Brian Draper's Spiritual Intelligence

Before even receiving my copy I am about to recommend the book Spiritual Intelligence by Brian Draper. The reason for this capricious recommendation is that I keep reading things that are being written about the book or its author (or that the author is saying) that make me think, “I wish I'd written that.”

For example, on the Greenbelt site is the question:

And why do business coaches, Zen masters and Christian mystics all seem to point the same way at this vital moment in history?

Wow. That’s my question!

And I will simply reproduce parts of this blog entry but recommend you read it in full. I really wish I had written it…

Feels like a conspiracy here tonight.

A small crowd gathering in an old bookshop, gathering around an idea, spilling onto the streets, albeit in genteel, Winchester fashion, quietly determined, perhaps, to connect, and to make a difference. Quietly determined to whisper conspiratorially that there must be more to life than slavishly serving money or massaging ego; quietly determined to stop sleep-walking through life, and start waking up to the moments of clarity, to the gifts of epiphany, to the glimpses of magic we are all presented with every day, if we did but realise them. Quietly resolved, perhaps, to try living as if less really is more. As if you’ve got to lose yourself to find yourself. As if you’ve got to die, somehow, in order to truly live. Quietly resolved to try living as if you can serve others instead of yourself. As if you can stop climbing ladders that are leaning against the wrong walls. As if you really can stop, and catch your breath, and start again - to learn the unforced rhythms of grace that may just bring us back to life. A conspiracy of hope, perhaps, a positive contagion - the very opposite of nasty little viruses like swine flu or Affluenza, that contagious disease through which we compare ourselves relentlessly with each other, only to find ourselves wanting, wanting, wanting. A conspiracy of hope. A new way of being. We owe it to ourselves, let alone to those around us, and those who will come after us.