Читать книгу Brother John - August Turak - Страница 11

A few weeks later, the award ceremony was held at New York City’s fabled Four Seasons Restaurant. The

keynote speech (as well as my $100,000 check!) was delivered by one of the contest’s judges: Rick Warren,

the best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life. The wonderful people from the Templeton Foundation

offered to fly Brother John to New York for the ceremony, and Father Francis, Mepkin Abbey’s abbot,

in a highly unusual dispensation, graciously allowed him to attend. Brother John’s gentle demeanor

and Irish sense of humor promptly stole the show. But perhaps best of all, my father, whose health was

already rapidly failing, was able to attend, as well.

The Templeton Prize dramatically changed my life. Brother John was published in two anthologies, The Best

Christian Writing and The Best Catholic Writing, and this, in turn, launched me on a second career. I became a

leadership contributor for Forbes.com, an on-air radio contributor for the BBC, and Columbia Business

School published my book, Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks. But the common fourteen-year-old thread