Monthly Archives: September 2014

Learning a ‘Little Greek’ from Francesco

by contoveros

 Student of History Learns About Saint Francis

    What did I learn about Francis of Assisi while researching the facts about his life?

He wanted to grow up to be a crusader and fight in the Crusades which had gone on for some one hundred years when he was born in 1081 or 1082.

Francis fought in a battle between the city-state of Assisi and its neighboring town of Perugia, which sided with the nobility and wanted to continue with the feudal system.

He rode a horse into battle, and it probably saved his life because the Perugians he engaged slaughtered all the foot soldiers (infantrymen) as well as the archers. They thought Francis was a nobleman because he was on a horse.

Francis was thrown in jail, a makeshift prison made up of an old Etruscan fortification buried below the ground in Perugia. He remained in jail for nearly a year before his father learned of his whereabouts and paid a ransom to free his son.

Francis Got PTSD from Battles and Imprisonment

Francis showed all the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a psychological wound suffered by many in combat.

Before going to war, he was known as the “king of the revelers” — a real “party animal,” but became a recluse on his return to Assisi. He was withdrawn from all social life and gave signs of deep depression.

Francis tried to “redeem” himself later by outfitting himself as a knight with armor, a sword, and a battle horse when leaving Assisi once again to do battle, but this time he offered himself to fight in one of the crusades being waged by one of the popes against the Saracens.

He never made it to the battlefield because of a vision he experienced, which directed him to return home to “serve the master” and not a “servant.”

Labeled a Coward After Following a Vision

Francis was labeled a coward and a deserter.

     He was only five feet two inches tall

Francis preached to the birds, tamed a wolf, and saved a rabbit from becoming a monk’s dinner!

———————-

     His real name was John or Giovanni, as he was baptized in Italian. Pietro, his Italian father, renamed him Francesco, which meant the “Little Frenchman.”

     Francis mother was French. She was of noble birth and lived in an area called Provence in the southern section of what is now known as France.

     Greeks from the Island of Rhodes settled the area of Provence. Rhodes is a short boat ride away from the island my father, Achilles Contoveros, was born and raised. In the year 2012, researchers conducted DNA tests on people from Provence, and the results showed there was 12 percent Greek blood in them. That would make Francis of Assisi “a little Greek,” according to this recorder of history!

     Provence is the area where legend states that Mary Magadeline, one of the closest friends of Jesus Christ, had resided there before passing on some 30 years later. The legend also notes that Martha and the man Jesus raised from the dead, Lazarus, had also ended up in Provence.

—————

Born in a Stable and Raised by a Cruel Father

     Francis was born in a stable.

His father was a rich silk merchant.

Pietro disowned Francis and beat him, once chaining him inside a closet after learning Francis had sold scraps of his father’s silks to raise money to help rebuild a church. (Francis also sold the cart and the horse that carried the silks, by the way!)

Francis refused to let money “cross the palm of his hands” following the incident with his father.

He physically rebuilt many churches, believing that was his mission from Christ when he heard the voice of Jesus while praying before a crucifix to “rebuild my church.” Little did Francis know that he was being chosen at that time to rebuild the Roman church and its relations with the poor throughout the known world.

—————-

     He received the stigmata, that is, the actual marks of the crucified Christ,  while on retreat during the Feast of Michaelmas — also known as the Feast of Michael the Archangel on September 29th, 1224, some two years before his death. The word stigmata means “branding” in Greek, and Francis kept secret the marks he received on his hands and his feet, as well as the wound on his side.

     (Inscribed by Contoveros on September 28th, the eve of St. Michael’s Feast Day, and just a week before the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4th) in the Catholic Church.)

At least, no one is shooting at me this time

by contoveros

(See Part One, “Cancer strikes . . .)  

Fear of Dying From Cancer Takes Over Me    

The train ride from home to the hospital was one of the longest trips of my life. I just knew I was going to die. I figured that the surgeon could not remove all the cancer during my operation 10 days earlier, and it finally struck me: I am a cancer victim!

     The doctor never called me with the results of the operation in the Veterans Hospital of Philadelphia. I spent five days and four nights there, mostly recuperating from the surgery. When I left, I had hoped to hear from the physician, but she didn’t call. I believed she was afraid to give me the bad news over the phone.

