A New Look at an Old Favorite Book: Gift From The Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

My Mom, who recently died, loved this book and this author. But I had never read this gift until after her death. What a treat!

Lindbergh has a quiet determination in her writing. Perhaps this helps explain how she survived being the wife of the world’s famous aviator, Charles Lindbergh, and the kidnapping and death of her son.

She focuses on creativity and women, solitude, and relationships. Her words remind me of the wisdom of my Mom’s generation. We can learn much from our elderly if we are only willing to listen.

“While man, in his realm, has less chance for personal relations than woman, he may have more opportunity for giving himself creatively in work. Woman, on the other hand, has more chance for personal relations, but these do not give her a sense of her creative identity, the individual who has something of her own to say or to give. I believe that true identity is…found in creative activity springing from within…Woman can best refind herself by losing herself in some kind of creative activity of her own.”

This reflects Step Seven in the Do It Yourself Guide to Spirituality: Seven Simple Steps, which shows that one of the spiritual rules is to create and develop our unique ability. Lindbergh’s writing has a practical spiritual component.

“All relationships are in process of change, of expansion, and must perpetually be building themselves new forms. But there is no single fixed form to express such a changing relationship. There are perhaps different forms for each successive stage.” Lindbergh reminds us of the Step Three of Change, which affects all relationships.

"Perhaps one can at last in middle age, if not earlier, be completely oneself. And what a liberation that would be.”

Ah, if only we could all be completely ourselves. I find that 50 years after those words, the idea is becoming significant again. That internal liberation, however, still escapes most of us. Lindbergh understands the importance of the inner life. That inner life is necessary now. That inner life is part of our spiritual evolution.

Searching for our creativity, allowing relationships to change, and finding peace within – what words of wisdom.