Charles Montgomery's compelling narrative traces the history of the upper Rio Grande's modern Spanish heritage, showing how Anglos and Hispanos sought to redefine the region's social character by glorifying its Spanish colonial past. This readable book demonstrates that northern New Mexico's twentieth-century Spanish heritage owes as much to the coming of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1880 as to the first Spanish colonial campaign of 1598. As the railroad brought capital and migrants into the region, Anglos posed an unprecedented challenge to Hispano wealth and political power. Yet unlike their counterparts in California and Texas, the Anglo newcomers could not wholly displace their Spanish-speaking rivals. Nor could they segregate themselves or the upper Rio Grande from the image, well-known throughout the Southwest, of the disreputable Mexican. Instead, prominent Anglos and Hispanos found common cause in transcending the region's Mexican character. Turning to colonial symbols of the conquistador, the Franciscan missionary, and the humble Spanish settler, they recast northern New Mexico and its people.
Thirty biblical meditations for women that offer hope in times of suffering. Thirty biblical meditations for women that offer hope in times of suffering. Hurt is real. But so is hope. Kristen and Sarah have walked through, and are walking in, difficult times. So these thirty biblical reflections are full of realism about the hurts of life-yet overwhelmingly full of hope about the God who gives life. This book will gently encourage and greatly help any woman who is struggling with suffering-whether physical, emotional or psychological, and whether for a season or for longer. It is a book to buy for yourself, or to buy for a member of your church or friend. For anyone who is hurting, this book will give hope, not just for life beyond the suffering, but for life in the suffering. Each chapter contains a biblical reflection, with questions and prayers, and a space for journaling.
The winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day. Figuring out how to deal with today's critical economic problems is perhaps the great challenge of our time. Much greater than space travel or perhaps even the next revolutionary medical breakthrough, what is at stake is the whole idea of the good life as we have known it. Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change--these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there--what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable. In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.
When New Mexico became an alternative cultural frontier for avant-garde Anglo-American writers and artists in the early twentieth century, the region was still largely populated by Spanish-speaking Hispanos. Anglos who came in search of new personal and aesthetic freedoms found inspiration for their modernist ventures in Hispano art forms. Yet, when these arrivistes elevated a particular model of Spanish colonial art through their preservationist endeavors and the marketplace, practicing Hispano artists found themselves working under a new set of patronage relationships and under new aesthetic expectations that tied their art to a static vision of the Spanish colonial past. In A Contested Art, historian Stephanie Lewthwaite examines the complex Hispano response to these aesthetic dictates and suggests that cultural encounters and appropriation produced not only conflict and loss but also new transformations in Hispano art as the artists experimented with colonial art forms and modernist trends in painting, photography, and sculpture. Drawing on native and non-native sources of inspiration, they generated alternative lines of modernist innovation and mestizo creativity. These lines expressed Hispanos’ cultural and ethnic affiliations with local Native peoples and with Mexico, and presented a vision of New Mexico as a place shaped by the fissures of modernity and the dynamics of cultural conflict and exchange. A richly illustrated work of cultural history, this first book-length treatment explores the important yet neglected role Hispano artists played in shaping the world of modernism in twentieth-century New Mexico. A Contested Art places Hispano artists at the center of narratives about modernism while bringing Hispano art into dialogue with the cultural experiences of Mexicans, Chicanas/os, and Native Americans. In doing so, it rewrites a chapter in the history of both modernism and Hispano art. Published in cooperation with The William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University
GRACE-FILLED PARENTING There is nothing more important to consistent, faithful, patient, loving, and effective parenting than to understand what God has given you in the grace of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Understanding God's grace will change you, and as it changes you, it will change the way you relate to and parent your children. God doesn't call people to be parents because they are able. If you read your Bible carefully, you will understand that God doesn't call able people to do important things. Abraham wasn't able. Moses wasn't able. David wasn't able. The disciples weren't able, and the story goes on. The reason for this is that there are no able people out there. They just don't exist. And they surely don't exist as parents. God did not create human beings to be independently able; he designed us to be dependent. It's not a sign of personal weakness or failure of character to feel unable as a parent. None of us has the natural storehouse of wisdom, strength, patience, mercy, and perseverance that every parent needs in order to do his or her job well. Since independent ability, like independent right-eousness, is a delusion, why would a God of perfect wisdom ask inadequate people to do such an important job? The answer is so crucial to grasp. God calls unable people to do important things because ultimately what he's working on is not your immediate success, but that you would come to know him, to love him, to rest in his grace, and to live for his glory. God calls unable people to do the impossible so that in your search for help, you would find more than help--you would find him. God never sends you into anything without going with you. He never tells you to do something without giving you what you need to do it. This is the story of the whole Bible. This is why God sent his Son to earth. But what does this have to do with parenting? Everything! It means that if you are God's child--if you have placed your trust in his Son, Jesus Christ, as your Savior from your inherent sin--it is impossible for you to be left to your own limited package of resources. God is in you and with you! In the morning, when you dread getting out of bed and facing another hard parenting day, God is with you. He is with you when your children are in your face and disrespectful. He is with you when you fall into bed with a combination of exhaustion and regret. He gifts you with his presence. And he will not turn his back on you until what he has called you to do as a parent is complete. What do you have as a Christian parent? You have the best thing ever and with it you have hope. You have God in every moment of the day. But, will you remember that you do? God's grace works to open your eyes to see yourself as a parent accurately. If you fall into thinking that you (as the parent) keep