Developing a friendship with God may be the starting point for the spiritual journey, but how can that important internal relationship move us to make an impact on—and even transform—the world around us? In Changed Heart, Changed World, renowned spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, delves into such topics as how friendship with God impacts our role in society, how to see forgiveness as a way of life, and how compassion can make its mark on the world. Throughout the book, Fr. Barry provides many practical ways to integrate the inner life, where we experience a relationship with God, with the outer life, where we live in relationship with our world. Above all else, Changed Heart, Changed World reminds us that God has a dream for his creation here and now—a dream that can only be realized by our becoming “other Christs in this world.”
If you are inspired to take up his challenge, the Karmapa offers a path for participating in a global community that is based on compassion. In these chapters, he shares his vision for bringing social action into daily life, on a scale we can realistically manage through the choices we make every day—what to buy, what to eat, and how to relate honestly and bravely with our friends and family and coworkers. His fresh and encouraging perspective shows us that we have the strength to live with kindness in the midst of the many challenges we face as socially and environmentally conscious beings. Because he sees the world through the lens of the interdependence of all beings, he sees that humans can change social and environmental problems by changing their attitudes and actions. And so, he shows ways that we can change our world by changing ourselves—by examining our own habits of consumption and by being willing to look into how our food reaches our table and how the products we buy are made. In his chapter on gender, he points out that we don’t have to label others according to a social construct. If his viewpoint seems optimistic, it is—and it’s also demanding. The Karmapa calls on us to open our mind and heart to the innumerable connections we share with others—in our families, communities, social systems, and on our planet. Thanks to the depth of his spiritual training, and the breadth of his curiosity about the world and his love for it, he presents a relevant framework for understanding what it means to be human now—and why it’s imperative that we concern ourselves with the well-being of all others. He points to a world we can create through our own effort, using a resource we already have in abundance—the basic nobility of our human heart.
Imagine a silent world where one "hears" differently...a world where the "hearing ear" is not used but rather a "listening heart." Heart Language brings to life key ways in which God communicates with mankind.
Live in the love of a God who desires a relationship with you. Throughout A Friendship Like No Other, renowned spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, explores the premise that God wants to relate to us as a close friend. Barry has contemplated this idea—radical for many Christians—throughout his lifetime, and he explains that it actually traces back to the “developing revelation of God contained in the Bible.” A Friendship Like No Other offers three well-supported and practical sections: prayerful exercises to help lead you to the conviction that God wants your friendship; a close look at objections to this idea; and reflections on experiencing the presence of God and discerning those experiences. Brief, personal meditations are woven throughout. Grounded in biblical tradition and with a clear focus on Ignatian spirituality, this book offers a fresh, heart-changing approach to living joyfully in the freedom of the divine embrace.
An inspiring chronicle of life-changing encounters, personal transformation and a vision of love that transcends the everyday definition, to embrace universal kindness and compassion, based on the knowledge that all beings are one family and that our capacity to love is one of the world's most hidden yet powerful resources. The book is groundbreaking in its affirmation of love as a pathway for people of widely differing viewpoints. Unexpectedly changed by love, Fran Grace went on a journey to learn more about its power to transform and heal. She interviewed renowned spiritual teachers, scientists, activists and artists, all chosen with the help of her spiritual teacher. Each encounter helped her overcome obstacles on her path. The book gives readers a direct encounter with teachers of love in the world today. From diverse faiths and fields of work, they reveal the power of love to be the next frontier of global consciousness, suggesting many ways to uncover it and live it. Includes photographs and unique contributions from: Dr. David R. and Susan Hawkins - H. H. the 17th Karmapa - Father Pavlos of Sinai - Llewellyn and Anat Vaughan-Lee - Mona Polacca and The International Council of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers - Betty J. Eadie - Belvie Rooks & Dedan Gills - Dr. William and Jean Tiller - Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo - Huston Smith - Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity - Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev - Dr. Viktor Frankl (with grandson Alexander Vesely and Frankl family representative Mary Cimiluca) - Swami Chidatmananda. Fran Grace's personal narrative is pulsed by her encounters with the pioneering teachers of love listed above, each of whom has a chapter that includes a brief biography, excerpts from their dialogue with the author, and her sense of how the encounter helped her to overcome the many obstacles to love. The book takes readers on a journey into Buddhist and Hindu monasteries in India, an Indigenous Grandmothers' fire circle in the Black Hills, Mother Teresa's Homes for the Poor in Rome, Calcutta, and Tijuana, laboratory of a Stanford physicist, home of a Sufi sheikh, largest meditation hall in N. America, and a college classroom in California. She interviews those familiar with the stark Sinai desert, slave dungeons in Ghana, and near-death experiences. In the end, love is found to animate every moment of ordinary life. Inspiring story of personal transformation. Compelling account of how the world is transformed through everyday acts of kindness. A rich resource of teachings on love, healing and compassion from a wide range of spiritual traditions, with a rare inside view of some of the world's most respected teachers. Includes index, biographical profiles, bibliography, endnotes.
In God Finds Us, author Jim Manney makes the Spiritual Exercises more accessible than ever by revealing his inner monologue of thoughts while he did the Exercises and giving everyday, relevant examples of sin, discernment, and meditating on the love of God. In his previous book, A Simple, Life-Changing Prayer, Manney presented the daily Examen to readers in a way that made them feel empowered to make it a part of their regular prayer life. Now he offers God Finds Us toshare his experiences of making the Spiritual Exercises in a down-to-earth, accessible narrative. Manney includes pertinent biblical examples that help us make the connections between how we pray, view sin, and make appropriate life decisions today.
We live in a world of changing hearts and changing communities. Spiralling family violence and child abuse and neglect, often related to intergenerational trauma, are severely impacting many communities. On an international level threats from nuclear war, climate change, and artificial general intelligence in the hands of autocratic dictators, present disturbing challenges to our future. If we want to see change in families, communities, and nations it needs to begin in the motivational centre of our being. The scourge of insatiable approval-seeking, alienation from the Creator, intergenerational trauma, and the debilitating effects of a broken heart and spirit, simmers within us. How can we experience change? We need to identify what needs to change in what is motivating us and discover how we can be empowered to change deeply entrenched habits. As well as a change in the thought patterns of our minds, we need to experience a pervasive pivot in our attitudes. This publication draws from arguably the most significant change movement in history, exploring how we can discover the power to change and contribute toward transforming broken communities in an uncertain world of accelerating change.
Have you ever asked yourself what changed when you were "born again?" You look in the mirror and see the same reflection - your body hasn't changed. You find yourself acting the same and yielding to those same old temptations - that didn't seem to change either. So you wonder, Has anything really changed? The correct...
