Guides

Ever since the ancient Desert Fathers guided the ascetics of the early church, Christianity has helped individuals discern how God might be working in their lives. Generations of spiritual guides - trained in the ways of John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, and Ignatius of Loyola - have sat and quietly counseled untold numbers of believers. The system became known as spiritual direction. At first, the directees were mostly monks, nuns and priests. But over the centuries the practice has spread, first into the lay Catholic community, more recently into other Christian communities.

Two days before the scheduled start of his next assignment as a bicycle tour guide, Brad Mackenzie awoke from a deep sleep to discover us: his flock, his travelers, crammed into his small bedroom, staring expectantly. Startled, the young Canadian covered his nakedness with a bedsheet and attempted to discover just what it was we needed that couldn't wait. Then he really woke up. He recalled this dream a few days later, on the actual trip with real people, as an unforeseen problem - a newly oiled and graveled road - upset his careful planning and threatened to make our cycling day - and therefore his - miserable beyond words.

How many Idiots does it take to write a guide for Dummies? I asked myself that question this week when I received notice of the latest: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Smoothies. Is no subject too trivial? I understand the need for a Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus. Intermediate French, Fibromyalgia, Middle East Conflict - these are all topics that leave me feeling like an idiot anyway, so I'm up for a guide. Sign Language, Body Language, Kickboxing. I can even accept that someone out there needs The Complete Idiot's Guide to Elves and Fairies.

They were known as "Sullivan's Harem," the first women guides hired in the early 1960s to give tours of Independence National Historical Park. They were Sullivan's Harem because Jim Sullivan, a park service historian, hired and trained them. "It was a figure of speech only," Sullivan said yesterday. "I was happily married. " Seven women who were among the first to serve in Sullivan's group returned to Philadelphia yesterday for a reunion lunch at City Tavern. "I almost didn't come," Sullivan told them.

Mike Mattei's hand is to football as his cap is to baseball. It's probably not fair to compare the two, but each bears the mark of one of the sports. Take a look at the Chestnut Hill Academy junior's right wrist and you'll see the healthy scar he earned from a broken hand he suffered in the fall playing quarterback for the Blue Devils. Glance at the 6-foot-2 righthander's lid and you could swear that John Kruk had been there. "It makes it look like I did something," Mattei said.

Watching hundreds of people gather around his wife at the Philadelphia Museum of Art the other night, 69-year-old Gene Gladstone thought about all the evenings he and Kaki had poured some wine and talked about their days. Gene, a lawyer, would take a minute or two to sum up his workday. "The rest of the night, she'd entertain me with hers," he said. And why wouldn't Kaki Gladstone have endless stories to tell, after 45 years working in volunteer services at the museum, the last 28 as head of a department that has 686 volunteers of one sort or another?

In Susan Scharf's recurring dream, Walter Annenberg looms above her, silvery, sleek, and the soul of discriminating generosity. "I am going to give only one painting to this museum," he intones, as though this bridge-playing grandmother were running the Philadelphia Museum of Art, instead of volunteering as a guide. "I can't give you my whole collection," Annenberg continues, "only one painting. Which shall it be?" The first time she had the dream, early during the 1989 exhibit of hits from Annenberg's collection, Scharf chose Jean Edouard Vuillard's The Album.

The book is out on Philadelphia's restaurants, and it has it like this: Old Original Bookbinder's offers "tired and dry seafood" served by "rude" and "intimidating" waiters. It's "overpriced" and a "tourist trap. " Caffe DiLullo, "star of the Northeast," is characterized by "cocky waiters, small portions ('pasta strands are counted') and prices befitting the 'furs-over-warm-up-suits' set; still, it can be the place to go 'when you care enough to spend the very most.' " The Famous 4th Street Delicatessen serves good corned beef, but "this place could use a housecleaning.

In Sports Bob Ford: Lurie puts Reid on the spot. C1. Edwards guides Birds to preseason victory. C1.

Glassboro residents may learn a bit about drug abuse when they pay their water and tax bills. Through a plan instituted by Joseph Manganaro, superintendent of the Water and Sewer Department, borough employees are distributing drug education guides when residents come in to pay their bills. The guides contain information about eight drugs, including alcohol, cocaine and marijuana, and list physical symptoms of users, what to look for and the dangers associated with the drug's use on a 3-by-5-inch slide-rule- like card.