Pastor Jeff Tacklind knows that the spiritual journey can be winding and halting rather than a constant ascent of growth—full of paradox, tension, and surprises. Drawing from the natural world and following guides such as C. S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, and Søren Kierkegaard, Tacklind's honest and meditative account will inspire those on the winding path of following God.
Pastor Jeff Tacklind knows that the spiritual journey can be winding and halting rather than a constant ascent of growth—full of paradox, tension, and surprises. Drawing from the natural world and following guides such as C. S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, and Søren Kierkegaard, Tacklind's honest and meditative account will inspire those on the winding path of following God.
As Eve Ensler says in her inspired foreword to this book, "Jody Williams is many things—a simple girl from Vermont, a sister of a disabled brother, a loving wife, an intense character full of fury and mischief, a great strategist, an excellent organizer, a brave and relentless advocate, and a Nobel Peace Prize winner. But to me Jody Williams is, first and foremost, an activist." From her modest beginnings to becoming the tenth woman—and third American woman—to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Jody Williams takes the reader through the ups and downs of her tumultuous and remarkable life. In a voice that is at once candid, straightforward, and intimate, Williams describes her Catholic roots, her first step on a long road to standing up to bullies with the defense of her deaf brother Stephen, her transformation from good girl to college hippie at the University of Vermont, and her protest of the war in Vietnam. She relates how, in 1981, she began her lifelong dedication to global activism as she battled to stop the U.S.-backed war in El Salvador. Throughout the memoir, Williams underlines her belief that an "average woman"—through perseverance, courage and imagination—can make something extraordinary happen. She tells how, when asked if she’d start a campaign to ban and clear anti-personnel mines, she took up the challenge, and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) was born. Her engrossing account of the genesis and evolution of the campaign, culminating in 1997 with the Nobel Peace Prize, vividly demonstrates how one woman’s commitment to freedom, self-determination, and human rights can have a profound impact on people all over the globe.
The Path to Being a Better Man Many modern men are consumed by anger, frustration, aggression, and fear. We are unable to connect effectively as a spouse, a father, a friend, and even a leader. We push people away, lash out at those we love the most, and keep our inner struggles to ourselves. This disjunction from the outside world poisons our relationships and threatens our ability to find true fulfillment. But there is a path to a better version of the modern man. By confronting the inner challenges that inform our outward behaviors, we can reshape ourselves. With help and courage, we can set off on a new journey toward better relationships, more honest and effective communication, and an overall better life. Tony C. Daloisio harnesses over thirty years of professional experience as a practicing psychologist and researcher, as well as his own personal journey, to illuminate the road to a well lived life. The path—and the journeyman—will never be perfect, but the journey itself will lead to lasting positive change for ourselves and for our loved ones.
Jennifer Chiaverini's bestselling Elm Creek Quilts series continues with The Winding Ways Quilt, in which the arrival of newcomers into the circle of quilters heralds unexpected journeys down pathways near and far. Quilters have flocked to Elm Creek Manor to learn from Master Quilter Sylvia Compson and her expert colleagues. There's Sarah, Sylvia's onetime apprentice who's paired her quilting accomplishments with a mind for running the business of Elm Creek Quilts; Agnes, who has a gift for appliqué; Gwen, who stitches innovative art quilts; Diane, a whiz at the technicalities of quick-piecing; and Bonnie, with her encyclopedic knowledge of folk art patterns. But with Judy and Summer, two other founding members of the Elm Creek Quilters, departing to pursue other opportunities, will the new teachers be able to fill in the gaps created by the loss of their expertise—and more important, their friendship? "When I think of all the different paths I could have followed in my life, all the twists and turns that could have led me anywhere," muses incoming teacher Gretchen, "it's something of a miracle that I ended up here, surrounded by loving friends." But what of friends departed? As Sylvia contemplates a tribute to the partnership of the Elm Creek Quilters, she is reminded of a traditional quilt pattern whose curved pieces symbolize a journey. Winding Ways, a mosaic of overlapping circles and intertwining curves, would capture the spirit of their friendship at the moment of its transformation. Will Sylvia's choice inspire the founding members to remember that each is a unique part of a magnificent whole? Will the newcomers find ways to contribute, and to earn their place? The Winding Ways Quilt considers the complicated, often hidden meanings of presence and absence, and what change can mean for those who have come to rely upon one another.
