The visual legacy of early modern cardinals constitutes a vast and extremely rich body of artworks, many of superb quality, in a variety of media, often by well-known artists and skilled craftsmen. Yet cardinal portraits have primarily been analyzed within biographical studies of the represented individual, in relation to the artists who created them, or within the broader genre of portraiture. Portrait Cultures of the Early Modern Cardinal addresses questions surrounding the production, collection, and status of the cardinal portrait, covering diverse geographies and varied media. Examining the development of cardinals' imagery in terms of their multi-layered identities, this volume considers portraits of 'princes of the Church' as a specific cultural phenomenon reflecting cardinals' unique social and political position.

In Exodus 2012: A Mission to Save the Earth, Jesus Christ returns, not on the clouds, but reincarnated as a Chinese Tai Chi master named Hu Jing Sheng, who brings a message designed to save the earth. Jing Sheng's message is based on both the Mayan prophecy about the year 2012 as well as the scripture verse Exodus 20:12. A global mission unfolds, with children as its centerpiece for saving life on earth. Following the story line of Moses in the book of Exodus, Jing Sheng gathers a new generation of disciples just as Christ did long ago, then leads an exodus from old, dysfunctional human patterns of belief, thought, and behavior. In the process, Jing Sheng creates a global mission of eco-communes and international travel, during which he re-presents the ten commandments, newly re-envisioned as guidelines for life. Jing Sheng confronts the Pharoahs of today, while preaching, teaching, and healing with Christ-like authority. Exodus 2012 offers a powerful, yet controversial interfaith vision for healing the earth and saving her people, while also achieving global peace and harmony.

A photographic diary that will appeal to men and women, young and old, the tidy and untidy among us. It records just over a year in the life of a chair, "My Chair," put on this earth (well transported from IKEA to my bedroom) to serve as a drop off point for various items of clothing travelling between wearer, wardrobe and washing basket. One day as I stood and admired my neatly arranged bedroom, it suddenly appeared, in all its glory, under the window, my chair, adorned with a few days discarded clothing. "Art for art's sake," he called it! I realised that no matter how often I tidied the room the chair was a constant display of a more devil may care attitude. This could be going on in homes all over the country, maybe the world, so why not document days in the life of My Chair? If this strikes a chord then rejoice in the fact that you are, like me, perfectly normal!

Aging Well uniquely offers a comprehensive view of what it means to be whole and healthy while aging as beautifully as possible, given life's unpredictable and varied circumstances. Rather than focusing solely on physical wellness or nutrition, Aging Well encompasses physical, mental, relational, environmental, global, and spiritual health. Each chapter begins with inspirational and motivational quotes, and ends with practical self-reflection exercises. Using personal life stories as well as pastoral experiences to illustrate the power to make better choices amid life's challenges, Aging Well inspires readers by illuminating life from within its very trenches. The originality of Aging Well also lies in its synthesis of spirituality from both Eastern and Western perspectives into a mystical whole. The overarching goal of the book is to empower people to bring more love into their lives, their bodies, their relationships, their choices, as well as their overall sense of purpose in life. Aging Well shepherds readers through a step-by-step look at themselves, their choices, and their lifestyles, informing them holistically while motivating them to take personal responsibility for their own aging process, so that they can live healthier, more meaningful lives. All of this and a global perspective, too, create a uniquely comprehensive sense of what it means to age well, precisely because the spiritual perspective implicit in Aging Well insists that we do not age well alone. We age as part of a community, as residents on this earth, and as part of a global community. While this comprehensive and paradigmatic view of what it means to age well could feel overwhelming, Aging Well inspires, encourages, and invites readers to new understandings that enable them to make more loving choices for themselves, for others, and for the planet. That is the only way that all of us can truly age well.

Every year, a number of preservice teachers graduate from Canadian universities, are hired into international positions, and spend their first year of teaching adapting to a new career and a new country. In addition to adjusting to the expectations of a new culture, they must also deal with the stress and joy of the first year of teaching in their own classrooms. Individually, each of these experiences is life changing; together they represent a unique experience. Many of these students remain in touch with professors and colleagues and tell stories rich with reflection and description of this first year in an unfamiliar country. Correspondence and conversations ring with professional and personal insights and choruses of "I wish I had known...." Editors Carole and Warnie Richardson's belief in the importance of hearing first-year teachers tell their stories of international teaching and learning is rooted in their own practice. As preservice professors who taught in the public school system on a small Caribbean island, they have experienced firsthand the challenges and rewards of living in an unfamiliar cultural environment and teaching in an educational system much different from their own. When they moved from Canada to the Cayman Islands to teach in the public system, their world changed as they adapted to a very different way of life, both personally and professionally. As seasoned educators, the editors were able to use their previous teaching experiences and ongoing reflective practice to identify and understand the dissonances, both internal and external, that resulted from working to fit into their new surroundings without losing themselves or compromising their philosophical beliefs about education. They were able to recognize that certain conflicts within their classrooms related as much to their students' and colleagues' anxiety about their expectations as to their own anxiety about what was expected of them. Conversations with each other and with expatriate teachers helped the editors to understand that their latent desire to implement their well-developed teaching practice in a new environment signaled an unconscious unwillingness to adapt to change; rather, they assumed that their new environment would adapt to them. As the editors began to acknowledge that change within their practice was vital to success in their new environment, they developed new expectations, new relationships, and new understandings that contributed to their becoming part of the culture and community. They also grew as educators as they began to appreciate that to effectively communicate with their students, they needed to validate the students' individual realities, even as they expected them to embrace theirs. The editors realized that there was no right way to adapt to change; the willingness to expand their ability to see through the eyes of others was the key to successful teaching and learning-regardless of the culture. The narratives in this book honor the voices of the individuals as they tell the personal and professional stories that live behind surveys and numbers. They speak frankly of the difficulties faced and triumphs experienced while beginning a career in a new country. Each of the stories chronicles a very different journey, and we hear these young teachers begin to reflect on their personal growth and come to a greater understanding of what it is to be a teacher-regardless of the country and the educational system. All of the stories reflect the personal backgrounds and styles of their authors, and it is in these differences that this book finds its strengths. Ultimately, these stories provide glimpses into the lives of first-year teachers who venture beyond the defined borders of their country-and their comfort. This book is critical for all those in education.