Bernard Books

The military writer William Dupay credited the German General Staff with what he called, "institutionalized genius"-with being able to institute a way of reliably producing command of an effectiveness that once was only viable for a legendary conqueror.
What the German General Staff did for art, Traveler did for storytelling. It was able to create a world as complex sophisticated and detailed as only the greatest writers of speculative fiction could before. It did this by the same method, by the mundane method of using a team of writers to create it's world.
Traveler is an RPG. RPG's are essentially a folk-art. In a way they are a revival of the traditional storytellers art in a new form. Or another way to describe it is as a play in which the actors choose their own actions and the director or "Gamemaster" must oversee and direct the plot knowing his actors have free will. Many, perhaps most of what I have given is fammiliar to my readers. But Traveller is different. It is a work of genius, a splendid science-fiction world of multifaceted complexity set in the far future. Games can involve political intrigue, exploration, trading and whatever ones heart desires. It is not a utopia, nor a dystopia like many Sci-fi's but a world that is believable. It is a world that is different yet similar to ours. But at the same time, "Vive La difference."
Sword Worlds is my favorite of the Gurps Traveller series. It describes a cluster of nations and cultures in a group of planets sandwiched between the mighty Zhodani Consulate and the Vast Third Imperium. The Sword Worlders are clannish and traditionalist peoples who emphasize their Germanic and Scandinavian heritage. They are not pictured as perfect and they are forever quarreling with their neighbors and one another. Yet they are survivors and they have a "character" of their own, a contrarian way of thinking and a grim determination to be who they are.
The Sword Worlds sourcebook is a boon for any who wish to play a campaign set among Swordworlders. And it is a blessing for those like me that do not play but read the book for itself. It gives the political relations between Swordworlder states, substates and alliances, the history of the Sworldworlds and the various and sundry customs of the Sworldworlder people. It gives splendid characters. And it gives a number of preset campaigns that are some of the best in the series. The best campaign of all is the epic "100 parsecs" campaign which could easily be made into a movie.
Perhaps the best thing I can say about Sword Worlds is that it was not long enough. It is an attractive book and well worth the while of any Traveller fan new or old.

The Ha-Ha Handbook is primarily a joke book - but it is also a lot more. The Meg-A-Phon, newsletter of the Milton Erickson Gesellschaft (MEG) of Germany has long included jokes with a jokes with a psychological bent in each issue. This is a collection of these jokes and each joke is titled with the particular psychological element it illustrates. Topics include amnesia, circular questioning, dissociation, double bind, dental hypnosis, seeding and triangulation.

How does one review a joke book? All I can say is that several of us in a gathering of both professionals and nonprofessionals each had a copy and competed for the opportunity to read various jokes to the group. If laughing aloud is a measure, this book is a rousing success. Some of the jokes are a twist on real psychotherapy; some are a twist on old jokes; and many were new to everyone in the room.

A few of the jokes suffer from difficulties in translation or culture, but most transcend those minor problems. In keeping with Trenkle's humorous approach, each page is perforated. In that way, Trenkle explains, pages can be censored or even given directly to a particular person.

Trenkle is a well-known international speaker and therapist who customarily opens his talks with a carefully selected joke. This collection is representative, of many of his jokes and of the thoughtful way in which he matches his humor with his topic.
Reasonably priced, it is the perfect gift for a too-serious student of psychotherapy. The Ha-Ha Handbook is also a treat for anyone who just likes to laugh.

Betty Alice Erickson, M.S.

I found hematology very difficult when I was learing it in 3rd year. But after reading this book in the library, I started to know how to learn this subject well. This is truly a very concise and understandable good textbook!

Bernard Haldane Associates' Best Salary Tips For Professionals tells pros how to negotiate the best salary based on understanding how salary discussions operate. Outlines of the common salary mistake job seekers make is particularly insightful and useful.

If you've enjoyed these titles -- Lamb's Supper by Scott Hahn, Understanding the Mass by Charles Belmonte, and The Mass: A Biblical Prayer by Fr Peter Stravinskas -- you'll find this work to be even more detailed. It traces all the available documentary evidence for how each part of the Mass evolved, first from the Jewish liturgy, then into a distinctly Christian act of worship. The book has helped me stay more attentive during Mass, because now I can see the rich symbolism and history at each turn. Protestants who are intrigued by the idea of worshipping as the first Christians did will find in this book what they are looking for.

This book is a great way to access a potpourri of diverse ideas to get back to the basics of teaching and learning-- "It's language, stupid!" Bernard Spolsky and Francis Hult's Handbook of Educational Linguistics presents a wide range of stimulating approaches to stopping the downward slide which frustrates and demoralizes many teachers--along with ideas for retooling the fundamentals of language pedagogy.