An empowering guide to the gift of singleness that will help you leave shame in the past and let go of anxiety about the future in order to thrive today—from a thirtysomething single pastor who understands that the struggle is real. “Raw, relatable, and encouraging.”—New York Times bestselling author Granger Smith Ryan Wekenman has been an unmarried pastor for over a decade. He’s heard all the usual questions: “Are you dating anyone? Any wedding plans in the future?” But he knows the real question they’re asking is, “Hey, do you think you’ll be single for the rest of your life?” Ryan believes that singleness isn’t a curse to endure. Rather, it’s a gift to enjoy, even if at times it can be hard to see it that way. But he has discovered firsthand—and from hundreds of meetings with other single people—that we are often consumed by regrets or shame from the past, together with worry or fear of the future, making it feel impossible to find peace in the present. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Single Today shares Ryan’s perceptive anecdotes, thought-provoking questions, biblical insight, and disarming humor as he invites you into his journey of learning to fully embrace his current reality. Single Today will encourage you to • gain practical tools to help handle the annoying and uncomfortable situations single people get placed in • learn how to talk to family and friends about your singleness with confidence • practice opening your heart and embracing true intimacy • stop believing your marital status is keeping you stuck • start living the full and abundant life available today No amount of shame will change the past, and no amount of worry will fix the future, but with a little faith and work, you can start thriving today.
Aural History is an anti-memoir memoir of encountering devastating grief that uses experimental storytelling to recreate the winding, fractured path of loss and transformation. Written by a thirty-something psychotherapist and queer theorist, Aural History is structured as a sequence of three sections that each use different narrative styles to represent a distinctive stage in the protagonist's evolving relationship to trauma. Aural History explores how a cascade of self-dissolving losses crisscrosses a girl's coming of age. Through lyric prose, the first section follows a precocious tomboy whose fierce attachment to her father forces her, when he dies and she is twelve years old, to run the family bakery business, raise a delinquent younger brother, and take care of a destructive, volatile mother. In part two, scenes narrated in the third person illustrate a high-achieving high school student who is articulate and in control except for bouts of sudden and inchoate attractions, the first of which is to her severe and coaxing English teacher. The third story tells of her relation with a riveting, world-famous professor, interspersed with a tragic-comic series of dialogues between the protagonist and a cast of diverse psychotherapists as she, now twenty-five years old and living in New York City, undertakes an odyssey to understand why true self-knowledge remains elusive and her real feelings, choked and incomplete. In what Phillip Lopate calls "an amazing document," Aural History pushes the narrative conventions of memoir to capture a story the genre of memoir usually struggles to tell: that you can lose yourself, and have no way to know it. Gila Ashtor is a critical theorist, writer and psychoanalyst based in New York City. She graduated with an MA in Literature and Philosophy from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Literature from Tufts University in 2016. Her research specializations include queer theory, psychoanalysis, trauma, affect studies and pedagogy. Her academic writing focuses on the relationship between queer theory and psychoanalysis and is the subject of her forthcoming book, Homo Psyche: Queer Theory and Metapsychology. Her clinical writing is primarily oriented to post-Freudian technique and theory and specifically explores the metapsychology of Jean Laplanche in the context of affect and sexuality studies. She is an Editor of Studies in Gender and Sexuality and is completing her MFA in Nonfiction at Columbia University. Currently, she is a psychoanalyst at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training & Research (IPTAR) in New York City, where she treats adults and children.
Written by two birth doulas and intuitive healers, this book tells the metaphorical story of a fictional goddess who must walk through 7 Gates of Transformation in order to become a Mother. At the final gate, she must surrender to the ultimate sacrifice—spiritual death—so she can be reborn into motherhood. Each gate perfectly illustrates the 7 emotional, psychological, and often subconscious sacrifices that every laboring woman experiences, whether willingly or not. This book is a guide to help pregnant women understand birth as a divine journey and master how to walk through each gate with empowered sacrifice, purpose, and zeal through tools, rituals, and integrative practices.
Change is a constant defining characteristic of life.In A Little Book on Big Freedom, HeatherAsh Amara, bestselling author of Warrior Goddess Training, teaches readers that transformation can be found by embracing the changes that occur in our lives rather than fighting them.Amara teaches that the four elements--air, fire, water, and earth--are actually symbols for specific aspects of ourselves, and when we harness their power correctly, they can lead to transformative changes in our lives. Air represents the mental body, fire the energetic body, water the emotional body, and earth the physical body.It is through Amara's carefully composed instruction and guidance that we can use the four elements of transformation to navigate a path into our divine center, where comparison and judgment drop away, and we can meet ourselves as the beautiful beings that we were meant to be.
