June 2013 Book Club "Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife"

Hi Everyone,

What can I say about the Butler Symphony Garden Tour yesterday? It was heavenly, peaceful, inspiring, and socially invigorating! Words, just as Eben Alexander III tries to use to explain his near death experience in his book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife, do not come close to detailing the many sensory images we enjoyed as we strolled through the breathtaking gardens on the tour. 

 

Barb K., Becky F., Lori, and I met along with Theresa Beck at the Country Kitchen for breakfast to start our book club’s special day. After our diner fare, we drove to Walter Woods, the outdoor sanctuary that Dr. Walters, our childhood dentist and his wife nurtured over the many years living in their home. Dr. Walters greeted us in the field where we parked. I just had to thank him not only for my good teeth but for his kindness. I didn’t know if he remembered, but he opened his office on a Sunday to attend to a severe toothache I was having as a teen to perform a root canal. What dentist would do that today?

Dr. Walter’s wife was as kindly as her husband. She offered us water at the house and even invited us in for a brief tour of their comfy home. Interesting pieces of antique furnishings such as Dr. Walter’s dental implement bureau and a coffee table that belonged to her father add topics for conversation to their den. Mrs. Walters wanted so much for us to stay and watch a video with her of her hosta gardens, but not being a digital native, she was unable to work the DVD player. In her defense, out of the five of us, none of us were able to get the “play” function to operate either! Sadly, we had to leave Walter Woods and the hospitality and friendship we shared for that short hour. Little did we know that our day would be filled with conversations with passionate gardeners whose hearts are as warm and earthy as the soil they tend.

Leslie and Joan Ames welcomed us in their distinctive British accent to their lovely home that overlooks the Freeport-Butler bike trail. Prim and petite, Joan scooted around the gardens in her skirt and vinyl garden boots ready to identify each and every plant. All too amazing to describe were the glacial boulders, the natural features enhancing their beautiful backyard. From the rocky cliffs Joan designed a magnificent waterfall feature that flows into a lovely lily pond. Augmenting Joan’s enthusiastic details were the interesting anecdotes her husband Leslie added. A true English gentleman, Leslie endeared us even more to his gardens and his home.

All of the gardens and their owners were lovely people. We became so entranced in the mystical qualities a beautiful garden exudes that we almost forgot to discuss our book. Stopping at the Meridian Station for the Symphony’s refreshments, we sat under their peaceful gazebo and ate at one of the tables covered in floral linens and centered with a basket of mixed budding annuals. There we examined many passages that detailed and authenticated Eben Alexander III’s near death experience (NDE).

We mulled over Alexander’s pronoun for God, the term “Om.” As I said at the beginning of this letter, Alexander had difficulty describing and putting words to his near death experience. “Om” or omniscient was the sound he remembered for God. Alexander also remembers Om’s revelation that there are many universes and that love lies at the center of all of them. The understanding that evil is present in all of them but only in trace amounts should comfort us all. Alexander learned that “… evil is necessary because without it, free will is impossible, and without freewill there can be no growth, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be.” As horrible as that may sound, the truth that “love” always triumphs over evil is the greatest lesson Alexander remembers. Love above all is what Alexander wants us to learn, we are loved more than our human minds can understand. His book is written to announce this truth, not just to the mainstream but to the educated elite. 

As a scientist and doctor, Alexander has learned something through his NDE that can transform the way of scientific medicine for the future. He has learned that “consciousness is not only very real- it’s actually more real than the rest of physical existence and most likely the basis of it all.” As a neurosurgeon who understands the human mind as very few people in the world can equally claim, Alexander believes that his illness was specifically chosen from all other diseases so that his NDE could unfold and be analyzed and scrutinized by himself, a scientist of the human mind, and others in his field. He hopes that others scientists will open up to a reality that indeed there is a realm that goes beyond death that no scientific expert has yet to comprehend. We owe Dr. Alexander a world of thanks for writing this book which puts him in a place within his profession where he is susceptible to mockery.

Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife was the perfect book to discuss on the day of our garden tour. As we were all feeling the healing and restorative qualities that cultivate from time spent in nature’s splendor, we did indeed sensed the breath of heaven in our conversation. “A warm wind blew through, like the kind that spring up on the most perfect summer days, tossing the leaves of the trees and flowing past like heavenly water. A divine breeze,” as Alexander describes and we felt it.

Next month’s book takes us from the serious to the humorous. We chose Bon Appetit by Carolyn Haines as our next reading fare. Echoing a humor that verges between a few of our past picks like the murder mystery One for the Money and the craziness of Shop-o-holic, I’m not certain what we are getting into with this one, but with the cast of zany characters and kooky plotline, we are sure to spend the month of July laughing from, ideally, our beach chairs!

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, July 17, at Randita’s Grill, an organic vegan café, in Saxonburg at 6 PM to discuss Bon Appetit. We can sit on their garden patio and try some of the many delicious menu choices Randy makes home made in the restaurant’s kitchen. Her food is truly an experience from her meatless meatballs, her homemade lime vinegrette salad dressing, to her African soup. Check out the Facebook link:  https://www.facebook.com/RanditasGrill to find out more. 

Hope to see you there to discuss Butler Women of Wisdom’s discuss 93^rd book!

Tammy :)

May 2013 Book Club "The Shoemaker's Wife" by Adriana Trigiani

Hi Everyone!

Tomorrow is our book club field trip, our June meeting to discuss the book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander III, M.D. We will be starting our day at 9:30 AM with breakfast at the Country Kitchen on Rt. 8 South. From there we will route our tour of 5 Butler area gardens and one in Sarver. Stopping at the Meridian Station in Meridian as we did last year is an option for lunch or we can also discuss other possibilities. 

Last month, we met at Panera Bread in Butler for the May meeting. The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani was the topic of our discussion. Members in attendance were Barb D., Barb K., Becky, Cheryl, Ginnie, Lori, and myself. The book, a love story about two Italian immigrants Ciro and Enza who meet in Italy then reunite in America is full of so many beautiful messages for living a full and productive life with family and friends. One of my favorites on page 232 is on being poor and working to make ends meet. When Enza’s friend Laura tries to convince Enza that hard times will not get them down, she says, “Look at this as an adventure instead of a chore. All of it. Being poor, looking for work, being scared, and going hungry as all part of the adventure.” Enza is a brilliantly talented seamstress who doesn’t fall on hard times for long. With Laura’s savvy scheming, they both land jobs sewing costumes in an opera house. Meanwhile, Ciro is only a few blocks away working as an apprentice to a shoemaker. Enza and Ciro’s paths cross several times before the timing is finally right for their relationship to begin. Ciro takes Enza away from her glorious career path (a feat for any woman during the time period of the early 1900’s) and the couple moves to the hinterlands of Minnesota. 

In another of my favorite quotes from the book, Enza reminds us of the necessity to use kindness when dealing with others. Upon arriving in Minnesota, the librarian Mrs. Selby, a stereotypical educated snob, finds it hard to believe an immigrant such as Enza could be educated and treats her with contempt. Enza “decided to bring Mrs. Selby an embroidered handkerchief on her next visit to the library. Winning a stranger over with kindness was a tactic Enza had used in Schilpario and was certain it would work…” with Mrs. Selby.

Again, there are so many quotes from this book that deserve to be remembered. Iggy one of the work hands at the convent where Ciro grew up was a character well placed for giving advice, the “wise old man” of every hero’s journey. As a young testosterone driven male, Ciro receives from Iggy advice that he doesn’t necessarily care to hear. A girl may be pretty on the outside, Iggy explains, “… but so complicated within. Don’t marry a beautiful woman, Ciro. It’s too much work… you get the ring on her hand, and the story changes. Women change… in every way, in manner, in personality, in their desire for you… They want the garden, the home, the children. And then they weary of their own dreams and look to you to make them happy… Never enough… Believe me, eventually, you run out of ways to make a woman happy.” Iggy tries as he might to steer Ciro away from the pretty girl he has become so taken with at St. Nicola Parish.