Educational linguistics is an evolving field, which differentiates itself from the fuzziness of applied linguistics, a.k.a. ESL (English as a Second Language), the academic moniker of educating those who teach the national tongue to non-native speakers. Grounded in multi-disciplinary studies, Educational Linguistics accesses scholarship from many fields including neurobiology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, foreign language studies, education, and politics, in particular the impact of language policy.

The readings are ideally suited for students, both undergraduate and graduate (super for Comprehensive Exams), academics, researchers, and policy makers interested not only in linguistics, but linguistic aspects of the fields of study listed above. Educational Linguistics provides an update of the most recent and diverse ways in which linguistics permeates education at all levels. Most of the 44 chapters are relatively short and provide useful references for further research or documentation. The gravitas of the authors and the importance of the field are reflected in the "star" quality of the contributors, whose names are recognizable by those who have been in the field of linguistics even for a short time.

The introductory chapters provide a broad view of the multi-disciplinary foundations of the field. The heart of the book is the readings collected under the rubric of "language in education" which range from the cultural aspects of linguistics, language policy and management, literacy development, and the most recent thinking on how languages are acquired and assessed. The final portion of the book is devoted to developing themes such as technology in language teaching, and forging the vital link between linguistic research and practice.

In summary, Spolsky & Hult provide readable, useful, and diverse coverage of many critical issues facing teachers, politicians and nations in regard to language. Most important, The Handbook of Educational Linguistics suggests that no matter the level or depth of involvement in teaching, strategies can be designed to prevent the tragic loss of human potential caused by language and cultural barriers in education.

Having read all the books in English, I picked this up to see what I could make of it. It is extremely well-edited; it keeps the important plot points and preserves all the flavor of the original book. Reading it in French, I noticed some subtle (and really adorable) things that I missed in English, simply becuase I had to read more carefully. I kept my dictionary close at hand, but it really is written on the level of, probably, a 9-year-old.

Late in his life, in May of 1953, Pope Pius XXII published this brief yet comprehensive examination of the Cistercian Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, entitling his encyclical The Mellifluous Doctor, underlining the placing this influential saint among the Doctors of the Church and the last of the early Church Fathers.

With the delay of its complete publication in English, fellow Cistercian Father Thomas Merton received happily the task of writing a biographical and bibliographical introduction, which was published in 1954 after passing not only the Censor Librorum John M. A. Fearns, S.T.D., and receiving the Imprimatur of the great Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York (not Kentucky), but also having passing his own Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance's Censor Librorum, in Rome, and recieving the Imprimi Potest from the head of his Order, in Rome, Fr. Gabriel Sortais, about whom you may study more in Dom Gabriel Sortais: An Amazing Abbot in Turbulent Times (Monastic Wisdom Series) by Solesmes's excellent and scholarly Fr. Guy Oury, OSB, in any unusual cross-Order celebration and appreciation. Fr. Sortais in fact contributes an opening word to this present book, as well as the Order's Cardinal Protector and Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide (Propagation of the Faith) Peter, Cardinal Fumasino-Biondi, who writes:

"Into a world where fear and distrust run as a seemingly overpowering force, where men seek to rely on force and human strategy, our Holy Father, Pius XII, has injected once more the Christian call to hope and trust and reliance on divine love and strategy ( . . .) The teachings of Saint Bernard can be a beacon leading us, one and all, to love, for we were made to love, not to fear. 'God is love,' yesterday, today and forever."

No more welcome words may we hear today, except the long war is over.

Thus, as was typical and necessary for the great American monk Father Merton's works, this treatise bears a double Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat.

I came to this work as a result of reading the intriguing selection of correspondence exchanged between Father Merton and the Benedictine authority on monasticism Father Jean LeClercq, published as Survival or Prophecy?: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Jean LeClercq. Dom LeClercq at that time was also writing about Saint Bernard, and is in fact poignantly cited in this present work by Father Merton. It is exciting to read their correspondence and realize the behind the scenes difficulties in, among other things, researching and producing this book.

An interesting conundrum regarding the disclaimer which accompanies this double Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat, which declare the book free of doctrinal and moral error. If the disclaimer states the well-trained individuals involved in granting the here four official stamps of approval are not thereby implied in agreeing with its contents, does that not place them in danger of being supposed of being in agreement with moral and doctrinal error, and then what does that do to their official status?

In any case Father Merton writes, free of doctrinal and moral error, an excellent and brief biography of great insight into this Saint and his theology, followed by an examination of his writings, many of which are recently available through Honey and Salt: Selected Spiritual Writings of Bernard of Clairvaux and Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (Classics of Western Spirituality). Father Merton then, after frequent reference to the encyclical at hand, provides externsive notes and background upon its contents and writing.

