Product Description

What is it that makes life worth living? What makes the everyday, ordinary world extraordinary—even sacred? If we want to be truly alive there are few things we really need, a few sacred necessities: Amazement, Sanctuary, Stillness, Grace, Simplicity, Resilience, and Friendship.

Unfortunately, we can’t buy these things, nor can we force them to become a part of our lives. But if we are willing to accept rather than grasp at them, they will come to us as felicitous gifts waiting to be experienced and practiced. This is not simply a prescription for the good life; it is a gentle nudge to live with an open heart and a willing spirit.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #345287 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 190 pages

Review
Offers us seven wondrous "sacred necessities" for living life. But he forgot one, books like this to wake us up. -- Leonard Sweet, Drew University, George Fox University, preachingplus.com

Set aside your to-do lists and join Terry Hershey for some musings on this crazy, wonderful, mysterious, and grace-filled world. -- Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, co-authors Spiritual Literacy and Spiritual Rx

This book stirs a hunger to pay attention to God’s outrageous generosity. -- Harold Ivan Smith, author, Finding Your Way to Say Goodbye: Comfort for the Dying and Those Who Care for Them

This book turns us to words like gifts and grace so foreign to Wall Street idols of competition and capital. -- Rev. Dan Matthews, Former Rector, Trinity Church Wall Street, New York City

About the Author
Most days, you’ll find Terry out in his garden. More often than not, ambling between roses and perennials, living by the motto that he loses much who has no aptitude for idleness. Terry lives with his wife Judith, and son Zachary, on Vashon, an island in the Puget Sound, near Seattle, Washington.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Is this book for you?

It is a book for people who love life. And for people who wish to love live, but who are temporarily stymied. Captives to busyness, disappointment, exhaustion, anger, apathy, an excess of caution, or even a good reputation, we carry around an unused life--as if life is a savings bond to be withdrawn only when mandatory. Instead of living, we are star-struck. In a world of celebrities, we live vicariously through people who "have it all," those who grace the beguiling covers of supermarket magazines. It goes against our better judgement, but there is something fundamentally comforting about betting our emotional nest egg on a winner. Although, truth be told, it is people who are "alive in their own skin" who stand out. Or choose another description: to be centered, balanced, passionate, authentic, purposeful, or alive in our own skin. These all point us in the same direction: to people who practice a few sacred necessities. Practice that opens the heart and rekindles the spirit. And in this case, practice is everything. Theory is for folks with too much time on their hands, and a heavy dose of Puritan guilt, leaving them with the notion that it is better to play the right notes than to hear the music.

Customer Reviews

Spiritual Well Being
In a wonderful way "Sacred Necessities" reads like the side panel on a breakfast cereal box. Nutrition Facts tell us what is included in the packaged cereal. It is a reminder that our human physical bodies need a constant input of vitamins and minerals. Likewise, Terry Hershey reminds us that our spiritual well-being has come essential sacred necessities to keep our lives functioning efficiently. In the book Terry limits these essentials to seven, acknowledging that there are others that might equally belong in the required reading. In my own spiritual journey I find what he says in the introductory chapter, "Leaning the Big Leaf Dance" to be totally freeing. In my early years, like many of us old-timers, we were not permitted to dance. It has been a regret that is hard to overcome. In any event, now when I sing the hymn "We're marching to Zion" I change the words to "We're Dancing to Zion." Marching feels more like keeping in step with the dogmas and creeds of the church. It is like taking another course in Systematic Theology. It that is heretical, then so be it. Theology, as I read it in "Sacred Necessities", is unfolding in the moments of Amazement, Sanctuary, Stillness, Grace, Simplicity, Resilience, and Friendship more than it is in the requirements to toe the line in theological necessities. I don't want to say that Terry Hershey would agree with me, but it is my inner feeling in reading his book. And I believe that is Terry's precise objective in leading us into self-enrichment times. I am a note-taker when reading books. But I had to give that up in reading "Sacred Necessities". Each page had something that I wanted to become a part of my life journey. Sometimes we hear about a person's "near-death experience". In reading this book I often had a "near-life experience." We read this though page 179 when Terry reports that "the religion of my youth taught me about life after death. I never heard one sermon on life before death. So, it is a challenge to every reader of this book to go through the necessities and not feel that there is certainly life before death. In eating an ice cream cone I am a "licker" not a "biter". I want to savor the experience and the taste. "O taste and see. . ." is the invitation in the reading of this book. Do not sit down and read it non-stop. Every day of my life I find that there is something like a battle going on that tends to diminish what I am as a spiritual being. And, in addition, I find that this usually does not come in dramatic or heroic moments of memorable accounting. It most often happens in the little things. When I live the sacred necessities the little thing have the greater control in my spiritual journey. The Divine provides in these moments what is needed to not only endure, but to insure a victory over the forces that are trying to diminish my inner growth. Arthur Campbell

Sacred Necessities
I have received Terry's e-reflections for a few months and liked his stuff. This is the first book of his I have read. It is a quick read and very good. I recommend it highly. I have already passed it on to a friend.