In Pilgrim Heart: The Inner Journey Home, we see that pilgrimage is not just a literal journey or simply a spiritual metaphor, but rather an inspiring path toward greater self-understanding. Whether sharing the experience of her own pilgrimages to Nepal, Thailand, and the Celtic island of Iona, Scotland, or recounting the stories of others' spiritual journeys, Sarah York reveals to us how the cultural and physical discomforts of travel can lead to profound personal change. Beyond the going forth that pilgrimage demands, there is also the process of returning more at peace and at home with ourselves. To be a pilgrim means to have our hearts open to the struggle of being human and to allow that struggle to change us, no matter where our lives take us. Meet Sarah York! Click here to see if Sarah York site.
As Christians, we gain the knowledge of God through catechetical instruction, sermons, and Bible study groups. It is quite another thing to have an intimate and experiential relationship with God and truly know him as we would a friend. Contemporary medical research and the great spiritual traditions concur that we are wired to connect and experience God on our lifes journey, and this connection has a transformative effect on our lives. How do we bridge the gap between belief and the reality or the experience of God? Drawing on insights from the early Christian monks and their contributions to the contemplative prayer tradition, the reader is invited to embark upon a pilgrimage to the heart on his or her personal quest to find God.
Award-winning Australian journalist Stephanie Dale shares with readers a very long walk she took in 2007 as she took time from her newly minted marriage to join her son Ben for a walkabout journey from Rome to Istanbul, all on foot for Ben; mostly on foot for Dale. It was during this walk that Dale not only traveled the beautiful countrysides of Europe and the Middle East, she also visited the inner landscapes of her mind and marriage. She took what she saw and experienced and put it on paper. The result: My Pilgrim's Heart.
“With his engaging blend of travelogue, conversations with a wise and charismatic spiritual father, and musings on the big questions of life and death, Professor Markides takes us as companions on his journey of discovery. The insights that he communicates with such enthusiasm are timely ones: here at last is a writer who challenges the seeker after mystical understanding and Eastern spirituality to discover Christianity.” —Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff, independent scholar and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology In Inner River, Kyriacos Markides—scholar, researcher, author, and pilgrim—takes us on a thrilling quest into the heart of Christian spirituality and mankind’s desire for a transcendent experience of God. From Maine’s rugged shores to a Cypriot monastery to Greece’s remote Mt. Athos and, ultimately, to an Egyptian desert, Markides encounters a diverse cast of characters that allows him to explore the worlds of the natural and the supernatural, of religion and spirit, and of the seen and the unseen. Inner River will appeal to a wide range of readers, from Christians seeking insights into their religion and its various expressions to scholars interested in learning more about the mystical way of life and wisdom that have been preserved in the heart of Orthodox spirituality. Perhaps most important, however, is the bridge it offers contemporary readers to a Christian life that is balanced between the worldly and the spiritual.
Victoria Sweet's new book, SLOW MEDICINE, is on sale now! For readers of Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, a medical “page-turner” that traces one doctor’s “remarkable journey to the essence of medicine” (The San Francisco Chronicle). San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God’s hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves—“anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times” and needed extended medical care—ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years. Laguna Honda, relatively low-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished. Gradually, the place transformed the way she understood her work. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be fixed, her extraordinary patients evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. God’s Hotel tells their story and the story of the hospital itself, which, as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern “health care facility,” revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for the body and the soul.
On Literature, New Places, and the Sacred Sacred travel guide. First published in 1998 and updated with a new preface by the author, The Art of Pilgrimage is a sacred travel guide full of inspiration for the spiritual traveler. Not just for pilgrims. We are descendants of nomads. And although we no longer partake in this nomadic life, the instinct to travel remains. Whether we’re planning a trip or buying a secondhand copy of Siddhartha, we’re always searching for a journey, a pilgrimage. With remarkable stories from famous travelers, poets, and modern-day pilgrims, The Art of Pilgrimage is for the mindful traveler who longs for something more than diversion and escape. Rick Steves with a literary twist. Through literary travel stories and meditations, award-winning writer, filmmaker and host of the acclaimed Global Spirits series, Phil Cousineau, sets out to show readers that travel is worthy of mindfulness and spiritual examination. Learn to approach travel with a desire for spiritual risk and renewal, practicing intentionality and being present. Inside find: • Stories, myths, parables, and quotes from many travelers and many faiths • How to see with the “eyes of the heart” • More than 70 illustrations Spiritual travel for the soul. If you’re looking for reasons to travel, this is it. Whether traveling to Mecca or Memphis, Stonehenge or Cooperstown, one’s journey becomes meaningful when the traveler’s heart and imagination are open to experiencing the sacred. The Art of Pilgrimage shows that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered around us. If you enjoyed books like The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho or Unlikely Pilgrim, Zen on the Trail, and Pilgrimage─The Sacred Art, then The Art of Pilgrimage is a travel companion you’ll love having with you.
