The Emptiness of Our Hands: 47 Days on the Streets

In 1999 Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray lived by choice on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, the fifteenth-largest city in the United States. They went to the streets with a single intention: to be as present as possible to everyone they met, offering them sustained and nonjudgmental attention. Such attention is the heart of compassion.

This book chronicles their streets experiences. It will thrust you out the door of your comfortable life, straight into the unknown. It will force you to confront what might happen to you, and who you might become, if suddenly you had no home. The meditative narrative is accompanied by pinhole photographs shot by James using cameras he constructed from trash.

This is the third edition of the book, lightly edited. Though recounting events that occurred in 1999, it remains as relevant today as ever.

An "eye-opening" and "life-changing" read!Read this book on its own or in the company of Practicing Presence: Insights from the Streets, which Phyllis wrote on the tenth anniversary of her time on the streets. Take your reading 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 Practicing Presence 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 http://www.phylliscoledai.com.

CATEGORIES FOR THIS BOOK:

Phyllis Cole-Dai seeks in her writing to cross deep divides to promote understanding and respect. She has edited or authored works in multiple genres, including historical fiction, spiritual nonfiction, and poetry. She makes her home in Brookings, South Dakota, where she resides with her husband, teenage son and two cats in a cozy 120-year-old house. Learn more about her work at www.phylliscoledai.com. There you can join her mailing list and receive a free sampler of her work. James Murray is an artist, writer and clinician who holds multiple graduate degrees. His primary work for over a decade has been with his firm, Breakthrough Interventions, which offers therapeutic interventions to individuals and families in crisis. He lives a creative life of service and strives to be present. Currently he resides in Wyoming and has a wonderful partner, Hana.