Know yourself. Nothing in excess. Give a pledge and ruin is near. These are the words inscribed on a stele just outside the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. Stunning in their simplicity, these Maxims have survived the test of time. Even today, they cause the reader to pause and think about what such short, poignant phrases mean. For those who study Hellenic Polytheism, either in historical or modern religious context, the Delphic Maxims are of great import because they hold a key to understanding early Greek thought. Delving into both the history and the current application of 34 of the Maxims to the creation of personal ethics and morals, Allyson Szabo provides us with a path to personal growth and understanding of the world around us.
Many Christians today tend to view the story of medieval faith as a cautionary tale. Too often, they dismiss the Middle Ages as a period of corruption and decay in the church. They seem to assume that the church apostatized from true Christianity after it gained cultural influence in the time of Constantine, and the faith was only later recovered by the sixteenth-century Reformers or even the eighteenth-century revivalists. As a result, the riches and wisdom of the medieval period have remained largely inaccessible to modern Protestants. Church historian Chris Armstrong helps readers see beyond modern caricatures of the medieval church to the animating Christian spirit of that age. He believes today's church could learn a number of lessons from medieval faith, such as how the gospel speaks to ordinary, embodied human life in this world. Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians explores key ideas, figures, and movements from the Middle Ages in conversation with C. S. Lewis and other thinkers, helping contemporary Christians discover authentic faith and renewal in a forgotten age.
We don't often think about the act of knowing, but if we do, the question of what we know and how we know it becomes murky indeed. Longing to Know is a book about knowing: knowing how we know things, knowing how we know people, and knowing how we know God. This book is for those who are considering Christianity for the first time, as well as Christians who are struggling with issues related to truth, certainty, and doubt. As such, it is a wonderful resource for evangelists, pastors, and counselors. This unique look at the questions of knowing is both entertaining and approachable. Questions for reflection make it ideal for students of philosophy and all those wrestling with the questions of knowledge.
Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever. Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our capacity for a village-mindedness, or breaks it. Table of Contents The Ordeal of a Managed Death Stealing Meaning from Dying The Tyrant Hope The Quality of Life Yes, But Not Like This The Work So Who Are the Dying to You? Dying Facing Home What Dying Asks of Us All Kids Ah, My Friend the Enemy
This paradigm-shifting book helps believers understand the process of being transformed by God's grace and truth, and challenges them to be a part of the process of discipleship in the lives of their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Counseling One Another biblically presents and defends every believer's responsibility to work toward God's goal of conforming us to the image of His Son-a goal reached through the targeted form of intensive discipleship most often referred to as counseling. All Christians will find Counseling One Another useful as they make progress in the life of sanctification and as they discuss issues with their friends, children, spouses, and fellow believers, providing them with a biblical framework for life and one-another ministry in the body of Christ.
With exercises, practical tools, and inspiring stories, Deeper Dating will guide you on a journey to find the love—and personal fulfillment—you long for Lose weight. Be confident. Keep your partner guessing. At the end of the day, this soulless approach to dating doesn't lead to love but to insecurity and desperation. In Deeper Dating, Ken Page presents a new path to love. Out of his decades of work as a psychotherapist and his own personal struggle to find love, Page teaches that the greatest magnet for real love lies in our "Core Gifts"—the places of our deepest sensitivity, longing, and passion. Deeper Dating guides us to discover our own Core Gifts and empowers us to express them with courage, generosity, and discrimination in our dating life. When we do this, something miraculous happens: we begin to attract people who love us for who we are, we become more self-assured and emotionally available, and we lose our taste for relationships that chip away at our self-esteem. Without losing a pound, changing our hairstyle, or buying a single new accessory, we find healthy love moving closer . . . Deeper Dating integrates the best of human intimacy theory with timeless spiritual truths and translates them into a practical, step-by-step process.
This 10-week study of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon mines the Wisdom Literature not only for wise principles for living, but also for the wise person these books point to through their drama, poetry, proverb, and song. In her accessible and authentic style, Nancy Guthrie focuses on seeing Jesus in the Old Testament instead of emphasizing works-based moralism. She presents clear commentary and contemporary application of gospel truths, speaking directly to issues such as repentance, submission, happiness, and sexuality. Each weekly lesson includes questions for personal study, a contemporary teaching chapter that emphasizes how the passage fits into the bigger story of redemptive history, a brief section on how the passage uniquely points to what is yet to come at the consummation of Christ's kingdom, and a leader's guide for group discussion.
Read China Galland's posts on the Penguin Blog With this book, China Galland brought increased attention to the spiritual traditions of the Black Madonna and other cross-cultural expressions of the feminine divine. The popularity of recent works by authors like Sue Monk Kidd and Kathleen Norris have only increased readers’ fascination. Now with a new introduction by the author, Longing for Darkness explores Galland’s spellbinding and deeply personal journey from New Mexico through Nepal, India, Switzerland, France, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland—places where such figures as Tara, the female Buddha of the Tibetan tradition, and the Black Madonna are venerated today.
“An extraordinary novel . . . a triumph of insight and storytelling.” —Associated Press “A true masterpiece.” —Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything. Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana's pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome's occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history. Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus's life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman's bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.
"Rick Anthony Furtak's Wisdom in Love is a subtle and fascinating study of emotional rightness. Focusing on Kierkegaard's debt to and critique of ancient Stoic ideas of falsity in emotion, Furtak brings to the topic a flexible philosophical mind and a set of fresh and surprising insights. His scholarship will satisfy specialists, but his impressive literary style makes the book open to any reader who wants to reflect about the topic." --Martha Nussbaum, University of Chicago "In Wisdom in Love, Rick Anthony Furtak gives us a persuasive defense of love and deep concern, and shows how these lead toward a religious conception of emotion and value. Love and its companion emotions are placed within a picture of what is worthy, a view that makes sense of our perceptions of significance despite the pull of slants that see the world as devoid of anything that matters. It is a timely, important, and original contribution to moral philosophy." --Edward Mooney, Syracuse University "Furtak's voice in this book is extraordinary, for it combines the authentic presence of a human being searching for understanding, the rigorous enquiry of a philosopher investigating emotion and knowledge, and the lyrical sensitivity of a poet engaged in bringing experiences to light. It is a book brimming with wisdom and love." --John Hanwell Riker, author of Ethics and the Discovery of the Unconscious "This book will find an important place both in Kierkegaard scholarship and in a wider philosophical context. Furtak has read Kierkegaard extensively and well." --Alastair Hannay, University of Oslo In this historically informed work in moral psychology, Rick Anthony Furtak develops a conceptual account of the emotions that addresses the conventional idea that reason and emotion stand in sharp opposition. Furtak begins with a critical examination of the ancient Stoic position that emotions ought to be avoided by rational human beings. He argues that, on the contrary, emotions ought to be understood as embodying a kind of authentic insight, which enables us to attain a meaningful and truthful way of seeing the world. Furtak's positive alternative to Stoicism draws heavily on the writings of S�ren Kierkegaard, particularly Either/Or and Works of Love, while also engaging with a wide range of other relevant philosophical, literary, and religious sources. He argues that a morality of virtue and narrative awareness is necessary for accurate emotional perception, and then attempts to define a qualified value realism based upon a reverential trust in love as the ground of human life. The outcome of this inquiry into the possibility of reliable emotion is an account of the ideal state in which we could trust ourselves to be rational in being passionate. Rick Anthony Furtak is associate professor of philosophy at Colorado College.