I never once opened the book I took with me to read on SEPTA’s R-6 rail line connecting Conshohocken with the 30th Street Station of Philadelphia. Nor did I open it when I sat on the bus that took me and several other veterans to the hospital in West Philadelphia. Who cared about reading when you only have so much time left? Who cares about anything in life when you’re facing death?

No Use for Cell Phone During this Trip

Nor did I check any of my e-mails on the cell phone I carried. How many people do you know that can go a full hour, let alone an entire day, without giving in to social media addiction? I know some who turn on their phones before getting out of bed in the morning. They just can’t live without seeing the latest text message or input from a Facebook friend or e-mail contact.

But there I was with no contact with the outside world as I made my way to the oncology ward, sat on an examination bed, and awaited the verdict from the doctor. I meditated as much as I could, hoping to calm the jitters I had all morning. It helps to block out all thoughts. It helps not to think because I usually tend to think the worst in a situation like this.

—————-

That’s it, Michael J. You got your breathing under control. You have been able to let all thoughts drift by without grasping onto them. You’re a blank slate right now. You’re living in the present moment. You’re safe and sound in a hospital office. No one is shooting at you, trying to kill you . . .

 Vietnam War Firefights Recalled 

You know, the greatest benefit of having served in combat is that during the worst times of my adult life, I have always been able to compare it to the firefights I faced while in the Vietnam War. Nothing compares to it. No divorce, no death in the family, no serious illness. Did I just mention illness? Yes, even an illness such as a life-threatening one is cancer. At least I’m not suffering pain at this moment. I’m not hurting. I’m not sniveling like a baby who hasn’t got his way for good health and a long life.

I am simply alive. And I can “be” alive for as long as I keep my mind away from any and all negative aspects of death. And I can feel God by saying, “At least no one is shooting at me!”

Uh oh. Someone just opened the door. It’s Doctor Carter Paulson. She’s smiling. She touches my arm, and I am now set for her pronouncement.      “You’re cancer free,” she says. “We got it all.”

————-

  • No cancer means no chemotherapy . . . no radiation . . . no negative thoughts of an impending death.!

Now what do I do with this second chance I got from this bout with cancer?

What Would You Do?

Cancer strikes, scaring the crap out of me!

by contoveros

   

Fear of Getting Cancer Starts as a Child     

Cancer. As a kid, I had linked it directly to a death sentence. All I remember when hearing the word spoken by an adult was the amount of time a doctor would give a person to live upon discovering the sickness.

    I’d get scared. I’d try to avoid looking at the man or woman, wanting to run away from them, afraid that their sickness would rub off on me somehow.

The person is going to die, I thought. When you got cancer, you died, I told myself. I don’t want to die. I don’t want cancer. I don’t want to even be around someone who talks about cancer, let alone contracts it.

And then It Hit Me!

A Doctor Told Me I Had Cancer.

————-

He said it with no emotion whatsoever in his voice.

The cancer had grown in my colon and had caused me the pain and suffering I had lived with for six months.

     It was a relief, in a way. I thought the pain was caused by something I got exposed to while in a sweat lodge, I had sweated. I felt a little sick shortly after taking part in my third sweat lodge experience. Could the sweat in the lodge have caused such discomfort? Someone noticed a spider or two in the lodge before we added hot coals to the pit and began the sweat. Perhaps I got some sort of poison from one of the spiders, I pondered. Or maybe it was something in the food some ten of us had prepared for a potluck dinner shared after the sweat.

Unable to Determine What was Causing Illness

It’s irritable bowel syndrome, which I had eventually determined I had gotten. My stomach began to swell and I developed all the symptoms of the disease, including cramping and constipation, not to mention diarrhea and occasionally throwing up in the most inconvenient places, like a Target store in Chestnut Hill, a high-class neighborhood in Philadelphia.

I restricted my diet, took herbal supplements, and read anything I could get my hands on from the Internet. I saw two different doctors, and neither one could pinpoint the cause of my sickness, nor confirm that it indeed was IBS.

I had a CAT scan done, with nothing out of the ordinary showing. Next came an ultrasound test with similar results. Both showed that I had something wrong with my kidneys, but I knew that going in, and I was assured it could not have caused the problem on the right side of the stomach.

Finally, hospital staff members at the Veterans Administration of Philadelphia performed a colonoscopy test. I had not had one for over nine years and was not due until this past August.

