Spark!: A Reflection

SPARK!: Reflections on life, by Mark Potterton. CIE Education Services, Johannesburg. 76pp.

Reviewed by Michail Rassool

Spark!: Reflections on Life is a collection of brief meditations and prayers for daily living, celebrating the importance of seeing God in everything — receiving mindfully all that one sees, hears, smells, touches and tastes.

Compiled by CIE director Mark Potterton, and with a foreword by Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg, the book is divided into three parts.

The first contains reflections on life to use as meditations and prayers, and deals with diverse topics with such titles as “Making a decision” (about making choices, both significant and insignificant), “Death trap” (about children dying in the Nazi holocaust), “Noisy bum” (about the homeless) and “Forced to leave” (about violence and genocide in post-colonial Rwanda).

The topics are a good combination of both personal and wider concerns. The second part of the book contains prayers “to use in the rhythms of life”, including those for “the pain of grief”, “celebrating new life” (birth), “for caregivers” and “for your daily work”.

Part three provides ideas to help focus the mind in a world with many distractions, setting out steps for prayer, centring oneself and finding a favourite, peaceful place for quiet reflection.

A ring-backed, A5-size, well designed and matte-formatted affair, the book’s packaging alone screams “take me off the kitchen shelf where I, at first sight, resemble just another handy little cookery book” or “just reach out for me, sandwiched between the dictionary, thesaurus and ‘How to play the stock exchange’ guides just for a ten-minute reflection on the little blessings and hardships I encounter every day”.

It is a complete departure from the average, sometimes intimidating, book of prayers, devotions and meditations, always a sea-change from the type of undemanding publications one tends to go for more readily, and for which one always has to shift gear.

The nifty design, look and illustrative matter alone make one reach for it, and somehow has the effect of making prayer and meditation more accessible and therefore more desirable. So much for packaging!

This prayer book and guide is ideal not just for Catholics. It deals with universal issues that have relevance for all, and which — ideally — should be in every Christian home, perhaps even as a source for family prayer and reflection.

Given its educational origins, it perhaps should also be in every Catholic school, where it could prove useful for religious education and building a Catholic ethos and mindset, by locating prayer life firmly in a complex world relevant to young learners.

All proceeds from the book have been earmarked for the Tapologo Aids Hospice in the diocese of Rustenburg.

To order a copy, please contact the CIE on 011 4331888.