At South Indian village funerals, women cry and lament, men drink and laugh, and untouchables sing and joke to the beat of their drums. No One Cries for the Dead offers an original interpretation of these behaviors, which seem almost unrelated to the dead and to the funeral event. Isabelle Clark-Decès demonstrates that rather than mourn the dead, these Tamil funeral songs first and foremost give meaning to the caste, gender, and personal experiences of the performers.
"A vivid, well-written, and deeply insightful ethnography."—Kirin Narayan, author of Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels "This is a book of true creative insight, originality, and extraordinarily rich materials. Clark-Deces shows a gift for finding and articulating very central, evocative cultural issues in her study of Tamil laments. She writes with sensitivity and care, and with a certain daring and boldness that repay close attention."—David Shulman, author of Classical Telugu Poetry "A stunning ethnographic essay."—Alan Dundes, author of Two Tales of Crow and Sparrow "In this book, Isabelle Clark-Deces gives us a clear-eyed view of the bond between the state of untouchability in India, and the pain of death and irretrievable loss. This is not a distanced work: the reader is always right there with the people Clark-Deces writes about; one can see them and hear their voices as one reads. The author also achieves some powerful theoretical insights that go beyond the words and other communicative acts of her informants."—Margaret Trawick, Professor of Social Anthropology, Massey University, New Zealand, and author of Notes on Love in a Tamil Family
Have you ever found yourself tongue-tied when encountering someone suffering, dying, or having just lost someone close? As people of faith, we are invited to trust in the wonderful goodness of God. Then how are we to understand the sufferings of so many of God's people? Where is God to be found in the midst of a world filled with so much pain and loss? What difference does it make to pray? No One Cries the Wrong Way offers some glimpses into these great questions. Certainly, there are no easy answers. Any words about God will fall far short of the truth of who God is. Indeed, we stand here before the great mystery. But we do not stand along; without hope; or without something to offer. Consoling in a way that is both simple and profound, Fr. Kempf helps us trust the Love in the midst of the pain. At the end of the book, there is a prayer service for each chapter, questions for reflect or discussion, and quotes for meditation and prayer.
When the screams of innocents dying engulf you, how do you hear God's voice? Will God and God's people call you to life when your breath is being strangled out of you? For people of color living each day surrounded by violence, for whom survival is not a given, vocational discernment is more than "finding your purpose" - it's a matter of life and death. Patrick Reyes shares his story of how the community around him - his grandmother, robed clergy, educators, friends, and neighbors - saved him from gang life, abuse, and the economic and racial oppression that threatened to kill him before he ever reached adulthood. A story balancing the tension between pain and healing, Nobody Cries When We Die takes you to the places that make American society flinch, redefines what you are called to do with your life, and gives you strength to save lives and lead in your own community. Part of the FTE (Forum for Theological Exploration) Series
Imran Islam is a young very talented writer. He writes in an inspiring authentic way. Inviting young generation for finding meaning and purpose in their life. Every single poem transmits a strong form of understanding duty, commitment, faith and love as a driving inspiration in life. Imran's emotions of Faith and devotion transmits to the readers. His inner life experience with faith, hope, honesty, happiness, love; all life virtues are reflected in his poems, which makes his work inspiring to everyone. Readers love this poetry book as it is written in a fresh and flowing way. Imran Islam goes with his own style of expressing profound meaning and deep faith. It's always gratifying to read Imran's poetry. Readers can feel that he writes from the heart.
"This hilarious, inspirational, and wise collection of personal essays and humor from a longtime educator explores all the joys, challenges, and absurdities of being a teacher, following in the footsteps of such classics as Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire, The Courage to Teach, and Up the Down Staircase. Shannon Reed did not want to be a teacher, but now, after twenty years of working with children from preschool to college, there's nothing she'd rather be. In essays full of humor, heart, and wit, she illuminates the highs and lows of a job located at the intersection of youth and wisdom. Bringing you into the trenches of this most important and stressful career, she rolls her eyes at ineffectual administrators, weeps with her students when they experience personal tragedies, complains with her colleagues about their ridiculously short lunchbreaks, and presents the parent-teacher conference from the other side of the tiny table. From dealing with bullies and working with special needs students to explaining the unwritten rules of the teacher's lounge, Why Did I Get a B? is full of as much humor and heart as the job itself."--Publisher.
Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity. Now including a reading group guide.
