To Bless the Space Between Us. Book review by Carol Hegberg, editor

To Bless The Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. By John O'Donohue.

John O’Donohue, Irish teacher and poet and a man of the soul as London Times calls him, has written another great book: To Bless the Space between Us. In his gracious, elegant style, O’Donohue wrote of ordinary life events’ sensory space that often goes unwritten about or uninterrupted by writers, events such as a new home, old age, and the arrival of illness.

Published March 4th of this year, To Bless the Space between Us is a perfect book for a fiction writer to read.

The novelist or short story writer yearns to tell a great story in a fabulous plot with unforgettable characters. Among those ingredients, the writer likes to interpret life areas that the reader doesn’t understand.

Readers of O’Donohue’s books say his works put words to the feelings they’ve had for years but never found expressed anywhere.

The fiction writer can learn from O’Donohue’s interpretation of the human’s inner world for the quickening of his own soul that in turn will inspire his/her own interpretation of events. Often after reading other’s great writings, a writer can see his own way to writing his best.

An example from “For the Artist at the Start of Day” . . .

“May morning be astir with the harvest of night;

Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,

Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse

That cut right through the surface to a source.”

Another section on “Desire” hints at other possibilities of thoughts.

“Desire is often expressed in restlessness. Nothing satisfies. This found classical modern expression in the Rolling Stones song ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.’ Ironically, this is probably the Augustinian rock song. Long before the Stones, Saint Augustine had said, ‘Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.’ Our dissatisfaction could, therefore, be the admission and awakening of our longing for the eternal. Rather than being simply the edge of some personal emptiness, it could be the first step in the opening up of our eternal belonging.’”

O’Donohue’s words are used as blessings for life events. What a blessing to read them! Afterward, the fiction writer can bless his/her readers with his writings.

May you read and write well in kind days ahead.

Carol Hegberg

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John O’Donohue lived in the solitude of Connemara in western Ireland where he spoke Gaelic as his native language. He earned his doctorate in philosophy in 1990 from the University of Tubingen, Germany. At age 52, John O’Donohue died on January 3, 2008. His other books include Anam Cara, Beauty: the Invisible Embrace, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong, Conamara Blues: Poems, and Wisdom from the Celtic World.

CAROL HEGBERG is an internationally published, award-winning writer and content editor. Her novel is entitled Pen Pals. Her poetry, scripts, short stories, and articles have been published in many magazines and books. Carol knows the endurance, tenacity, and patience a writer must possess to become published. Beginning writers, published authors, agents with needy clients, and publishers who need developmental editing for their writers use her services. She helps rewrite speeches, short stories or collections, articles, essays, and manuscripts. She helps develop inspirational, Christian, and picture-book manuscripts, children and young-adult fiction and nonfiction. She's available for writing help with manuscript submissions, query letters, and book proposals.

Developmental editing, rewriting, mentoring

Juvenile & young adult fiction/nonfiction, Christian topics

"Carol breathed life into my top-selling children's story with her wonderful way with words." Nancy S. Mure, author of Irregular Joe

Read How To Write a Non-fiction Book Proposal.

Read The Little Problems that Count in Writing.

For more information about Carol Hegberg, read her self-interview.

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