Poet and literature professor Scott Cairns ran headlong into his midlife crisis - a fairly common experience among men nearing the age of fifty-while walking on the beach with his Labrador. His was not a desperate attempt to recapture youth, filled with sports cars and younger women. Instead, Cairns realized his spiritual life was advancing at a snail's pace and time was running out. Midlife crisis for this this Baptist turned Eastern Orthodox manifested as a desperate need to seek out prayer. Originally published in 2007, this new edition of Short Trip to the Edge include photos, maps and an expanded narrative of Scott's spiritual journey to the mystical peninsula of Mt. Athos. With twenty monasteries and thirteen sketes scattered across its sloping terrain, the Holy Mountain was the perfect place for Scott to seek out a prayer father and discover the stillness of the true prayer life. Told with wit and exquisite prose, his narrative takes the reader from a beach in Virginia to the most holy Orthodox monasteries in the world to a monastery in Arizona and back again as Scott struggles to find his prayer path. Along the way, Cairns forged relationships with monks, priests, and fellow pilgrims.

Originally published as Volume 27 of the Princeton Mathematical series. Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Originally published as Volume 27 of the Princeton Mathematical series. Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

One of America's finest living poets has breathed new life into the early Christian mystics. From Saint Paul to Julian of Norwich, the original texts of these mystical fathers and mothers of the Church have been pored over, pressed for further revelation, and set in verse to provide readers with fresh encounters of their wisdom and provocations. At the heart of this undertaking is Scott Cairns' conviction that the words of the mystics sacramentally partake of the Word Himself, and as such are inexhaustible, generative powers. These particular selections cohere in their common claim that Love is the most compelling name of God, and also the most apt attribute of the Holy One in Whom we live and move and have our being. In that spirit, these luminous texts are understood to partake of Love, and concurrently to witness to His presence and His promise that, as "our Courteous Lord" averred to Julian, "All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well."

Anaphora, the repetition of a word or phrase, draws our attention in new ways to the repeated term, and can lead us to moments of epiphany. In Eucharistic settings, anaphora also indicates the specific liturgical moment when the bread and wine are consecrated, becoming what the Eastern Church calls "the Holy Mysteries." Cairns' use of anaphora invites us to see words as doing more than naming, more than serving as arrows pointing to prior substance, but acquiring substance of their own.

A daily devotional reader to guide lovers of the Word through the forty days of Lent and Easter, rich with spiritual insight from leading Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox writers Explore the meaning of Lent, its importance in spiritual formation, its significance in the preparation for Easter, and throughout the holy season of Christ's Resurrection. Leading North American spiritual writers reflect on what one theologian has called the "bright sadness" of Lent: that it is not about feeling broken and lost, but about cleansing the palate so we can taste and live life more fully. During Lent and Easter, we encounter the God who in all of life is for us-for our liberation, for our healing, for our wholeness. Even in death we can find resurrection. In God For Us readers will find: - Daily readings with scriptures, meditations, and prayers, beautiful edited by Greg Pennoyer and Gregory Wolfe - One beloved spiritual writer featured each week Introduction: Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI Shrove Tuesday and the First Week of Lent: Richard Rohr, OFM Second Week of Lent: Lauren F. Winner Third Week of Lent: Scott Cairns Fourth Week of Lent: James Schaap Fifth Week of Lent: Luci Shaw Holy Week and Easter: Kathleen Norris - Studies throughout the forty days on "The Feasts and Fasts of Lent" by Beth Bevis

Scott Cairns has carefully preserved every poem he's ever published that he cares to preserve. He's also added previously unpublished work, spanning three decades. A careful introduction by Gregory Wolfe and tribute preface by Richard Howard make this the ultimate collection of Cairns' work.

A new collection from one of our favorite poets. Fourteen "Idiot Psalms," surrounded by dozens of other poems, make this his most challenging collection yet. "Idiot Psalm 1" O God Beloved if obliquely so, dimly apprehended in the midst of this, the fraught obscuring fog of my insufficiently capacious ken, Ostensible Lover of our kind-while apparently aloof-allow that I might glimpse once more Your shadow in the land, avail for me, a second time, the sense of dire Presence in the pulsing hollow near the heart. Once more, O Lord, from Your Enormity incline your Face to shine upon Your servant, shy of immolation, if You will.

A collection of over 100 icebreakers, warm up games, trust exercises, songs, energisers and ideas for getting creative with drama. Most of these are ideal for use with kids from 4 to 24 either in the classroom, camp or workshops. A mish mash of ideas designed to give summer camp, course leaders, drama students and teachers a one stop place for ideas to entertain, amuse or create an environment for bonding.

From Saint Paul to Julian of Norwich, Scott Cairns has lovingly examined, pressed for the revelation, and set in verse the most memorable, beautiful sayings of the fathers and mothers of Christianity. The startling result is a fresh encounter of ancient wisdom and provocation. These poems are unified in a common claim that Love is the most compelling name of God and the most apt attribute of the Holy One in whom we live and move and have our being. In that spirit Cairns offers "a mere taste of the bountiful feast that awaits any who would pursue a life of faith and prayer equipped with both the holy Scriptures and the holy tradition that surrounds them."

"The extreme greatness of Christianity lies in the fact that it does not seek a supernatural remedy for suffering, but a supernatural use for it." -Simone Weil

"Like most people I, too, have been blindsided by personal grief now and again over the years. And I have an increasingly keen sense that, wherever I am, someone nearby is suffering now.

For that reason, I lately have settled in to mull the matter over, gathering my troubled wits to undertake a difficult essay, more like what we used to call an assay, really--an earnest inquiry. I am thinking of it just now as a study in suffering, by which I hope to find some sense in affliction, hoping--just as I have come to hope about experience in general--to make something of it."

Is there meaning in our afflictions?

With the thoughtfulness of a pilgrim and the prose of a poet, Scott Cairns takes us on a soul-baring journey through "the puzzlement of our afflictions." Probing ancient Christian wisdom for revelation in his own pain, Cairns challenges us toward a radical revision of the full meaning and breadth of human suffering.

Clear-eyed and unsparingly honest, this new addition to the literature of suffering is reminiscent of The Year of Magical Thinking as well as the works of C. S. Lewis. Cairns points us toward hope in the seasons of our afflictions, because "in those trials in our lives that we do not choose but press through--a stillness, a calm, and a hope become available to us."