'There was a time when the cross was an answer ; today the cross is a question.' Hanging by a Thread revisits the harrowing story at the very heart of Christianity. With unswerving courage, elegant simplicity and captivating example, it scrutinises the assumption that the crucifixion was about fixing human problems, and instead suggests it was the culmination of God's disarming purpose to be with us, no matter what. This transformation from 'for' to 'with' discloses a profound, moving and inspiring vision of what the central event of the Christian faith was truly about. Samuel Wells considers the risk, cost and suffering of the cross in the light of six key contemporary concerns : the reliability of history, the fragility of trust, the fact of mortality, the search for meaning, the nature of power, and the character of love. He recognises that the cross leaves our easy assumptions and tidy answers hanging by a thread. All sentimental and idolatrous notions of faith must ultimately give way before a God who, despite danger and disgrace, regardless of how much we deny and reject, gives everything to be with us. -- page [4] of cover.
You can take the girl out of Queens… Or can you? Because for five years, fashion assistant Ellie Levine was taking a halfhearted stab at it, commuting to Manhattan by day, trying desperately to keep secret her outerborough existence—that accent, that hair…that daughter. Until the day fate landed her back in her Richmond Hill neighborhood 24/7, the very place she'd sworn to escape. Now she has a business to run there—not the business she had in mind, perhaps, but a business nonetheless. And the boy next door, who for years had been the married-man-next-door, is suddenly available. And interested? Maybe there really is no place like home. So even if you can take the girl out of Queens, would you?
Nicole Treadwell has a secret. If she reveals it, she will surely die. Of course, she knows it´s true because certain death is what he promised her after the "incident" in the deep woods years ago. Her fate ever in his hands, keeping the secret guts her on the inside as she struggles to make ends meet, serving as a law clerk to a dangerously ambitious judge in the Nation’s Capitol with secrets of her own. Nicole is tired--exhausted--toying with thoughts (she´s afraid to own) of letting life go. Her life is unraveling, her sound mind frayed. At the end of herself, she knows she can’t save herself, but who can? Worse, does she want to be saved? A swift reply to both questions comes in the way of a still, small voice at an unlikely time that ushers her onto a path few dare to tread or openly discuss. In contrast, Nicole´s former law school chumb and classmate, Timothy Grue, is a hotshot, private attorney who blazes notorious trails in and out of the courtroom. Both handsome and brash (owing to his kinship with privilege and social standing of a “fine” Philadelphia family), he seems to have the world on a string, every creature comfort easily within his reach, including an overabundance of company from the “fairer sex.” Despite his privilege and pedigree, Tim later learns that it came at a very high price. By a stroke of legal fortune (or misfortune), their paths collide professionally, as Tim is handpicked to represent an "A-List" Hollywood client in a lawsuit over which Nicole´s boss is the presiding judge. Not so secretly, the judge relishes the prospect of having her “fifteen seconds of fame” before the world press. Her staff knows that the attention from the paparazzi may prove to be her professional undoing--and theirs. Her job potentially on the line, Nicole contacts Tim Grue for a clandestine meeting of the minds, but will Tim take the bait and “sign on” to Nicole’s “harmless” solution? Their former friendship (on course to self-ignite or implode) sets in motion a chain of events that blast open the door to Nicole´s secret past and their bitter-sweet history; and where crises of identity, spirituality, and morality intersect, conflicting issues of race and class deepen already murky waters, as Nicole is black, and Timothy is white. Yet, as between the two, they want to know why race is still an issue at all? On the road from hell to higher ground, both learn that anything worth having is always tried by fires of a faith that asks, simply, what do you really believe? And more, can redemption ever come too late?
Alina gets her wish to be called to work on the Tapestry of Life on the Isle of Weavers, but one broken thread leads to a deadly mission in a land far away.
