In this extraordinary book, Dr. Larry Crabb introduces a revolutionary way for Christians to experience God. "Soul talk" happens when two Christians talk to each other in a way that results in their passion for God being stirred, ignited, and released.

Garrison Keillor meets Jack Kerouac meets Mahatma Gandhi in this wry, roadwise scripture. Hobo Sapien is a series of freight train parables born out of the author's twelve-plus years riding freight trains, combined with lessons learned in his seven-year stint as a Self-Realization Fellowship monk, plus the added bonus of fascinating railroad history. Non-fiction readers buy books to learn something, for reference, or to be entertained. Hobo Sapien fills all three bills. Readers will get a unique immersion into the underground world of the hobo. The spiritual takes are written with a subtle humor that helps the medicine go down. It is not your parent's self-help book.Armchair adventurers, rail fans, spiritual seekers, and academia nuts will all gather intriguing information from this missive. It is vastly different from other hobo books because of its unparalleled combination of adventure, rail history, humor, and spirituality. The author's background is also unique and varied. Not many hobos have gone from Yale to rail or from hunk to monk.

When we worship, we gather with others before God. We hear the Good News of Jesus Christ, give thanks, confess, and offer the brokenness of the world to God. As we break bread, our eyes are opened to the presence of Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are made one body, the body of Christ sent to live the Way of Love. After Jesus' crucifixion, his friends' eyes were opened and they recognized him as the Risen Christ when they broke bread and blessed it together. By gathering in community weekly to thank, praise, and dwell with God we, with God's help, "continue in the apostles' teaching, fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers." This series of seven Little Books of Guidance are designed for you to discover how following certain practices can help you follow Jesus more fully in your daily life.

A master spiritual teacher invites us on a journey - to the summit of self-discovery. This is a book to lift the spirit of anyone aiming to live a kinder, calmer, more meaningful life, in the midst of all the challenges facing the world today. Fifteen warm, engaging essays present different aspects of meditation and the spiritual life, showing how we can rearrange our lives, little by little, to fit a higher purpose. Featuring saints and mystics from East and West, and a host of stories and anecdotes, this book reads like a conversation with a wise friend, with deep spiritual insights that you'll want to come back to again and again. Easwaran writes, "When you travel within, every day is fresh with discoveries and challenges, inspiration and profound peace. The scenes I paint for you in the following pages are just a fleeting glimpse of the continuing adventure that awaits you as you enter this world." The final essay, "Climbing the Blue Mountain," which gives the book its title, is a moving account of the spiritual quest. Easwaran compares this with a long journey that he makes from the hot, dusty plains of Central India, up through jungle and plantations, to his home in the cool hills of the Blue Mountains, where his mother waits for him - reminding us that on the spiritual path, we too will one day find our true home.

Prayer is natural for human beings, a spontaneous impulse common in all people. Yet, beyond instinct, there is a kind of prayer that's conscious and articulate, that we have to be taught. There is an "art of prayer," when faith and prayer become creative responses by which creatures made in the image and likeness of the Creator relate to him with help of the imagination. Timothy Verdon explores these essential interactions in this magnificent book. Richly illustrated, Monsignor Verdon explains that images work in believers as tools that teach them how to turn to God. Art and Prayer explores these interactions in detail, demonstrating that prayer can become a fruit of the sanctified imagination - a way of beauty and turning to God.

How and why have women come to play a central role in the political project of Islamic revivalism and in the power struggles between Islamic and secular forces in Turkey? Ayse Saktanber rejects approaches to this issue that ask what Islam means for the position of women or see Muslim women as the 'reverse' or the 'dark' side of modernity. She examines the experiences of women for whom the discourse of modernity has no relevance and looks at the ways in which they have become crucial agents in the effort to make Islam a living social practice in a secular order. Full of fascinating accounts of the lives of Islamist women, this study is essential for anyone interested in the contemporary Muslim world.

The first book to give an account of the major pilgrimage traditions of all the great religions of the world. Pilgrimage, the journey to a distant sacred goal, is found in all the great religions of the world. It is a journey both outwards to hallowed places and inwards to spiritual improvement; it can express penance for past evils, or the search for future good; the pilgrim may pursue spiritual ecstasy in the sacred sites of a particular faith, or seek a miracle through the medium of god or saint. Throughout the world, pilgrims move invisibly in huge numbers among the tourists of today, indistinguishable from them except in purpose. In England each year 000 pilgrims make the journey to Canterbury cathedral and the shrine of Thomas Becket; the great festival at Prayaga on the Ganges attracts over fifteen million men and women. This is the first book to offer a survey of the great pilgrimage traditions. It outlines the history of different customs and brings together some of the common themes, revealing in the process surprising similarities in practice among pilgrims of widely differing beliefs and times. RICHARD BARBER's interests range widely over the middle ages. He is the author of The Knight and Chivalry and the Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe;he has also written biographies of the Henry II and the Black Prince, and a history, The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses, as well as two classic Arthurian books, Arthurian Legends and King Arthur: Hero and Legend.Cover illustration: The scallop shell symbol of pilgrims to the shrine of St James at Santiago de Compostela. This scallop shell, still showing simple colouring, was found inthe grave of a young man buried in Keynsham Abbey in the 12th century; the holes in the beak, for attaching the shell to the pilgrim's scrip, are clearly visible.

