Levi Binder is a Miami bartender who cares about only two things: sex and surfing. Ostracized by his Mormon family for his homosexuality, Levi is determined to live his life his own way, but everything changes when he meets massage therapist Jaime Marshall. Jaime is used to being alone. Haunted by the horrors of his past, his only friend is his faithful dog, Dolly. He has no idea how to handle somebody as gorgeous and vibrant as Levi. Complete opposites on the surface, Levi and Jaime both long for something that they can only find together. Through love and the therapeutic power of touch, they'll find a way to heal each other, and they'll learn to live as sinners in a family of saints. This title was previously published by Amber Allure. It has been re-edited, but the content is unchanged.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower comes a fascinating book about religion in America, about the passions, triumphs, and failures of the life of faith, revealing stories of grace and despair, sexual scandal and attempted murder. • "Insightful...vivid...beautifully rendered stories." —Chicago Tribune Lawrence Wright's Saints and Sinners are Jimmy Swaggart, who preached a hellfire gospel with rock 'n' roll abandon before he was caught with a, prostitute in a seedy motel; Anton LaVey, the kitsch-loving, gleefully fraudulent founder of the First Church of Satan; Madalyn Murray O'Hair, whose litigious atheism sometimes resembled a brand of faith; Matthew Fox, the Dominican priest who has aroused the fury of the Vatican for dismissing the doctrine of original sin and denouncing the church as a dysfunctional family; Walker Railey, the rising star of Dallas's Methodist church, who, at the pinnacle of his success, was suspected of attempting to murder his wife; and Will Campbell, the eccentric liberal Southern Baptist preacher whose challenges to established ways of thinking have made him a legend in his own time.
There are many complexities associated with ministering to another person. Where does a helper begin? What’s important to notice? Is there an overall ministry strategy that’s beneficial? Saints, Sufferers, and Sinners by author and counselor Michael R. Emlet outlines a model of one-another ministry based on how God sees and loves his people. Emlet helps readers use Scripture to find foundational categories for understanding and approaching one another, which serve as guideposts for wise care. Filled with everyday illustrations as well as counseling examples, Emlet demonstrates what it looks like to approach fellow believers simultaneously as saints, sufferers, and sinners. As part of CCEF's Helping the Helper series, this guide for ministry provides an overall framework for wisely helping any person, balancing all three aspects of our experience as Christians.
With her inimitable gift for describing the workings of the heart and mind, Edna O'Brien introduces us to a vivid new cast of restless, searching people who-whether in the Irish countryside or London or New York-remind us of our own humanity. In Send My Roots Rain, Miss Gilhooley, a librarian, waits in the lobby of a posh Dublin hotel-expecting to meet a celebrated poet while reflecting on the great love who disappointed her. The Irish workers of "The Shovel Kings" have pipe dreams of becoming millionaires in London, but long for their quickly changing homeland-exiles in both places. "Green Georgette" is a searing anatomy of class, through the eyes of a little girl; "Old Wounds" illuminates the importance of family and memory in old age. In language that is always bold and vital, Edna O'Brien pays tribute to the universal forces that rule our lives.
This provocative account of the persecution of the Catholic Church in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s tells the stories of eight pivotal players. The saints are now honored as martyrs by the Catholic Church, and the sinners were political and military leaders who were accomplices in the persecution. The saintly standouts are Anacleto González Flores, whose non-violent demonstrations ended with his death after a day of brutal torture; Archbishop Francisco Orozco y Jiménez, who ran his vast archdiocese from hiding while on the run from the Mexican government; Fr. Toribio Romo González, who was shot in his bed one morning simply for being a Catholic priest; and Fr. Miguel Pro, the famous Jesuit who kept slipping through the hands of the military police in Mexico City despite being on the "most wanted" list for sixteen months. The four sinners are Melchor Ocampo, the powerful politician who believed that Catholicism was the cause of Mexico's problems; President Plutarco Elías Calles, the fanatical atheist who brutally persecuted the Church; José Reyes Vega, the priest who ignored the orders of his archbishop and became a general in the Cristero army; and Tomás Garrido Canabal, a farmer-turned-politician who became known as the "Scourge of Tabasco". This cast of characters is presented in a compelling narrative of the Cristero War that engages the reader like a gripping novel while it unfolds a largely unknown chapter in the history of America.
A collection of original essays, Saints, Sinners, and Sisters showcases the diverse questions currently being asked by gender scholars dealing with French, Netherlandish and German art from the medieval and early modern periods. Moving beyond the reclamation of personalities and oeuvres of 'lost' female artists, the contributors pose questions about gender and sex within specific historical contexts, addressing such issues as intended audience, use of the object, and patronage. These avenues of inquiry intersect with larger cultural questions concerning societal control of women. The book's three sections, 'Saints,' 'Sinners,' and 'Sisters, Wives, Poets' are each preceded by a concise introductory essay, detailing themes and offering reflective comparisons of theses and information. In 'Saints,' contributors look at women who were positive exemplar used by society to uphold standards. In the second section, the essays focus on the power of women's sexuality. The third section expands beyond the customary dichotomous division of the first two to examine women in diverse roles not widely studied as positions of women in those times. This final section expands our definitions of women's responsibilities and realigns them historically; it argues that women, and thus gender, need to be understood within a much broader historical context and beyond simplistic approaches sometimes superimposed by present-day readers on past times. This volume answers an acute need for research on the art of Northern Europe prior to the 20th century, and highlights the possibilities of new directions in the field. The effect of the new scholarship presented here is to broaden the discursive field, allowing fluidity of disciplinary boundaries, resulting in a volume that is illuminating to historians of more than art alone.
