The First Peace; My Search For The Better Angels - Softcover

Hatfield, Charles Wilson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1491830441 ISBN 13: 9781491830444

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2013

Synopsis

The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels is a spiritual, intellectual, emotional, and perhaps educational memoir that spans fifty-plus years, eleven states, three countries, military and seminary, birth and death, marriage and divorce, three Christian denominations, and a monastery. This memoir is a journey through faith and knowledge, hope and reality, love and experience. The author attempts to reconcile what he has been taught, what he believes, what he experiences, what he knows, what he wants, and what he perceives. His unacknowledged question: What do we do when we evolve beyond the "faith of our fathers" (and/or mothers)? After a life of seeking to understand through the lens of Christianity (and other religions), the author comes to understand that religious beliefs and dogma may become a barrier to faith and understanding. The author learns that liberty entails responsibility, faith requires self-reliance, and enlightenment is found within. Liberty and freedom entail responsibility, responsibly that no other person or institution can assume for use. We remain responsible for our actions and inactions. No person, government, or religious institution can assume or remove our responsibility for our actions, for our lives. "The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" is an attempt to weave a tapestry of stories, ideas and ideals, ethics, experiences, and expressions - with the goal (and hope) to entertain, inform, educate, persuade, stimulate, and even challenge. Perhaps "The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels" will remind you of your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings that provide some measure of contentment, but also some measure of challenge, even conflict. The silence beyond those reminders is where we find "the first peace" and where we are "at liberty to be real" and where "the better angels of our nature" touch us.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Wilson Hatfield lived in three different countries and eleven different states by the time he graduated from the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1979. Mr. Hatfield's Father was a "lifer" in the United States Air Force (USAF); Mr. (Charles) Hatfield enlisted in the USAF in 1974 and was Honorable Discharged as a Conscientious Objection in 1975. He returned to UT where he earned a Degree in Religious Studies before attended Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. He was married just before the beginning of his second year at Vanderbilt. His wife was also a graduate of UT, where they met at dated for their last three years at that school. The marriage ended after 8 years, one year after their daughter was born. Mr. Hatfield made his first retreat to the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky shortly after the divorce was final. He began making annual retreats during Advent to that monastery in 1991. Mr. Hatfield was raised as a member of the Churches of Christ. He joined the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States in 1988 and then was confirmed a member of the Roman Catholic Church during the Easter Mass of 2002. Mr. Hatfield considers himself to be a Christen, a Buddhist, and an agnostic.

About this edition

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1491830441
• ISBN 13: 9781491830444
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 584