In 1994, William Moore's father died in a hospital in England. Prioritizing work over family, William missed both his father's passing and the funeral, a choice that would haunt him for decades. Years later, the discovery of his father's travel journals catapulted him on a journey of a lifetime. Alone, William traveled through Scotland in a camper van, following his father's footsteps in a quest to discover his father's true identity and how it shaped both his father's life and his own. Haunted by the ghost of his father, William interweaves excerpts of his father's journals with family history and his own past in a journey of faith that he must take alone, trusting in God to guide him in his solitary quest for self-discovery and the true meaning of family.
Bring extraordinary depth to each ordinary day by adding rituals to your lifestyle. High Priestess Alexandria draws on ancient ideas to help you celebrate the events and changes that color your journey through life. Whether you want to make a child feel special or add awesome motivation to starting a diet, you'll find the means within these pages. With activities to do at home or in your office, alone or with loved ones, Life's Little Rituals is an exciting guide for using nonreligious rituals to give thanks for everyday wonders ... mark milestones and baby steps ... and commemorate the things that truly matter, both big and small. Book jacket.
Many books have been written about the father-son relationship. Most of the readers are well-meaning fathers looking for helpful advice on how to build a relationship with their sons and impact them in a real, meaningful way from older wise men, who have done it. These “successful” fathers usually provide a step-by-step plan describing what they did to connect with their son. This book is different. This book is written from a son's perspective. At the beginning of each chapter, you’ll encounter a letter written from a son to his father asking important questions, expressing doubts, and sharing experiences during growing up from adolescence to becoming a young man. Young men have a lot of questions, questions about life, about love, about God, about finding meaning, about finding purpose, about pursuing a passion, about living courageously, that they rarely verbalize. Through the son’s perspective offered in this book, you’ll develop a meaningful understanding of the young man in your life. This book can be the turning point in your journey of connecting or reconnecting with your son. The impact of fathers on their sons cannot be overstated. It's time to get intentional about walking together, with fathers leading the charge! Father, this book will encourage you to stop being a bystander and will equip you with the tools and biblical principles to impact your son. Reading this book with your son will help you and your son grow together as it highlights both the successes and struggles that fathers and sons experience. This will not be a comfortable journey, but it is so worth it!
Search-Cover"I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap me," begins this gripping memoir about Matousek's search for James Matousek, the drifter father he never knew. Described by the New York Times as " part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing," this memoir is more than the story of one man's search for his father; it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning. Growing up in a family of troubled women (Matousek's sister committed suicide when the author was 29), he describes the turmoil of growing up "fatherless in America" - an experience shared by millions of children in what sociologists have called the Age of the Absent Father - and the difficult, ultimately successful, struggle to figure out what being a man really means in an age of shifting definitions, evolving sexuality, and "breaking out the man box" of stereotyping and patriarchy. With the tension of a mystery story, the climax occurs when Matousek meets a man he believes to be his father. But is he? And does Matousek, who has reconciled with his mother as she lay dying, really care? These are just two questions leading to this memoir's surprising conclusion. Praise for The Boy He Left Behind "Mark Matousek's memoir The Boy He Left Behind begins with the gripping sentence, 'I was four years old when my father came back to kidnap.' Part reminiscence, part detective story, part spiritual musing, the book is more than the story of one man's search for his father, it is also a look at the meaning of life and how fathers contribute to that meaning." -The New York Times Book Review "This thoughtful and lovingly rendered portrait of an American childhood is a refreshing addition to the genre. Matousek not only tells his own story but brilliantly evokes the troubled lives of his mother and sisters with humor, honesty, and above all, compassion." -Kathleen Norris, author of The Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace "A riveting story in the hands of a master storyteller. Mark Matousek has written a family memoir that is tight and revealing. This is one fine book." -James McBride, author of The Color of Water "[A] searing memoir....The writing is exhilarating...deeply soulful, compassionate, and self-scrutinizing. It is an explosive memoir filled with prose that sings, one that provokes readers to question where we come from and what our places are in this world. Matousek...writes from the heart. Read this book" -Los Angeles Magazine "Matousek's account of his search for the father he hadn't seen since he was four [is] sharp and funny, thanks to the punchy dialogue and dead-on character sketches." -Elle "Interweaving the frustrating suspenseful search for his long-lost father with unsparing recollections of a fatherless boyhood and his confrontation with a life-threatening disease, Mark Matousek expertly guides you through the particulars of his life into a harrowing meditation on the difficulties of becoming a man in a country without fathers. The Boy He Left Behind is beautifully crafted, artful and inspiring. It merits a place alongside the late Paul Monette's masterwork, Becoming a Man; Half a Life Story. Like Monette, Matousek's triumph is twofold - In the book he has written, and in the man he has become. Matousek's probing memoir of lost childhood and found history celebrates the power of manhood." -The Utne Reader "Mark Matousek has produced [a] riveting account of his search-at age 38, with the help of a private detective-for the father who abandoned him at age four. A searing meditation on the psychic harm suffered by men and women without fathers, this wise odyssey wrestles with questions of life and death and the search for the meaning of one's existence." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
As a son, what words did you desperately want your father to say to you? As a father, what words from you would change your son's life? Putnam's struggle with the life and death of his own powerful father, his extensive reading of Jung, Bly, and other profound chroniclers of men's lives, and his work in the New Warrior Training Adventure and the Mankind Project enable him to offer a portrait of the Unblessed son-and a path to The Blessing. The Song of Father-Son moves sons beyond their addictions, their old roles, and their deadened emotions to their birthright as strong, loving men. "The time has never been more right for telling the story of the Unblessed son Peter Putnam offers his hard won wisdom to fathers everywhere: the legacy of a Blessed son." -Rich Tosi, co-founder of the Mankind Project and the New Warrior Training Adventure "The Song of Father-Son should be read by every son who has ever ached for his father's unconditional love and approval, and by every father who has ever found himself somehow unable to convey the depth of his love to his son." -Phil Taylor, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated
“In our society, individuals with mental illness often are stigmatized due to misunderstanding and fear. Families with a member diagnosed as a person with mental illness may find themselves forced to restructure themselves around the idea that they are now coping with a family member who may be subject to social stigma and who may draw them into that same negative framework. In this autoethnographic story, I recall and describe the moment my relationship with my son changed forever—the moment he revealed his mental illness to me. This moment altered my own life course—from businessman, to academic, to wounded storyteller. Personally, transformative experiences like mine tend to create writers because we feel compelled to share our experiences in the form of stories. This is my story, but it could be the story of any parent and child in any family.” (amazon.com)