Large Growth Detected was Cancerous

     “You got a large growth here,” the doctor at the VA hospital told me when the initial results from the procedure were available. He told me that it looked like cancer. Within hours, a biopsy report confirmed that the growth was indeed cancerous.

And in less than 10 days, the hospital admitted me for surgery and I went went under the knife on May 23, 2014.

I wouldn’t know if the surgeon got everything out for another 10 days. And I can tell you that I had not felt such dread for my life since being shelled in combat while serving in the Vietnam War.

(See Part 2, At least “No one is shooting at me”)

Riding high on the back of an Amazon.com

by contoveros

Seeing your new book on sale quite uplifting

Simply knowing that I wrote a book is one helluva experience.

Seeing it on Amazon.com is breathtaking! Continue reading →

My book on St. Francis now on amazon.com

by contoveros

Well, I told you my first book would soon appear. And it did.

Just as I went on a cruise in a boat up to the new Frontier of Alaska.

Francis of Assisi is now on sale. It has one error that I found today. It has to do with Esther of the Bible and her relationship with a fellow who was her uncle, but was identified by me as her father. Not bad for a 266-page book, if I do say so myself.

Check it out. It’s called: “Francis of Assisi, A Novel Awakening to Lady Poverty“

Oh yeah. My name doesn’t appear anywhere on the cover. You see, I “discovered” the manuscript, which was actually written by the 13th-century monk, and I arranged for it to be published after it was hidden in an old castle on an island of Greece. It is a novel of a historical book. I think you’ll like it!


I wrote under the name of Francesco DiBernadone, which was the real name of Saint Francis.

Michael j Contos

—————

For a look at the book, click on Francis of Assisi

Contentment: Learning to be Content OK

by contoveros

     “Good Enough” is the lazy man’s way to enlightenment . . . There’s nothing more to do . . .  Your job is good enough . . . Your spouse is good enough . . .Your life  is good enough . . . Your meditation practice is good enough. . . You don’t need anything more, and what you now have is good enough. — This is all according to a young monk, – Ajahn Khemavaro, who spoke on Impermanence, in a 2008 presentation, “Everything Will Be alright.” Continue reading →

New bucket list headed by state of Alaska

by contoveros

North to Alaska!

That’s where I’m headed next week, and I’ll start checking off the newest box of my “bucket list,” the list of things I want to do before I “kick the bucket.” Continue reading →

Ups & downs of life provide me lessons

by contoveros

     “When you’re down and feel like nothing, God is usually up to something just for you.”

     That’s a saying on a church sign outside of Philadelphia that I edited and slightly changed, and can safely say is now mine. Continue reading →

Growing up with Catholic Sisters (Nuns)!

by contoveros

While growing up in a Catholic School, I met all kinds of nuns. Some I liked more than others. I was kind of like the class clown, or a class-clown wannabe, and got called out by many of the good teachers wearing the black coverings with the bullet-proof white vests covering their chests. I went to Saint Ludwig’s, a church school in what was then a predominantly German neighborhood of North Philadelphia called “Brewerytown.”

I never did like Sister Saint Clare, but I did like Sister St. Leonard, even though she had made my brother repeat first grade and was forever marked in God’s permanent record as one of those “left-behind.”

Sister Saint Clare bullied me when she learned I had played hooky. She tried to get me to “squeal” on who I had stayed out of school with. But I never snitched on him, even after she forced me to the brink of the top of the second-floor school stairway and over the steps for a tumble I will never forget. See: Sister Saint Clare knocks me for a loop.

Still Loving my All-Time Favorite Nun

     Sister Josephine Frances was my all-time favorite, even though she smacked me once when I thought it wasn’t right. She had left the classroom and told us not to talk. It was something that hardly anyone followed. At least I didn’t, even though I noticed that most kids read their books.

When she returned, she asked which one of us had talked. I was unafraid. Like I said, I really liked her. She made me proud of my Greek heritage when she taught us in her fourth-grade class about the ancient Greeks and how much our Western World owed to those great men and women from thousands of years ago. I saw myself as one of those who, incidentally, would never tell a lie.

I was one of only a handful — all boys, I seem to recall — who raised our hands in answer to the good sister’s questions. Well, without further ado, she marched up to each and every one of us sitting in one of those wooden chairs with those little wooden desks with an empty hole across the desk-top that once held an ink bottle, and smacked us.

