Warm, Inspiring, Insightful   Rachel Naomi Remen is a physician who learned how powerful words and stories are for healing, so she became a psycho-oncologist, a counselor who assists people diagnosed with cancer. In this book, she gathers stories of her own and others' experiences.                Helen Marcus   The following are two capsule reviews of this book by people at Amazon.com. Personal Growth Editor's Recommended Book, 09/15/97: "Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time," writes Rachel Naomi Remen in her introduction to Kitchen Table Wisdom. "It is the way wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us live a life worth remembering." Remen, a physician, therapist, professor of medicine, and long-term survivor of chronic illness, is also a down-home storyteller. Reading this collection of real-life parables feels like a late-night kitchen session with a best friend, munching on leftovers while listening to the good-as-gossip stories of everyday heroes and archetype villains. Every story guides us like a life compass, showing us what's good and lasting about ourselves as well as humanity. Philosophy and Religion Editor's Recommended Book, 01/16/97: Daily we are inundated by stories in television, movies, and the news, and yet so few of these stories actually make intimate, soulful connections with our lives. An eminent physician of the heart, mind and body, Rachel Naomi Remen establishes this connection through stories of her own that radiate warmth and wisdom. Dr. Remen may be a scientist at the forefront of a paradigm-shift in the Western science of medicine, but what comes across in this moving book is a deep love for people, an awe at the mysteries of life and a mind expansive enough to accept all possibilities. CONTENTS   I. LIFE FORCE II. JUDGMENT III. TRAPS IV. FREEDOM V. OPENING THE HEART VI. EMBRACING LIFE VII. LIVE AND HELP LIVE VIII. KNOWING GOD IX. MYSTERY AND AWE

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal Riverhead Books, 1996 (6/98): $10.00

from: Life Force Silence   As an adolescent, I had a summer job working as a volunteer companion in a nursing home for the aged. The job began with a two-week intensive training about communicating with the elderly. There seemed to be a great deal to remember and what had begun as a rather heartfelt way to spend a teenage summer quickly became a regimented set of techniques and skills for which I would be evaluated by the nursing staff. By the first day of actual patient contact, I was very anxious.   My first assignment was to visit with a ninety-six-year-old woman who had not spoken for more than a year. A psychiatrist had diagnosed her as having senile dementia, but she had not responded to medication. The nurses doubted that she would talk to me, but hoped I could engage her in a mutual activity. I was given a large basket filled with glass beads of every imaginable size and color. We would string beads together. I was to report back to the nursing station in an hour.   I did not want to see this patient. Her great age frightened me and the words "senile dementia" suggested that not only was she older than by far anyone I had ever met, she was crazy, too. Filled with foreboding, I knocked on the closed door of her room. There was no answer. Opening the door, I found myself in a small room lit by a single window which faced the morning sun. Two chairs had been placed in front of the window; in one sat a very old lady, looking out. The other was empty. I stood just inside the door for a time, but she didn't not acknowledge my presence in any way. Uncertain of what to do next, I went to the empty chair and sat down, the basket of beads on my lap. She did not seem to notice that I had come.   For a while I tried to find some way to open a conversation. I was painfully shy at this time, which was one of the reasons my had suggested I take this job, and I would have had a hard time even in less difficult circumstances. The silence in the room was absolute. Somehow, it almost seemed rude to speak, yet I desperately wanted to succeed at my task. I considered and discarded all the ways of making conversation suggested in the training. None of them seemed possible. The old woman continued to look toward the window, her face half hidden from me, barely breathing. Finally I simply gave up and sat with the basket of beads in my lap for the full hour. It was quite peaceful.   The silence was broken at last by the little bell which signified the end of the morning activity. Taking hold of the basket again, I prepared to leave. But I was only fourteen and curiosity overcame me. Turning to the old woman, I asked, "What are you looking at?" I immediately flushed. Prying into the lives of the resident s was strictly forbidden. Perhaps she had not heard. But she had. Slowly she turned toward me and I could see her face for the first time. It was radiant. In a voice filled with joy she said, "Why, child, I am looking at the Light."