The renowned author of eight books and abbess of the online retreat center Abbey of the Arts, Christine Valters Paintner takes readers on a new kind of pilgrimage: an inner journey to discover the heart of God. Eight stages of the pilgrim's way--from hearing the call to coming home--are accompanied by scripture stories of great biblical journeys and the author's unique and creative practices of prayer, writing, and photography. As she did in The Artist's Rule and Eyes of the Heart, Christine Valters Paintner once again helps readers travel to the frontiers of their souls to discover the hidden presence of God. In The Soul of a Pilgrim, Paintner identifies eight stages of the pilgrim's way and shows how to follow these steps to make an intentional, transformative journey to the reader's inner "wild edges." Each phase of the exploration requires a distinct practice such as packing lightly, being uncomfortable, or embracing the unknown. Paintner shows how to cultivate attentiveness to the divine through deep listening, patience, and opening oneself to the gifts that arise in the midst of discomfort. Each of the eight chapters offers reflections on the themes, a scripture story, an invitation to the practice of lectio divina, and a creative exploration through photography and writing.
In a seedy hotel near Ground Zero, a woman lies face down in a pool of acid, features melted of her face, teeth missing, fingerprints gone. The room has been sprayed down with DNA-eradicating antiseptic spray. Pilgrim, the code name for a legendary, world-class segret agent, quickly realizes that all of the murderer's techniques were pulled directly from his own book, a cult classic of forensic science written under a pen name.
A husband and wife share stories of struggle and triumph along the path of the Buddha, distilling his most essential teachings in this guide that is “luminous in clarity and depth” (Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance) Husband and wife Kittisaro and Thanissara take turns co-authoring chapters in this deeply personal dharma book exploring the inner practice of meditation in support of awakening. Within the context of the lives of the authors, both monastics in their youth, awakening unfolds as a multifaceted process following the archetypal journey of the hero(ine). Traveling from innocence to disillusionment through the fields of trials and despair that lead to maturity, and ultimately to inspiration and a blessed life, Listening to the Heart tells the story of two unconventional individuals who have together embraced spirituality as the keystone of their lives. At the heart of the book, through teachings on the nondual nature of reality, we enter the “intimacy with all things” as revealed in core Buddhist texts. Without ending at the goal of personal freedom, Thanissara and Kittisaro encourage us to go beyond the experience of inner peace to embodying wisdom in acts of service within the world. With a realistic appraisal of our current global crisis in which sustainability is threatened by catastrophic climate change, the authors encourage a preparedness that enables a mindful balance of equanimity and passionate engagement whatever the outcome of our global evolutionary journey. The guiding refuge for this journey is the Buddha, the historical teacher and—most profoundly—that immediate and direct pure awareness, which we all can access. The book also draws on teachings and stories of Buddhist masters who are fearless, funny, and challenging. Eventually, we are led into the Mary-like presence of the goddess of mercy, Kuan Yin who, as a great archetype within Buddhist cosmology, reveals the deepest mystery of our own hearts and our capacity for merciful and compassionate response. As the inner process of awakening unfolds, it transforms seekers and their lives, as modeled by the authors. It both heals the personal self in its journey through its wounds and shadows, and yet at the same time dissolves identification with the self. The book then ends by returning to the simplicity of the authors' primary teacher, Ajahn Chah, with his encouragement to “Be the Dharma.”
We all encounter times when our spirit feels dry, when doubt looms. The opportunity to tour Israel came at a good time. For months, my life has been a mindless plodding through necessary routine, as monotonous as an all-night shift on an assembly line. Life gets that way sometimes, when nothing specific is wrong but the world around us seems drained of color. Even my weekly worship experiences and daily quiet times with God have felt as dry and stale as last year's crackers. I'm ashamed to confess the malaise I've felt. I have been given so much. Shouldn't a Christian's life be an abundant one, as exciting as Christmas morning, as joyful as Easter Sunday? With gripping honesty, Lynn Austin pens her struggles with spiritual dryness in a season of loss and unwanted change. Tracing her travels throughout Israel, Austin seamlessly weaves events and insights from the Word . . . and in doing so finds a renewed passion for prayer and encouragement for her spirit, now full of life and hope.