A Smack that Still Reverberates Years Later

I mean, “smacked” us. It was loud. And, it hurt! But not as much as what happened next.

Pure unadulterated shame and embarrassment came over me. For the first time in my life, I felt my face turning red. You see, I had sinned, and the Angel of the Lord descended upon me and struck me with the wrath of God.

It was devastating. Yet, some 50-odd years later, I still hold that holy nun in the highest regard, and I’ve never been afraid of admitting my mistakes. I could have gone the other way. I could have become someone who would lie by simply saying nothing, which I believe many others might have done. And some still do . . .

Truth is the truth, no matter what age you’re confronted with it, I learned back then. I feel Sister Josephine Frances helped me to see that and pass a test of a lifetime.

Ithaca Insights Serve Up Peace & Calm

by contoveros

     

How May I Serve You?

     That’s the key to a happy life, you know. Learning to serve others selflessly with no expectation of a reward other than the knowledge you are doing unto others something you’d want them to do . . . unto everyone else.

      It’s a different version of the Golden Rule, which I always thought had some sort of tit for tat attached. “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you” is one of the versions I remember growing up in a Christian household. My father was Greek Orthodox, and my mother Catholic. Mom had her way; she was in cahoots with the parish priest, and my dad actually “did unto others” but never saw any of his sons “do unto him” by following the Orthodox path. Well, there are always the grandchildren, right nephews Joe, Michael, and Rocky, and let’s not forget Nick, as well as any we don’t know about who may have entered this country out of wedlock.

Serving Others can Help End Suffering

      No, serving others is just like serving yourself. You want to end all the suffering in your own life, and the best way to start is to turn your focus away from your woes and zero in on all others, all the ones you might have the least bit of contact with or upon, and can do something, even the slightest thing to make them more comfortable, less tense, and feeling that at least one person out of 8 billion really does care.

      I didn’t know it, until “awakening” during a three-day retreat in Ithaca, NY, when the veil of illusion was slowly removed from my eyes and I saw like a Mystic. It’s no big deal. I view things as I believe they should be, not the way they are. My goal in life is to try my best to get others to see things this way, the ideal reality, and not the conventional or illusory way.

     Insight showed me that I have served others one way or another in most of my adult life. It showed in the jobs I held, the positions I sought to take for a “Right Livelihood;” the beliefs I adopted while discarding bits and pieces of what didn’t “feel right” or those I might not be ready to fully adopt at this moment.

Serving as a Printer for Others to Read

     I worked as a printer when I was 18 years old. I studied the trade while in high school, and learned what is called the “offset process.” It has to do with oil and water not mixing and how ink, an oil-based substance, would somehow adhere to another substance. I can’t tell you what waters got to do with it, but I think one washes away the other, and an image that had been burned into a metal plate “grasps” the ink while all mass around the image or “type” is washed away. What is conveyed to paper is what you see: Black Ink on a white background.

      I was pretty good at developing negatives for burning images into plates. I could make a plate with just the right amount of muscle, rubbing the flat metal not to tire myself out. When the plate was completed, my job ended. The plate would be sent to a “pressman” (or woman) who’d adjust it into the large printing presses and run off a couple of hundred thousand copies of something or other. (Actually, I think plates at that time were only good for tens of thousands of copies, but who’s counting?)

     Someone was expected to read the printed matter. A copywriter created a series of words and graphic arts to draw the attention of a reader. (I worked as a copy-writer for a short time and I know I tried to “serve” the consuming public who’d be choosing between one product and another for an acquisition. I also “served” my boss in providing him with the best job I could.)

Starting Off with an Excerpt from a Book 

     (This is an excerpt from the first book I wrote, still unpublished, called “Ithaca Incites Mystical Insights.”)

      Printing has always been a two-way street in my book. You engage in one effort for the benefit of another. Take the patron saint of the printing press, a German fellow named Gutenberg. If it weren’t for him, the Christian bible would never have been distributed so widely, thereby helping all people. (Actually, Western Civilization only. The East was doing pretty well without having to suffer through such growing pains as the “Dark Ages.”)

      I provided a service, and I felt fulfilled in doing my small part.

 

Ithaca insights incite a Mystic to write inspirational illogical idioms!

     I got drafted and served in the military. Yes, of course it counts even if you didn’t “sign up” for service. Us poor kids in urban settings all knew we were going to be drafted unless your dad knew some politician or had money to elaborate how serious your knee or back problem really was. Uh oh. You’re not 4-A and now you can’t be drafted.

