In these eloquent essays, the noted scholar and activist Vincent Harding reflects on the forgotten legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the meaning of his life today. Many of these reflections are inspired by the ambiguous message surrounding the official celebration of King's birthday. Harding sees a tendency to freeze an image of King from the period of his early leadership of the Civil Rights movement, the period culminating with his famous "I Have a Dream Speech". Harding writes passionately of King's later years, when his message and witness became more radical and challenging to the status quo at every level. In those final years before his assassination King took up the struggle against racism in the urban ghettos of the North; he became an eloquent critic of the Vietnam war; he laid the foundations for the Poor People's Campaign. This widening of his message and his tactics entailed controversy even within his own movement. But they point to a consistent expansion of his critique of American injustice and his solidarity with the oppressed. It was this spirit that brought him to Memphis in 1968 to lend his support to striking sanitation workers. It was there that he paid the final price for his prophetic witness.

We Are Being Lied To It's time to get honest with ourselves. Culture's beauty standards are messed up. We all know it, and we all think we can resist the pull to look a certain way. Yet most of us--our daughters and nieces too--still strive for a broken kind of beauty and feel I'm. not. good. enough. For Melissa Johnson, a marriage and family therapist, this lie eventually led to battling an eating disorder. Through that experience, she saw that chasing broken beauty breaks women in so many ways. She also realized that true, soul-deep beauty is not impossible--it abounds in us and all around us. And now Melissa's on a mission to help you · uncover the hidden damage cultural lies about beauty have on your mind and soul · reconnect with God, in whose image you are made · walk away from shame and striving · love yourself--and others--unconditionally True beauty is the fullness of life we are longing for. It's the reality that blows our minds, affirms our true worth, and invites us into an adventure that meets our deepest longings. And it's true beauty that will save us if we open our eyes to it. "Nothing is more shattered or more misunderstood in our lives than beauty. On our own, we are unable to recapture God's vision for it, and every generation needs guides who can reintroduce it to us again for the first time. In Melissa Johnson, we have such a guide."--CURT THOMPSON, MD, author of The Soul of Desire and The Soul of Shame

This revised and updated edition provides an even better understanding of the essential characteristics of love. Readers will learn the five various types of love and read an explanation of love as many know it and as it should be. Dr. Gills provides an in-depth study on the hindrances of love, God's agape love, and love at its worst. The ultimate goal of this book is to receive love at its finest by accepting God's love for us, showing our love for God, and giving love to others.