Friends of Lake Drive Books,
As I was editing Frank Rogers’s Cradled in the Arms of Compassion, I couldn’t help but think that never before had I heard a personal experience quite like this. Early in this book, you are drawn into storytelling about childhood abuse and its aftermath that is so honest and and previously hidden that you almost think this must be fiction. As you continue reading, and you learn of the many lengths to which Rogers sought healing, you become convinced that you’re witnessing and learning of some truly special discoveries.
Frank Rogers is Professor of Spiritual Formation and Narrative Pedagogy at Claremont School of Theology. He’s a spiritual director, retreat leader, and the author of several books and a novel on practicing compassion. In his work, he focuses on spirituality that is contemplative, creative, and socially liberative.
This work he does, however, has an origin story. Rogers’s own experiences of abuse and trauma and his subsequent journey of recovery form the basis of so much of the wisdom he offers his students, colleagues, and spiritual seekers.
What will strike you is that Rogers shows how he found recovery through a combination of reflective retreats, therapy, creative expression, and a utterly fascinating application of imaginative meditation.
When I was in graduate school, I took an anthropology seminar with the late anthropologist and Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn author Karen McCarthy Brown. For my term paper, Brown permitted me to survey the work of Carlos Casteneda‘s Don Juan books. The scuttlebutt around these books is that they were more fictional storytelling than ethnography of an Indigenous shaman. Either way, they were extraordinary flights of symbolism and meaning.
The same is true for Cradled in the Arms of Compassion, except we can vouch that these stories, and the spiritual journey that ensues, are based in real life—and that indeed shows that you are learning and seeing a truly amazing discovery in the making, a discovery that has propelled a life’s work.
Richard Schwartz, PhD, founder of the Internal Family Systems Model says this about Cradled in the Arms of Compassion: “This is an amazing book that I couldn’t put down once I started it. In Frank’s brutally honest and remarkably disclosive telling of his story you will find a hope-filled model.”
I hope you’ll take a moment to download the excerpt of Frank’s book, watch the video, and consider getting yourself a copy. It’s a book you’ll lose yourself in, but then also find yourself, and rebirth your hope that deep, powerful healing is possible.
Grateful for you,
David Morris, Publisher
