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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 10h

Milwaukeeans, come see us 2 months from tomorrow. Jon M. Sweeney, author of A Year with the Classics and Meister Eckhart Fri, 12/11/2026 - 6:30pm Place: Boswell Book Company 2559 N Downer Ave Milwaukee, WI 53211-4242

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

A sincere and open heart #MeisterEckhart From “Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets”📚🙏

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

We are apple pressing the old-fashioned way

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I missed an animal blessing this year. I'll always remember the year I chatted with a woman who brought her hedgehog. "I've seen parrots and bunnies," I said, "but never a hedgehog at one of these." "This was really good for him," she said, "because he's had a really tough year." Even hedgehogs.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I came across this edition of Thomas Merton's "The Living Bread" years ago. As you can see, it was once in the library at MIT, on reserve for undergrads doing "Humanities Religious Reading." An odd choice, this particular book, at a place like MIT, but testament to the popularity of Merton in 1956.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Join us in Fonda, NY this Saturday. Saint Francis of Assisi and Nicholas Black Elk

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Arrivals. Fabulous! I love Charles Lamb. The most complete book ever published on Elia. But there is a problem: it’s $300, which is crazy.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

She's reading one book, and there’s another on the table waiting for her, and the archangel saying, excuse me, if I could have your attention for a moment.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Shame on all of them. Religion and spirituality publishing at its greedy worst.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

This Zurburan is in the collection of the art museum in Milwaukee. Startles me every time, so mysterious. Mysterious also was St. Francis’s embrace of “Sister Death,” which we remember tonight, October 3: The Transitus, when he passed through death to life.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The Transitus is tonight, when St. Francis of Assisi passed from one life to the next. Giotto, Fresco 20, Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

People around the world, tomorrow night, will be marking the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis of Assisi's passing. As described here.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

In the Champlain Valley of Vermont we're about halfway to full autumn colors. And we still have our bees. I like that!

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This Saturday night we mark the 800th anniversary of the passing of Saint Francis of Assisi.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The book of Ephesians taught Christians to assume demons were in the air, causing violent storms. By the 16th century, Protestants split from Catholics over the efficacy of sacramentals, i.e. church bells, to combat the demons. Then came science and lightning rods first went on churches in 1756.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I salute my translator friends everywhere, on this, the feast day of St. Jerome.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Ads for other books, once common on back covers, were designed for rail travel. Entice the passengers across from you.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Wouldn't it be great if, every year, we were all anointed with oil, had it rubbed into the palms of our hands, like a priest at ordination, reminding us that we have holy work to do?

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

There’s no rule that says a copyright page in a book has to be boring. This is a Rohrschach test. Can you see it?

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The thin bible paper, flex hardcover, and ribbon marker were genius for this classic, matching form to content—since editor Edith Hamilton considered Plato almost part of the Christian revelation.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Write today as if you are surrounded.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I'm loving these early mornings, as the excess of summer slows, and the coming coldness turns my mind to other things.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Sending love today to everyone who loved Phyllis Tickle. This is the 11th anniversary of her death.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

We’ve had a crazy bumper crop year on our three apple trees. This is the latest batch I have picked to give away. Taking them to synagogue tonight for break the fast.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

A great addition to tonight’s Kol Nidre service.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Today’s find at the Vermont antiquarian booksellers fair.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

God is not what you think from ‘Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets’

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

These 3 bios all happened to arrive today. Three great women of letters.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

What’s the book you’ve most often loaned and not had returned? Mine: Life Work, by Donald Hall

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Today is the Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. This is where it happened, on Mount La Verna.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Then (from 'Meister Eckhart's Book of the Heart')

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

“This warm and wise book invites its readers to meet Eckhart as an equal and a friend with whom we can intimately speak, whose heart and mind we may be drawn into.” —Dr. Rebecca Stephens, Chair of the Eckhart Society, author of 'Grounding the Soul' 📖 Available Dec. 7

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Readers have always determined the books that succeed. Don Quixote first appeared in 1605, by an unknown and penniless author, published in a cheap edition full of typos.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Without Charles Dickens and H. K. Browne, there would’ve been no Walt Disney.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

"So welcome what comes of the dark" From 'Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets'🙏❤️

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

For all the beguines out there. I love this.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Collect of St. Clare of Assisi for a Wednesday morning (with note and source) from 'The St. Clare Prayer Book' 🙏📚

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Porch of The Country Bookshop, Plainfield, Vermont. Featuring Bread & Puppet Circus art.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Still my favorite Amazon review - for Thomas Merton’s ‘A Course in Christian Mysticism’

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Delicate endpapers of woven linen, on a book that was sold very cheaply back in 1927.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Hey Kirkus, thanks for noticing!

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

The scarcest dust jacket around because readers hated it: Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock" pub'd July 1938. 8000 copies printed, but everyone threw the jacket away. $50,000 to buy one. (Don't be fooled by the facsimile.)

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Several years ago I checked out this book from my local library. A valuable item! When I returned it, I suggested to a librarian that it needed repair. The following day I found it on the sale table for $1 and I bought it.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Our college library removes dust jackets and leaves them on a shelf with a guilty sign to students saying, please use somehow if you can. A generation ago, library distributors, who package and code the books and sell them to libraries, convinced librarians that dust jackets got in the way.

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Meister Eckhart from “Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart”

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Jon M. Sweeney @jonmsweeney.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I love how the monk is looking on like, why her?! #HolySpiritGrab

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