* Inspiration from a respected ground-breaker * A role model tells her story-and that of the nation and the church Hallelujah, Anyhow! is the long-awaited memoir of the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, the first woman bishop in the Anglican Communion. Edited by Kelly Brown Douglas, Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Seminary and an author and noted theologian in her own right, the book offers previously untold stories and glimpses into Bishop Harris' childhood and young adult years in her native Philadelphia, as well as her experiences as priest and bishop, both active and actively-retired. A participant in Dr. Martin Luther King's march from Selma to Montgomery and crucifer at the ordination of the "Philadelphia 11," Bishop Harris has been eyewitness to national and church history. In the book, she reflects on her experiences with the "racism, sexism, and other 'isms' that pervade the life of the church," while still managing to say, "Hallelujah, Anyhow." Photographs accompany the text and round out this portrait of a pioneer, respected outside as well as inside the church for her fierce, outspoken, and life-long advocacy for peace and justice.

This inspiring volume presents a unique and ethical professional framework for engaging in spiritual discussion in the context of family therapy. Addressing existential contradictions of life that can disrupt family functioning as well as religious restrictions that can create relational barriers, it models an open frame of mind for sensitive and respectful metaphysical work with diverse families. Chapter authors build on their own narratives of spiritual journey as they inform conversation with clients whose faith perspectives include Christianity, Judaism, Islam, African and Native American spiritual practice, Taoism, and Sikhism. These powerful dialogues illuminate the deeper tasks of therapy and offer significant opportunities for all family members to be involved in creating meaning and healing together. This one-of-a-kind book: Presents the narratives of a racially, culturally, and religiously diverse group of authors Explores the challenges of metaphysical psychotherapeutic practice Focuses on the intersection of therapeutic practice and spirituality in various cultural contexts Guides therapists in looking into their own spiritual lives and experience Models methods for therapists using spirituality in sessions with families Challenging professionals to step beyond the perceived boundaries of the therapist/client relationship, Engaging with Spirituality in Family Therapy: Meeting in Sacred Space is rich and eloquent reading for practitioners and researchers in family therapy.

Ritual is part of what it means to be human. Like sports, music, and drama, ritual defines and enriches culture, putting those who practice it in touch with sources of value and meaning larger than themselves. Ritual is unavoidable, yet it holds a place in modern life that is decidedly ambiguous. What is ritual? What does it do? Is it useful? What are the various kinds of ritual? Is ritual tradition bound and conservative or innovative and transformational?
Alongside description of a number of specific rites, this Very Short Introduction explores ritual from both theoretical and historical perspectives. Barry Stephenson focuses on the places where ritual touches everyday life: in politics and power; moments of transformation in the life cycle; as performance and embodiment. He also discusses the boundaries of ritual, and how and why certain behaviors have been studied as ritual while others have not.
Stephenson shows how ritual is an important vehicle for group and identity formation; how it generates and transmits beliefs and values; how it can be used to exploit and oppress; and how it has served as a touchstone for thinking about cultural origins and historical change. Encompassing the breadth and depth of modern ritual studies, Barry Stephenson's Very Short Introduction also develops a narrative of ritual's place in social and cultural life.
ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Laws of the Sun is a book on the Truth taught by Master Ryuho Okawa of Happy Science that is put together in the most systematic way and is the most important of his more than 2,300 books. Ever since he wrote it by automatic writing in 1986, the book has been translated into 19 languages and has sold 10 million copies around the world. Chapter One reveals many secrets--about Buddha, finite and infinite, structure of the multidimensional universe, birth of life, formation of the Earth's spirit group, how reincarnation works, and the history of battle between angels and devils. Chapter Two teaches about the nature and structure of the human soul, how guardian and guiding spirits work, evolution of the soul, relationship between the mind and the soul, and functions of the mind. Chapter Three is a poetic and theoretical chapter about love. It talks about power of love, theory of developmental stages of love, bridge between love and enlightenment, and love of angels and love of God. Chapter Four takes a Buddhist approach. It starts with enlightenment and the virtue of enlightenment, and then depicts the different levels of enlightenment up to the highest enlightenment of humankind. It also shows how to get to each of those levels. Chapter Five explains in clear detail how the human civilizations changed in the last one million years, including the Mu and Atlantis civilizations. Chapter Six talks about the wisdom and courage to live your life every day, and reveals the true mission of Supreme God El Cantare. Okawa writes that The Laws of the Sun is a truly, truly mystical work, and that you should not try to use common sense to understand it, but instead replace your common sense with the content of this book.The Laws of the Sun has awakened many people to the true worldview, taught them the purpose and mission in their life, and changed their lives. And now, you're next. You were born in this age to meet this book.