“HOW can I write a book about hope and reasons for living at a time like this in our world?” Richard Carter does it in 100 wildly diverse vignettes, some just a paragraph, others a few pages. His 100 Reasons for Living is not quite a diary or an autobiography, but a largely anecdotal and highly personal celebration of the things that get him out of bed in the morning, and an invitation to the radically inclusive and life-affirming spirituality that holds it all together.
Sometimes, he rejoices in the natural world, but mostly he talks about people. He writes with great affection of his family, with his four brothers; he often goes back to his time as a member of the Melanesian Brotherhood in the south Pacific, which tragically included the martyrdom of seven brethren during ethnic conflict; and then his two decades on the staff of St Martin-in-the-Fields, particularly in support of those from overseas facing homelessness, and in his responsibility for its Nazareth Community with its contemplative focus.
“I want each of these reasons for living to be like a door or a window that lets light in and seeks the miracle or wonder present in life.” Meditations can arise from Kensington Gardens or Gaza, Julian of Norwich or Óscar Romero, an old couple swimming or a Shakespeare sonnet, breathing trouble or a special kiss, flying kites, or the church cleaner.
It makes this a book not just about its author’s life, but about a contemplative attitude that opens our eyes to God’s world and to God’s beloved children — “The true vow of poverty is not one of loss but of openness.” Carter often expresses this through the St Martin’s house theology of “being with”.
These are “reasons for living”, not necessarily reasons to be cheerful. Carter does not duck the perilous state of the world, the wretchedness of many lives, or painful areas of his own life. He tells us what he is grateful for, not what we should be grateful for, and largely leaves the experience that he writes about to speak for itself. It has a way of setting off our own thoughts in parallel.
Much of the book was gathered together at a time of enforced inactivity while he waited for a broken ankle to heal. “Finding grace in adversity” is his title for a chapter that movingly describes his experience as a patient, initially in an Italian hospital where he could not speak the language, and the grace that surprises is a constant theme. He waits until chapter 74 to introduce a different level of personal disclosure, in a simple, heartfelt, brave poem addressed to a former lover: “Were we not sacrament?”
Carter shares his vivid life to help us to see grace and sacrament abounding and in the present moment. It makes for a lively and an absorbing read.
The Revd Philip Welsh is a retired priest in the diocese of London.
100 Reasons for Living: The diary of a grateful heart
Richard Carter
Canterbury Press £16.99
(978-1-78622-621-1)
Church Times Bookshop £13.59