Not a long novel by any means, but filled with humour, adventure and feeling. Father Kenneth Roberts squeezed more in his first 30 years than I will in my lifetime and yet still felt he had only just touched on what he had to offer the world. Real life tragedy touched his life on a regular basis and although he had the only too human quality of anger and 'Why me', he overcame each with a strength to be admired. The cornerstone to his destiny was his Mother, a true believer to the end. Read this book and be inspired. I am not a religious person by any means and it has made me look on life with a different outlook.

This book is a personal account of a man's life and struggle to become what he should be. It deals with his personal struggle with life, his aspirations, his seeking to find the man he should become and the external draws that life lends to steer a soul away from a good path. All of us can relate to this man's struggles in some part of the book. The people are real and their lives afffected eveyone around them. Something we all should take into account when we deal with each soul we meet everyday. Read it and then examine your life to see if you can be more than you are to the people of the world and for the God that created us.

This book was so good, I could not put it down. I thank God everyday for the Father Ken Roberts of this world. He is a truly inspirational person. What a saint he had for a mother, she is the example that our own Blessed Mother in heaven would want all mothers to be like. God bless you Father Ken Roberts.

This short book of compiled letters reads well. Full of personal and profound information regarding Fr. Arpin's life and formal dual recognition of his integrating HIV/AIDS status and sexuality into his personal, professional, and prayerful life. Some of the information the good Father writes about is clearly dated, but that also adds to the charm and character of this book. Truly inspirational and a perfect gift for any Catholic living with HIV/AIDS.

I bought that book because I had the opportunity to know the writer in one of his phases when he was a student at a Quebec Seminary in the 60's. I must say that he never disappointed me in the past nor was I disappointed in reading his book. He is a man of courage and humility, and his story is moving. He knows how to deal with tragedy, torn between duty and his nature his is threading a fine path between his faith and his truth. Is he less of a priest for having admitted he was gay? For me he is more of a man and a greater priest because he is telling the truth. I admire his courage, pray for a lessening of his sufferings, and wonder if we change that much when life and its adventures come to change us. The young collegian I knew was inhabitated for the same passion for truth. He never betrayed his callings. God bless him wherever he is. This book is a great humane strong book, it inspires me, great luck was on my way when I bought it.

I had bought this book about six months ago, and it had sat on my shelf until about three days ago I pulled it down and began to read it. It couldnt of came at a more needed time in my life. But anyways, this book is really moving. It teaches us to take a wider more open-minded look at the people around us. I've heard the saying ''taking one day at a time", but Father Robert Arpin really shows us what it means. ...such a wonderful book.

This book is a wealth of information for counselors who work with clergy, because of the occupational stresses and overwork unique to those in religious professions. I found their discussion of clergy transference and isolation issues particularly helpful. The style of writing is highly informative but the book is also an interesting and engaging read.

This is a must for any mental health professional who treats clergy and religious. Ciarrocchi and Wicks approach this population by emphasizing the cultural factors that need to be considered with this unique group of individuals who devote their life to ministry to others. They provide a framework to understand the unique needs of this population and offer many worthwhile suggestions regarding treatment approaches. It is clear that both men have the experience of working with this population.

Dirty Laundry, like all good spiritual memoirs, has that "peeping through the keyhole" quality that makes the reader feel he is getting inside information on a taboo or guarded topic. As per the title, Dirty Laundry has it all: marital problems, abbot/junior initiate sexual relationships, jealousy and intrigue in the monastery, financial problems, even the raising of a young child part-time at the monastary, part-time at home. Dirty Laundry's best quality is its ability to make Buddhist practice, even monastic practice, seem possible, if not practical. For all who have considered a retreat or even a longer period of monastic practice, Dirty Laundry shows what it might be like: the possible problems, possible solutions, etc. In this respect, it's a valuable book, as it is for taking the cover off the secrecy of domestic Buddhist practice.

However, while Dirty Laundry does a decent job of showing us the underbelly of monastic life, the book offers very little detail on the good stuff: practice, zazen, ritual, even the physical appearance of the monastary. This is probably due to the fact that the book is actually a journal kept in tandem by ordained monk Robert Winson and his lay wife, Miriam Sagan. Fully one-half the entries have little to do with Buddhism at all, except as an outsider's observation of how it fits into her life (or doesn't, as the case may be).

The squabbles and seemingly un-enlightened behavior that goes on can be infuriating to those who take their Buddhism a little more seriously, but Dirty Laundry is quick and easy to read and for its ease of digestion, offers some insight to the problems facing domestic monastic practice.

"Dirty Laundry" is a journal in two voices -- as such, it is full of the details of daily life: cooking, lovemaking, childraising, cleaning, fighting, moodiness. It's not so much a "Zen book" as it is a book about the possibility that what we do every day is worthy of reflection and learning. Robert Winson, who died in his mid-30s before the book was published, was clearly a passionate, sparky, sexy, earnest, empathetic, witty guy. . . . Reading "Dirty Laundry" makes you a little more awake to the brief life we share.

Robert Winson and Miriam Sagan writes alternating chapters in this engrossing book. Robert is going to spend 100 days in a zen monastery in New Mexico. Miriam stays at home with their daughter. This book describes vividly their lives inbetween visits and their weekend meetings at the monastery. The book also has much to say on the inner life of a monastery and on the role of the resident zen master : Richard Baker roshi. It's a relief to read autobiographical writings on zen that is not written from an academic, male, 60-ies only perspective. I've read several of them and this book beats them all!

The authors were involved in Santa Fe punk-groups "The Poetry Devils" and "Bichos". Robert Winson died in 1995.

Living in NYC, it was a unique experience to be able to read a book, and then take my son to the place where the action occurs. We pretended to also be pirates, and this made the book a wonderful facillitator for imaginative play. But the book is for more than Manhattanites - I bought it for friends living in the Midwest, and am purchasing it again to send to a friend in Philly. I highly recommend it.

"The Priestly Office" provides an honest, well thought, and even handed exploration into the priesthood today. Avery Dulles provides insight regarding the differing theological developments and understandings of the priesthood and thier contemporary implications.

Have you ever considered that buildings might get wanderlust just as people do? In this story, all the buildings in Boston decide to head out of town over a long weekend (after all of the people and animals have left on vacations of their own, of course). Boston gets a hankering to visit, of all things, its old friend Portland, Maine. (Needless to say, Portland is "very surprised" to see Boston!) The buildings visit with each other, then make it back to their home and settle onto their foundations just in time for the return of the Bostonians. My daughter is now almost 8 and has enjoyed this book for 5 years. It makes me laugh every time I read it with her. And since we are from the Boston area we can identify some of the individual buildings in the graphically-unique illustrations. This book is very much recommended, especially for local Bostonians.