Later at the end of the book when Ciro, a sick man and dying man, revisits the village and nunnery of his youth, he meets up with Iggy again. Iggy is still as profound as ever, and our book club all laughed at Iggy’s first words upon meeting Ciro. “Can you believe I’m not dead? … I still visit my wife… I have not withered,” Iggy promised him, “Besides, she says doesn’t mind… It’s one of the joys of marriage. I still get as hard as torrone. Not as often, but enough.” Trigiani used her “wise” character as her comedic relief for the heartbreaking passages of a fading Ciro.

Even funnier than Iggy’s revelation was Lori’s comment after watching on Cheryl’s I-pad an interview from the Kathy Lee and Hoda Show with the author. It was not a comment about our further insight into the writing of Trigiani’s beautiful love story. No, because Lori did not read the book! It was only on her astonishment over Kathy Lee, “That bitch, look at how she’s holding up!” It was one of those Lori-isms for Becky to share with Jim. 

As an added bonus to our discussion, we watched a video on YouTube that related to the book in that it was also a love story but one created through dance. A theatrical dance group called Shadow Dancers who appeared on Simon Cowell’s program Britain’s Got Talent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8s97NiC2Ys  gave the most emotional performance I have seen in a long time. This young Hungarian group put together the most amazing performance using their bodies to create shadows of concrete shapes. In a one room rat and garbage infested setting, they created a true art form with their movements. The dance is also a true story of love, birth, war, and death which makes it even more emotional, but the musical accompaniment completes the effect. They dance to a song called “Read All About It” by a popular artist in Britain who is the country’s current version of Adele. Her name is Emeli Sande and the song is from her album Our Version of Events. Every song on the album is awesome.

Included in this email, I placed the updated list of books we, Butler Women of Wisdom, have read since our group’s onset in October of 2004. Read through it and remember some of the great titles and all the fun times we have shared together through the pages of books. Hope to see all of you tomorrow morning for more warm memories, 9:30 AM at Country Kitchen! 

Tammy 

April 2013 Book Club "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

Dear Book Club Members,

Delicious strawberry salads and tomato mozzarella salads were devoured before our official “Women of Wisdom April Book Club Meeting held at the Hardwood Café.  Members attending were Tammy, Ginnie, Chris, Barbara K., Lori, Jodi, Becky and our soon to be Grandma, Cheryl.  We were all excited to hear the wonderful news and Greg’s tearful reaction to becoming grandparents.   We are so happy for both of you.

            Our April read, the nonfiction work, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot spurred much discussion.  This fascinating book of medical research and a deeply human and humane look at both Henrietta and her descendants is the real achievement in Rebecca Skloot’s work. I would define “The Immortal Life…”   as a juxtaposition of medical and scientific research of highly advanced technology and the suffering of a human being, with the people who love her.  I was impressed with the grace with which Rebecca handled this delicate subject and the humane dignity she afforded to Henrietta and her family.  At sixteen, Rebecca was introduced to Henrietta in her biology class when her instructor mentioned her name and her skin color but nothing else. Rebecca’s mature insight and curiosity into who Henrietta was and what became of her was Skloot’s incentive for a  thoughtful and courageous ten - year research to write her first book with the trust and blessing of the Lacks family   I am reminded of The Help by Kathryn Stockett and her poignant approach to the black maids of Jackson, Mississippi.  It is never too young or too old to challenge your thought process.  Kudos to Skloot.    

            The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells the story of many things:  cancer, racism, medical ethics, the effects of poverty on medical care and most of all, the story behind the prolific “HeLa cells and the real person and her family who unknowingly donated them-Henrietta Lacks. 

            Henrietta is described by her cousin, Emmett Lacks, as “the sweetest girl you ever wanna meet, and prettier than anything” and that is how Henrietta comes to life in the pages of Skoot’s book. She is the great-great-granddaughter of slaves who began her life in a poverty-stricken tobacco farm in Clover, Virginia. Full of fun and fun to be around said those who knew her, a lovely woman with “walnut eyes, straight white teeth and full lips”.