Father Merton in his Preface defines a "papal encyclical (as) . . .always a concise and fully authoritative summary of the teaching accepted and approved by the Church on a given subject. Doctor Mellifluous tells us what Saint Bernard means to the Church (p. 10)." Please notice the primacy of the Church as a whole in this: it is not a summary of the Pope's own opinions and feelings, but a summary of what is accepted by the Church as whole on any given subject. This is wherein the authority lies; it represents the thinking of the Church as a whole, not any individual member of that Church. The Pope here summarizes what "Bernard means to the Church."

Saint Bernard lived in the early eleventh century, upon the cusp of the Patristic and the modern eras of our ecclesiology. He thus "struck an altogether new note of hope and encouragement in medieval spirituality, and it is no exagerration to attribute to him the current of sweetness and joy that was to become in Francis of Assisi 'a stream of the river making the city of God joyful' (Psalm 45:5). (p. 11)"

Father Merton concludes this Preface by stating this encyclical arrrives at a timely moment: "It seems fitting that it should now receive a wide dissemination, for nothing could be more timely than its timeless appeal for a return to genuine Christian charity, nourished by bearing fruit not so much in material works as in the true love for other men. (p. 14)"

Father Merton has an interesting and timely study of Saint Bernard on the earliest Crusades, which he refused to support at the request of the Frankish King: "He formally refuses, adding that he will only undertake the task if commanded by the Pope (p. 39)." When the King goes over his head to the Pope, and the Pope gives this command, Saint Bernard's writings in this regard remain well within the limits of obedience to the Pope. He tries to propose military action as an effort to preserve the order established by God, and as Father Merton well points out: "The difficulty comes, of course, in determining just what political set-up, if any, represents the order established by God (p.41)"

As Merton also demonstrates points out, those thus commissioned for this Crusade remained as vile and self-interested as ever, and the entire enterprise failed as a religious mission which it never was. Merton in fact has the best study on this aspect of Saint Bernard available. Merton continues that Saint Bernard "ought to have read the translation of the Koran which Peter the Venerable sent him, from Cluny, to study and to refute. Beranrd seems to have felt no need to know or to understand anything about Islam: as if knowing the Mohammedans to be 'pagans' were to know quite enough. But let us remember that Bernard belongs to the twelfth century, not to the twentieth (p.42)." as if in the twentieth century age of reason and enlightenment and logic, we would have studied before going to total war. Such niceties apparently are no longer found necessary in the twenty-first century. See The Assault on Reason.

This theme re-emerges in Father Merton's examination of Saint Bernard's De laude novae militiae, about the Knights Templar, in which Bernard writes: "Quis igitur finis fructusve saecularis hujus, non dico militiae sed malitiae, si et occisor letaliter peccat at occisus aeternaliter perit? (p.56)." In English more or less I roughly translate: So what purpose is the fruit of their secular warfare, not by militia but by the malicious, if the killer mortally sins and the killed perishes forever?

Bernard's solution is for the Knights Templar to live like Cistercians in Palestine, an admirable and saintly enterprise which unfortunately did not come about.

Most interesting to me of all these mainly untranslated minor works of Saint Bernard of course is his life of Saint Malachy, missioner monk from Ireland who died at Clairvaux in 1148. I hope to find many of these writings, but that's the way it goes. This all began with a short reference in the correspondence of Merton and LeClercq, and the whole mystical universe of Saint Bernard opens before me. I most wish to read his treatise on the Love of God. and De COnsideratione.

Merton completes this section on Saint Bernard's Writings by examining the theme of freedom: "we fulfill the end for which we were created when by conformity to Christ we fully realize our own identity by becoming perfectly free and therefore by loving God without limit (p. 63)" Merton finds a "characteristic emphasis on fredom and charity" and defines "Bernard (as) a builder, a man at once of liberty and of order, a man who builds individual liberties into a universal order, that all may be more perfectly free (p. 67)" May our Church, universal and Catholic once more know this freedom.

In fact, in an earlier section discussing Bernard's writings on the relationship between the Cistercians and the Benedictines, Father Merton sums them up in this way: "Bernard is not propagandizing his own Order, but defending the unity of the Church: and her unity demands variety. To compel all monks ot follow the same observance would be un-Catholic (p.54)." May we see the true and multi-faceted nature of Our Holy Mother Church with the same charity, compassion, acceptance and love today as did Saint Bernard. Saint Bernard, pray for us now and forever.

Amen.

This particular brand of coding reference is my favorite and I can highly recommend the whole line of of references based upon the extra helps that are included in the professional versions.

Bernard Grebanier has taken it upon himself to write, what might be considered, the most interesting and exciting approach to analytical Shakespeare. A must for Hamlet readers. And I'm one of the 'every sort of reader' type. I won't go into how this book came about for Mr. Grebanier you can find that as soon as you start reading. I found it in a used book store for $5 bucks. Highly recommended.