Practicing Presence: Insights from the Streets: (Mindfulness and Homelessness) (The Emptiness of Our Hands Book 2)

Written from the perspective of life on the streets, Practicing Presence is an uncommon invitation to deepen your practice of presence, or mindfulness.

In 1999 Phyllis Cole-Dai lived by choice for forty-seven days on the streets of Columbus, Ohio. Together with James Murray, she practiced being present among chronically homeless people, offering them sustained attention and compassionate acceptance. She and James eventually recounted their story in The Emptiness of Our Hands, an "eye-opening" and "life-changing" read.


Ten years later Phyllis wrote this series of forty-seven reflections to commemorate their streets experience, elaborate further on practicing presence, and continue to bear witness to those who are homeless. Each reflection is based on an excerpt from The Emptiness of Our Hands. Originally published on her blog, the series has been compiled and lightly edited in this volume. Her insights remain as relevant as ever.


Also included in Practicing Presence are street photographs of Phyllis that have never been published.


Read this book on its own or in the company of The Emptiness of Our Hands. Take it slow, perhaps one chapter per day, so you can absorb and reflect.


If you happen to be Christian, you might consider using this book and The Emptiness of Our Hands as companion resources during Lent and Holy Week, which served as a backdrop for Phyllis and James's experience. But you don’t need to be a Christian to take this stumbling journey into practicing mindfulness on the streets. Just allow these forty-seven days to be for you what they were for Phyllis and James: a deep embrace of core values that human beings around the world have held in common for millennia. These values might best be articulated as questions:


How do we treat others as we would have them treat us?
How do we love our neighbors, including those who seem “alien” and “other?”
How do we extend hospitality to strangers, allowing them an honored place among us?


These age-old questions have no simple answers. We must seek to answer them daily with our lives.


Get your free sampler of Phyllis's work when you join her mailing list at https://phylliscoledai.com. It includes music, poetry, spiritual nonfiction and historical fiction.


CATEGORIES FOR PRACTICING PRESENCE:
--spirituality
--memoir
--mindfulness
--homelessness
--Lent & Holy Week
--social conscience
--engaged Buddhism