Dr. Bonnie Thurston will appear at the Ohio County Public Library’s Lunch With Books program on Tuesday, May 13th at noon. Thurston will present "Poetry of Celtic Lands and People." Her first book of poetry, The Heart's Lands, featured Celtic saints. The poems she will be reading at Lunch With Books are a new sequence based on the Isle of Iona, a root place of Celtic Christianity. It is the home of St. Colu
mba and probably the place of origin of the Book of Kells. Dr. Thurston’s newest book, The Spiritual Landscape of Mark, will be released by Liturgical Press in October, 2008.A native of West Virginia, Bonnie Thurston currently lives in solitude near Wheeling, having resigned the William F. Orr Professorship in New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 2002. She earned a B.A. in English from Bethany College, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Virginia. The subject of her dissertation was Thomas Merton. She has done post-doctoral work in New Testament at Harvard Divinity School; Eberhard Karls University in Tuebingen, Germany; and the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem. Bonnie has written eleven theological books and over 100 articles, has contributed to reference works in New Testament, and taught at the university level for 30 years. Her scholarly interests in New Testament include the gospels of Mark and John and the Deutero-Pauline canon and, more generally, the history of Christian Spirituality and prayer. Her church affiliations include the Episcopal Church and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). She was ordained in 1984 and has served as co-pastor, pastor, or interim of five churches and twice in overseas ministries. She is a spiritual director and retreat speaker. Her poetry frequently appears in religious periodicals, and she has authored two volumes of verse.
Bonnie is a widow, an avid reader, gardener and cook, enjoys classical music (especially the opera and liturgical music) and loves the West Virginia hills.
Bonnie wrote her doctoral dissertation on Thomas Merton and is particularly interested in his poetry and inter-religious thought. She was a founding member of the International Thomas Merton Society and served as its third president. She has written more than 20 scholarly articles on Merton, given retreats, and lectured on Merton widely in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Europe. She is the editor of Thomas Merton And Buddhism (Fons Vitae Press, 2007).
Lunch with books programs are free and open to the public. Patrons are invited to bring a bag lunch, and free beverages are provided. Please call the library at 304-232-0244 for more information.
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