      Anyway, I got discharged after serving less than two years, and then I “signed up” or “re-upped” to go to OCS (Officers Candidate School), where I learned to serve my country and whatever else the top brass had ordered me to serve. I went to war, did my thing, and returned home, where I served some mor

Serving other Veterans at Community College

 While in community college, I volunteered to counsel other veterans returning home interested in attending college courses. Who knew whether they were “college material.” You dodged bullets and stepped around land mines; I guess that qualifies you for getting through the obstacle course of higher education.

     Plus, I can show you how Uncle Sam will pay you a certain amount of money each month to help raise you into the Middle Class and make our country a helluva prosperous one! That road generally starts with a good education, something most of the people I grew up with never pursued, perhaps because they were tired of serving others and wanted to focus on themselves. It’s too bad. They might have gained the world, but lost so much of themselves, not to mention missing the boat to happiness.

 Yes, serving others leads to happiness! Ask the Dalai Lama, or the nuns working as hard as Mother Theresa worked in the streets of Calcutta and elsewhere.

So Much Joy Available when You Freely Give 

It is truly “better to give, and not receive,” particularly when it costs so little to bring about such great joy in anther’s life. That joy starts out as a tiny smile that barely breaks through into a smile until the truly needy accepts the small offering and whispers a thank you. Even if you give anonymously as most of us do, we can use our imaginations to “visualize” the reception our gift is greeted with. Sneakers will fit and the poor can give away or throw out the ones filled with holes. That little dress will look great on my 6-year-old; Tommy can play catch with the baseball (or glove); we can have heat in our apartment for another month.

 By visualizing how you’d feel if some benefactor aided you, you can get a thrill of sorts. You live vicariously through gift-giving. You are serving others with no wish to gain something from it except the altruistic feeling and knowledge that you did the right thing. You’re a “Mensch” as my Hebrew friends might point out. It’s another Mitzvah in the long line of Mitzvahs you perform for the glory of a higher being.

 I served as a reporter for a newspaper. I wrote stories that informed people about government, crime, social activities, as well as the weather. It was a true service even though our critics say we writers were simply trying to sell the news so that we could get more advertisers and make lots of money.

————

I found the “service road “ for me leading through the union movement, as I took part in helping to negotiate contracts between the papers’ management and The Newspaper Guild. I felt so pulled to serve others more directly that I took a leave of absence and worked as a union organizer, trying my best to bring the union gospel to non-union newspaper employees all over the Philadelphia area.

 Law School Beckons Me to Serve

That’s when I decided to go to law school. I wanted to lead workers into a world where there’d be little poverty, little economic inequality, and we’d all live happily ever after.

 It didn’t work out that way after getting a D+ in my Labor Law class, forcing me to take that as a sign from God that I should find service elsewhere. And, I did, studying criminal law (where I’d gotten an average a little better than a C+!)

 I worked as a public defender in Philadelphia for 20 years, serving poor people charged with crimes as well as the families who suffered along with their loved ones while seeking a trial or the right sentence to serve for any criminal actions committed.

I got paid, of course. In the meantime, I attended church “services”. I guess the main one getting credit for ‘serving‘ would be the one leading the spiritual activities.

————–

But simply attending a meeting with other Congregationalists provides a service to everyone, including yourself.

Alumni Board and Vet’s Club helps me to Serve

 I served on an alumni board for a community college and became a member of a vets’ club. I got no pay for either activity, and like attending church services, I didn’t expect any. In fact, I seemed to always give at services and to the organizations. So, maybe they don’t really count. After all, I did hope to gain something. Heaven at the church, and friendship and possible job contacts at the others.

 Writing has become my latest and greatest way I know of serving. I write with no pecuniary interest. I’d like others to read this, but even if I am long gone and working on two or more lifetimes after this one, I’d still be happy.

Serving by Way of My Inspirational Writings

 It’s like St. Teresa of Avila said. Even if just one person can gain from what I put on paper, then I have served the Will of God. Not that I am comparing myself to such a humble and compassionate person as the Carmelite nun from the 1550s. It’s her spirit that I have tried to lasso and bring into my corral. Read and be inspired to love another, to give of yourself with no hope of gain, to seek death so that another might live in your place if that is what may be required by the divine Essence, then who am I to deny it?

