ridden. There is some beautiful writing in here though and lots of great literary references. This book is perfect for me as I love nature writing, literature, and spirituality. I'm excited to read her poems.
August 20, 2008
More a collection of memoir essays than a continuous narrative thread, this book sets a more serious, reflective tone than "The Barn At the End of the World." Mary shares about her time at the Sitka Center on the Oregon Coast, her relationships with loved ones, and the connection to the wild she receives from caring for injured animals at a wildlife rehab center. These threads converge beautifully at many points throughout the story.
January 3, 2008
I would if I could give this twelve stars out of five. One of my favorite books of all time. I literally put this one down halfway and declared, "Damn, I can't write at all." Each page contains dozens of underlined passages, notes decorate the margins. There is so, so much substance and sustenance in these pages. Life blood, bones and breath.
February 10, 2009
O'Reilley came to our December book club meeting and talked about her writing. She began writing in midlife. She described herself as a narcissist, something she realized after criticizing her mother's narcisissm. Some members of the club found the book narcissistic. I found it an interesting mix of self-examination and spiritual exploration.
January 1, 2016
Annie Dillard meets Anne Lamott. Raw, real, spiritual writing, but never pretentious or obtuse like the aforementioned Dillard and Lamott can be. I took a long to to read this book, but I believe it is how it is meant to be read. Slowly, deliberately and with attention.
January 25, 2009
I loved this book. I wrote down many quotes that I'll refer back to at some point. Thought provoking. She's a genius of the English language.
September 24, 2010
One word: Lovely. Beautiful insight, details, imagery. Some of it is dark, but all of it is uplifting (at least for me). I definitely want to read her other books.
April 18, 2013
One of the most powerful and well-written pieces I've ever read.
July 18, 2017
The description of the poor care her mother received from the "evil system" mirrors my aunt's demise perfectly. Quite frightening and sad.
September 4, 2016
I simply adore this book. I pick it up and read random bits and pieces of it when ever the mood strikes me.
August 11, 2016
This book will have a permanent place on my shelf. Intimate telling of life, death, and all that happens in between. Modest yet rich in love and the beauty of each day. Touching.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews