Gifts from the Sea

My mother lost her third child a few days after she was born. Unfortunately, the sister I never had the chance to meet passed away due to a glitch at the hospital. There was no logical reason to explain her death other than the fact that every member of the medical staff dropped the ball. At the time I was old enough to know something horrible had happened, and that our family would never be the same. The reason I mention this most personal of all experiences is that a close family friend, someone who turned out to be one of my closest advisors through life, gave my mother a book in order to help her cope with the pain. That book was Anne Morrow Lindbergh's GIFT FROM THE SEA.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Years later I was going through the bookshelves in our den looking for something to read. A GIFT FROM THE SEA is extremely thought provoking, and with the modern world stuck in a digital abyss and beginning to leave its humanity behind, probably more relevant now than the year it was written. It's filled with Lindbergh's thoughts and feelings and search for inner peace. After I read the last page and thought it over, I realized that she had given me an extra special gift. She had introduced me to Rainer Maria Rilke's LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET. If reading or writing or any combination of the two makes your day, then LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET is a must read.

The book is comprised of ten letters Rilke wrote to a young man who wanted to make a life in the arts. I don't have to be a fortuneteller to say that this is one of the best books you will ever read in your life. And if you're a writer, your work is about to take a giant step forward.

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