God's law perfectly, then you expect the people around you to do the same. This self-righteousness will have a negative effect on your relationship with your children and the way you handle their weakness and failures. So here's what God does in all of our lives. He uses things like our marriages and our parenting to expose thoughts, attitudes, and desires in our hearts that we previously denied were there. God uses irritation, impatience, anger, and lack of gentleness and joy to show how much we need his forgiving and transforming grace. God's plan is to make his invisible grace visible to children by sending parents of grace to give grace to children who need it. And parents who know they need grace tend to want to give grace to children who are just like them. God's grace grows and changes you as a parent. Remember the gospel; although the power of sin has been broken in the beautiful justifying mercies of Jesus Christ, the presence of sin still remains with us. So God's present zeal is to progressively deliver us from the remaining hold that sin has on us. Think about how beautiful this is. In every moment you are parenting your children, the heavenly Father is parenting you. As you are lovingly confronting your children with the hope that they would confess their need and commit to change, the heavenly Father is confronting you. God hasn't just sent you to do his work in the lives of your children; he will use the lives of your children to advance his work in you. God's grace liberates you from the prison of regret. One of the most beautiful things about God's grace is that it welcomes you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Way too many parents are paralyzed by the "what ifs" and "if onlys." Yes, you will make mistakes. Yes, you will learn and grow as a parent. Yes, you will look back and be embarrassed by things you said and things you did. If you're at all humble as a parent, you will look back with some regret. But it's important to understand that although regret is a sign of a humble heart, it is also dangerous and debilitating to live in regret. Living in regret robs you of your confidence. It weakens or steals your hope. And for all of its remembering, regret can be tragically forgetful. It tends to forget the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus bore the entire burden of our guilt and our shame. On the cross, Jesus purchased, by the shedding of his blood, our complete forgiveness: past, present, and future. This means we can boldly come to him in our failure, receive his forgiveness, deposit our regret at his feet, and move on to new and better ways of doing what he's called us to do as parents. God has called you to be a parent. How does he give you what you need for this calling? He gives you what you need by giving you himself, and in giving you himself, he showers his amazing, forgiving, rescuing, transforming, empowering, and wisdom-giving grace down on you. The one who called you to this very important job is with you. And because he is always with you, you as a parent can always have hope.
A recent poll indicated that for every American who believes he or she is going to Hell, there are 120 who believe they're going to Heaven. This optimism stands in stark contrast to Jesus Christ's words written in the Bible: "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few"(Matthew 7:13-14). The truth is that according to the Bible we don't automatically go to Heaven. In fact, Hell--not Heaven--is our default destination. Unless our sin problem is solved once and for all, we can't enter Heaven. That's the bad news. But once that's straight in our minds we're ready to hear the good news of Jesus Christ--Jesus took upon himself, on the cross, the Hell we deserve so that we could experience for eternity the Heaven we don't deserve! The Only Two Options There are two possible destinations when we die--Heaven or Hell. Can we really know in advance where we'll go? John, one of the writers of the Bible, said this: "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). We can know for sure that we'll go to Heaven when we die. Do you? To sin means to fall short of God's holy standards. Sin is what ended Eden's paradise. And all of us, like Adam and Eve, are sinners. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Sin separates us from a relationship with God (Isaiah 59:2). Sin deceives us and makes us think that wrong is right and right is wrong (Proverbs 14:12). Sin has terrible consequences, but God has provided a solution: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, loved us so much that he became a man to deliver us from our sin. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). He came to identify with us in our humanity and our weakness, but he did so without being tainted by our sin, self-deception, and moral failings (Hebrews 4:15-16). Jesus died on the cross as the only one worthy to pay the penalty for our sins demanded by the holiness of God: "For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). But God raised Jesus from the grave, defeating sin's consequences and conquering death (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, 54-57). When Christ died on the cross for us, he said, "It is finished" (John 19:30). In those times "It is finished" was commonly written across certificates of debt when they were canceled. It meant "Paid in full." Christ died so that the certificate of debt, consisting of all our sins, could once and for all be marked "Paid in full." The Critical Decision Only when our sins are dealt with in Christ can we enter Heaven. We cannot pay our own way. Jesus said "No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Because of Jesus Christ's sacrificial death on the cross on our behalf, God freely offers us forgiveness. To be forgiven, we must recognize and repent of our sins. Forgiveness is not automatic. It's conditioned upon confession: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Christ offers to everyone the gifts of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. "Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price" (Revelation 22:17). There's no righteous deed we can do that will earn us a place in Heaven (Titus 3:5). We come to Christ empty-handed. We can take no credit for salvation. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9). This gift cannot be worked for, earned, or achieved. It's dependent solely on Christ's generous sacrifice on our behalf. Now is the time to make things right with God. Confess your sinfulness and accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on your behalf. You are made for a person and a place. Jesus is the person, and Heaven is the place. They are a package--they come together. You cannot get Heaven without Jesus or Jesus without Heaven. "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near" (Isaiah 55:6). For all eternity you'll be glad you did. If you understand what God has done to make forgiveness and eternal life possible for you, you may want to express it in words like these: "Dear Lord, I confess that I do not measure up to your perfect standard. Thank you for sending Jesus to die for my sins. I now place my trust in him as my Savior. Thank you for your forgiveness and the gift of eternal life."
Evangelist and author Billy Graham proclaims that "the way to God is through personal faith in Jesus Christ." This redesigned tract explains the undeserved gift of salvation.
