Current cultural practices have impoverished the true meaning of human love. This book provides a point of reference on human passion and sexuality with pristine clarity. It aims to promote the dignity of marital love, clarify human sexuality based on self-giving love and achieve perpetuity of marriage and happiness in life. Through analogy of theory and practical examples, the book offers solutions to a spectrum of marriage difficulties.
Current cultural practices have impoverished the true meaning of human love. This book provides a point of reference on human passion and sexuality with pristine clarity. It aims to promote the dignity of marital love, clarify human sexuality based on self-giving love and achieve perpetuity of marriage and happiness in life. Through analogy of theory and practical examples, the book offers solutions to a spectrum of marriage difficulties.
“All of us are called to keep striving towards something greater than ourselves and our families, and every family must feel this constant impulse. Let us make this journey as families, let us keep walking together.” Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia In his groundbreaking work on modern family life, Amoris Laetitia: On Love in the Family, Pope Francis continues to guide and lead the Church, calling us to be a sign of mercy and encouragement for families of all shapes and sizes. The Our Sunday Visitor edition includes exclusive reflection and discussion questions, to help Catholics grow in our understanding of this call, and act upon it. In Amoris Laetitia: On Love in the Family the Holy Father expands on the topics and considerations of the two Synods on the family, and adds his own considerations to help us provide pastoral guidance to support and strengthen today’s families. On Love in the Family guides us through: Scripture – what we can learn from Biblical families and relationships with God and each other Reality – the experiences and challenges we face in today’s world Tradition – essential aspects of Church teaching on marriage and families Love – what it means for all our relationships Ministry – Pope Francis offers pastoral perspectives for helping build strong families Spirituality – the expression of the Gospel message in our relationships
A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Best Book of Fall (Esquire) and a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 (Lit Hub) What Has Happened to Fiction in the Age of Platform Capitalism? Since it was first launched in 1994, Amazon has changed the world of literature. The “Everything Store” has not just transformed how we buy books; it has affected what we buy, and even what we read. In Everything and Less, acclaimed critic Mark McGurl explores this new world where writing is no longer categorized as high or lowbrow, literature or popular fiction. Charting a course spanning from Henry James to E. L. James, McGurl shows that contemporary writing has less to do with writing per se than with the manner of its distribution. This consumerist logic—if you like this, you might also like ...—has reorganized the fiction universe so that literary prize-winners sit alongside fantasy, romance, fan fiction, and the infinite list of hybrid genres and self-published works. This is an innovation to be cautiously celebrated. Amazon’s platform is not just a retail juggernaut but an aesthetic experiment driven by an unseen algorithm rivaling in the depths of its effects any major cultural shift in history. Here all fiction is genre fiction, and the niches range from the categories of crime and science fiction to the more refined interests of Adult Baby Diaper Lover erotica. Everything and Less is a hilarious and insightful map of both the commanding heights and sordid depths of fiction, past and present, that opens up an arresting conversation about why it is we read and write fiction in the first place.
Romanticism and Civilization examines romantic alternatives to modern life in Rousseau’s foundational novel Julie. It argues that Julie is a response to the ills of modern civilization, and that Rousseau saw that the Enlightenment’s combination of science and of democracy degraded human life by making it bourgeois. The bourgeois is man uprooted by science and attached to nothing but himself. He lives a commercial life and his materialism and calculations penetrate all aspects of his existence. He is neither citizen, nor family man, nor lover in any serious sense: his life is meaningless. Rousseau’s romanticism in Julie is an attempt to find connectedness through the sentiments of private life and wholeness through love, marriage, and family.
This book touches on certain dynamics regarding the theoretical and cultural basis of the model Fethullah Gulen has developed based on dialogue, tolerance, concurrence among different groups that come from different religions, cultures, and civilizations. Gulen's model focuses on human beings, those who surround all their world with thought and action, and who are directed toward love for God and for creation.
This essential introduction to Judaism’s notions of spirit as they relate to God is designed to inform both Jews and Christians who are studying what it means when we say that God is spirit. Exploring the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, and other rabbinic writings, Rabbi Timoner uncovers surprising insights about how God as spirit influences Jewish ideas of creation, revelation, and redemption. Written with an accessible and engaging voice, full of stories and relevant teachings, Breath of Life speaks to lay readers and scholars alike, as it pursues a new perspective on Judaism’s sacred texts. This book promises Christian readers meaningful insights on their own notions of God as Holy Spirit while giving Jewish readers a new look at their own tradition. "In easy but deceptively profound language, Rachel Timoner deftly savors the essential unknowability of God, the ubiquity of Torah and the mystery of redemption. She’s given us an immensely literate and serious, contemporary Jewish theology. Breath of Life is a spiritual tour de force.” -Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, Scholar in residence at Congregation Emanu-El of San Francisco, and author of many books including Kabbalah: A Love Story "Any reader keen to cultivate a robust spirituality should read this little book. Jews and Christians may discover here something to talk about—scriptures we share and a quality of God we have in common.” -John R. (Jack) Levison, author of Filled with the Spirit; Professor of New Testament, Seattle Pacific University
"[Dieterich's] writing is crisp and intelligent . . . She writes about her own reckoning with her sexuality and exploration of queer identity without becoming pat or coy, giving readers intimate access to her fears and conflicting emotions." --NPR For as long as she can remember, Leah has had the mysterious feeling that she’s been searching for a twin--that she should be part of an intimate pair. It begins with dance partners as she studies ballet growing up; continues with her attractions to girlfriends in college; and leads her, finally, to Eric, whom she moves across the country for and marries. But her steadfast, monogamous relationship leaves her with questions about her sexuality and her identity, so she and her husband decide to try an open marriage. How does a young couple make room for their individual desires, their evolving selfhoods, and their artistic ambitions while building a life together? Can they pursue other sexual partners, even live in separate cities, and keep their original passionate bond alive? Vanishing Twins looks for answers in psychology, science, pop culture, art, architecture, Greek mythology, dance, and language to create a lucid, suspenseful portrait of a woman testing the limits and fluidities of love.