     Take the last breath from this body if it could serve another; if it could serve the greater purpose of the universe; let a smile be on my face as I look death in the face and ask as boldly as the tough kid from Brewerytown could ask Death:

“What Took You So long?”

Meditate First and Foremost Each Day!

by contoveros

What a surprise!

I expected to try to get through the day today without my morning cup of meditation offering from Deepak & Oprah. I figured the 21-day journey had ended yesterday, August 31st. Yet today, the American holiday called “Labor Day,” they gave us a gift — an extra day. And boy, did I need it. Continue reading →

Francis of Assisi; awakening him by a novel

by contoveros

Dream of Writing a Book about to Come True

As I stand on the precipice of my literary journey, the dream of writing a book feels closer than ever. The countless hours spent brainstorming ideas, developing characters, and crafting intricate plots have finally begun to take shape. I can see the pages of my story unfolding before me, each chapter brimming with potential and passion.

This transformative experience has ignited a fire within me, motivating me to pour my emotions and experiences onto the page. Friends and family, too, have become my pillars of support, encouraging me to embrace my creativity and share my unique voice with the world. With every word I write, the reality of my dream comes into focus, and I am filled with anticipation for the moment when my book will finally be in the hands of eager readers, ready to explore the world I have created.

I am about to become an Author!

     Well, a “Published Author” that is.

     I just learned that my book about Francis of Assisi, a historic novel, will be available at Amazon sometime in the next two months, September and October (2014). Writing it was a true labor of love. I mixed in Catholicism with Sufism and lots of Buddhism. I also introduced Francis, aka Giovanni di Bernadone, his real name by the way, to the Wisdom of Kabbalah and a belief in what I call “angel therapy.”

For all my legal friends not yet indicted or spending time in jail, I threw in the Rule against Perpetuity. Don’t ask me what it means. I never quite understood it in law school, but it sounded so good, I created a way for Clare, Francis’s female sidekick and saint-in-training, to use the legal maneuvering to keep his first-person manuscript hidden from public view until a fellow discovered it in a castle of some small Greek island.

     Michael J Contos, writing under his father’s name, “Contoveros,” discovered the manuscript and brought it to the attention of the world.

You can read the excerpt from St. Clare’s preface here:

 Francis of Assisi, written in his own words

Enjoy!

     Oh yeah . . . The name of the book is “Francis of Assisi, a Novel Awakening to Lady Poverty.”

Marketing Description for Francis of Assisi

Picture of young Francesco di Bernadone
(c) peter zelei

     Though many books have been written about Saint Francis of Assisi, none have put him in such a human light as this novel. Francis of Assisi, while taking a few liberties along the way, tells the story of Saint Francis’s journey through darkness and war and into the light. Readers learn about the struggles Saint Francis must overcome, and about his trials with his father and with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

     Contoveros creates for us a Saint Francis who is entirely tangible but inspirational on a spiritual level. From the very beginning, we are fighting for the patron saint of animals and small critters. We are there to experience the vision of “Lady Poverty” alongside him, and by the novel’s end, we understand him and his vision more fully.

PTSD Arises through Battles Francis Faced

Facing death, St Francis of Assisi recalls his flight from his father’s oppression and how he dreamed of becoming a warrior only to be thrown from his horse in battle and witness a mass slaughter before being taken captive and falsely imprisoned in a dungeon. Because of this, he suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a malady he struggles with all of his life to overcome.

Upon his release from prison, Lady Poverty appears in a vision to the young “King of the Revelers,” inspiring him to change his life and embark on a journey that leads to a spiritual awakening still sought after today.

As a Vietnam War veteran, Contoveros seems to have an innate understanding of some of the struggles Saint Francis of Assisi faced roughly eight hundred years ago. Both Contoveros and his hero suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of war. Later, both sought forms of spiritual awakening.

An inactive attorney, Contoveros has a master’s degree in history. In preparation for writing A Novel Awakening to Lady Poverty, he researched the thirteenth century and read multiple accounts of Saint Francis of Assisi to piece together the character formed in this novel.

Raised in the Roman Catholic Church, but a student of Buddhism, the Sufi, and Kabbalah, Contoveros now sees spirituality in a new light. He is an admirer of Siddhartha and, like many others, a seeker of answers in this troubled world.