            In 1951, the only place a black person could be treated in Baltimore, Maryland was Johns Hopkins where Henrietta checked into their charity ward with a painful “knot in my womb” which was promptly diagnosed as cervical cancer.  She was given painful radium treatments, only before the first was administered, the attending physician, without asking permission from Mrs. Lacks and without informing her, cut two dime-sized pieces of tissue from Lacks’ cervix, one healthy and one cancerous. Protocol dictated the donor’s name be written on the tubes of cells which were named “HeLa for her first and last name. George Gey, a scientist trying to establish continuously reproducing human cell line, was given the cells by the attending physician. Later these cells were determined to contain an enzyme capable of dividing and multiplying forever, thus rendering them “immortal”!  Today, sixty years after her death, Henrietta’s tissue has yielded approximately fifty million metric tones of “HeLa” cells.

            Researchers, medical students and scientists around the world recognize “HeLa” cells but very few have ever heard of the woman who donated them, taking for granted that these cells came from a “live woman.”

            However, the centerpiece role of the book goes not to Henrietta, but to her daughter, Deborah.  She is a loving, tough, sweet, vulnerable generous woman whose curiosity about her mother and her older sister, Elsie (who was born deaf, mute and possible retarded and lived in the Hospital for the Negro Insane) drove her to an emotional breakdown.  Deborah is a faithful and forgiving person not letting her anger at science get in the way of helping others. 

            The most moving scene in the book for me involves Deborah and a kind-hearted, Austrian researcher at Johns Hopkins name Christoph Lengauer.  Deborah and Zakariyya, her brother, were taken to the freezer room where he showed them their mother’s cells.  Later they would look at them alive under a microscope. They walked into a “room filled with wall-to-wall white freezers stacked one on top of the other rumbling like a sea of washing machines in an industrial laundromat.” As the freezer opened with a hiss and releasing a cloud of steam Deborah screamed and jumped behind Zakariyya. It was all full of Henrietta’s cells.  “Oh God, she gasped, “I can’t believe all that’s my mother.”  Christoph reached in and took out a vial with H-e-L-a written on its side.  “She’s cold” Deborah said, cupping her hands and blowing onto the vial.  “You’re famous,” she whispered. “Just nobody know it.”  After putting some of the cells under a microscope Deborah “ stood mesmerized, watching one of her mother’s cells divide in two, just as they’d done when Henrietta was an embryo in her mother’s womb.” “How come they ain’t black even though she was black?”  “Under a microscope, cells don’t have a color,” Christoph told Zakariyya. “They’re beautiful,” Henrietta whispered.  “John Hopkin is a school for learning, and that’s important.  But this is my mother, nobody seem to get that.”  God did create us all equal.

            Many difficult questions are raised concerning medical practices and bioethics and informed consent after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  What happened to Henrietta makes readers feel outrage and sympathy for the poverty in which her descendants now live. Johns Hopkins and other research facilities that work with HeLa cells have committed no crimes.  As the author notes, it is still not necessary to obtain a patients consent to store cells and tissue taken from them in diagnostic procedures then later use the tissue for research. I found much of the scientific information equally as compelling although the human story for me was the most enlightening. I find myself conflicted with the importantance and advances of science to the general welfare of society contrasted with the moral ethics.  I love the mental challenge of this book which raises more questions than answers in my mind.  I rank it in my Top Ten.   What is your view?   

            While enjoying our wonderful salads, and the fabulous weather of the evening, we decided for our summer meetings we would try to meet “outdoors”.   The patio at the Saxonburg Hotel as well as picnic at Moraine State Park were suggested so be thinking of a place we could meet and anticipate the lovely approaching outdoor summer meetings ahead.  However, our next meeting will be Wednesday, May 22^nd, 6:30 at Panera Bread. We will be discussing The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adrianna Trigiani, the talented author of several books our club as read, Lucia, Lucia and Big Stone Gap.  

Looking ahead: Also, remember our June book club will coincide with the Butler Symphony Garden Tour, so the date for our meeting will be Saturday, June 15th.  The cost of ticket is $15 in advance or $20 the day of tour.

Hope to see you there,

Sincerely,

Becky

             

P.S.  Attached is the chart I made comparing Julia Child and Anne Lindbergh  

 Dear Book Club Members,