Churches and cathedrals were originally built to be read. They are alive with images and symbols--"all of which are packed with meaning. But today few people, from regular visitors to tourists, truly understand the wealth of meaning in what they find there. How to Read a Church is must reading for anybody who wants to know more about what they see in a church or cathedral. It explores the principal features of churches and what each represents. It also explains: In addition to exploring these brick-and-mortar motifs, the author also reveals fascinating and unexpected details such as how to 'read' the priest and the congregation, and he shows the varied ways that church architecture and appointments reflect the Christian year. From major themes to small but vital details, How to Read a Church will serve as a fascinating guide to the history, meanings, and messages of these beautiful buildings and the treasures they contain.

Brushes with Death: The Blood of Jesus is an autobiographical novel detailing several dangerous encounters that the author experienced living a life of crime. The story also references the author's inner struggle of dealing with his conscience and his moral values as he battles the paradigm of doing wrong when he knows to do right. The book also alludes to the main character's faith and how it kept him safe during his waywardness. The reader travels with Slick, the protagonist as he tryies to resist temptation of money, drugs, women, gambling, guns, alcohol, sex, prison and more. The 394 page novel is factual and based on truel events. Names and some situations have been distorted to protect the innocent and the guilty. This book serves as a deterrent to those youth who are not yet enthralled in but are considering a life of crime. It also serves as encouragement to those still entwined in a life of crime and violence to digress from their actions. The book is in no way a promotion of like activities. The author hopes that his experiences will shed light on the destructiveness of drug dealing and give those who have no knowledge an inside perspective on the who's, what's, when's, where's, why's, and how's of street living. It is sophisticated but yet real; explicit but not trashy.

Mesogenic behaviour of metal carboxylates has been an important area of study, since many of them exhibit smectic C mesophases, and as such, have potential use in ferroelectric liquid crystal displays (LCDs). As a result, the study of thermal phase transitions of various mono- and divalent metal carboxylates has been a focus. Of keen interest are zinc(II) n-alkanoates, since there remain some unanswered questions regarding the characteristics and dynamics of their phase behaviour. As with materials in the solid state, there is a correlation between structural features and properties, and for compounds that display thermotropic mesomorphism, there must be a firm understanding of the relationship between structure, intermolecular interactions, thermophysical properties and phase behaviour. In this study, the thermal behaviour of a homologous series of zinc(II) n-alkanoates are investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and hot-stage polarized light microscopy. From the data, an attempt is made to correlate the thermal behaviour of the compounds with their solid state structures studied using X-ray crystallography and diffraction, IR spectroscopy and molecular calculations.

This volume is part of a series of English translations of the Syriac Peshitta along with the Syriac text carried out by an international team of scholars.

THE NEW AMERICAN COMMENTARY is for the minister or Bible student who wants to understand and expound the Scriptures. Notable features include: * commentary based on THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION; * the NIV text printed in the body of the commentary; * sound scholarly methodology that reflects capable research in the original languages; * interpretation that emphasizes the theological unity of each book and of Scripture as a whole; * readable and applicable exposition.