Creating a Spiritual Legacy

How to Share Your Stories, Values, and Wisdom

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About

We establish wills to pass on our possessions and property to family members and friends, but what about the things that really matter: our values, beliefs, wisdom, and stories? Those are the things of lasting significance, the things that make up a spiritual legacy. Daniel Taylor, a heralded teacher, bestselling author of Letters to My Children (over 50,000 sold), and a proven master of preserving spiritual legacies, shows how anyone--not just professional authors or those who consider themselves creative--can preserve and pass on their vision of life.

No matter what age or stage of life you're in, creating a spiritual legacy both enriches your own life and blesses the lives of those you love. Chock full of practical guidance, exercises, and examples, this hands-on book helps ordinary people identify wisdom and core values and articulate them in an enduring story form. Taylor promotes the importance of spiritual legacies and shows how to express them not only in writing but also using audio-visual formats and crafts.
 
Contents
Introduction
1. What Is a Spiritual Legacy?
2. The Spiritual Will
3. Story Legacies
4. Story Legacies--How to Get Started
5. Telling Your Master Stories
6. How to Tell a Good Story
7. Dealing with Pain and Painful People: A Story of My Own
8. So You Hate to Write: Reluctant Writers and Other Forms of Legacy Work
9. What to Do with Spiritual Legacy Work--Revising, Preserving, and Sharing
Conclusion
Appendixes
     Spiritual Legacy Questions
     Values, Virtues, and Valuables
     Generating Topics: What to Write about
     Additional Examples of Spiritual Legacy Work

The Author

  1. Daniel Taylor

    Daniel Taylor

    Daniel Taylor (PhD, Emory University) is the author of ten books, including The Myth of Certainty, Letters to My Children, Tell Me a Story: The Life-Shaping Power of Our Stories, and In Search of Sacred Places. He has worked as a...

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Reviews

"[Taylor] argues strongly that we have a moral duty to share [our] stories to the benefit of both ourselves and those who would read them. . . . The bulk of the book is designed to provide practical advice to the inexperienced and reluctant writer. Excuses are debunked and exercises are provided to help with inspiration and coming up with a topic (including a list of categories to break down a lifetime's worth of memories), how to go about writing the story well (such as including dialogue and writing scenes), and even the sometimes overwhelming process of revision. However, what might be most helpful is that the book includes a variety of examples from 'normal' people who also simply wanted to preserve a story and share its wisdom. . . . It is for those resistant to writing that the book is titled Creating rather than Writing a Spiritual Legacy. For them, as well as for those who are interested in writing their story, this book could prove to be a valuable resource."--Greg Schreur, Englewood Review of Books

"Aware of the daunting task ahead of his readers, Taylor supplies neophyte writers with exercises designed to open up the creative flow and, later, advises them on how to write honestly about painful experiences or people. This important book will encourage authentic connections in all those who read it."--Spirituality & Health

"Daniel Taylor is a wise man, [a] scholar of story, and he does a great job of cheering on 'every woman/man' to 'just do it,' get out there or in there and tell a story. Not only does he encourage us he actually tells us how, with some specific, short exercises any of us could do."--Elizabeth Turnage, livingstorygrace.com