From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, a steady stream of Scots migrated to Ulster and eventually onward across the Atlantic to resettle in the United States. Many of these Scots-Irish immigrants made their way into the mountains of the southern Appalachian region. They brought with them a wealth of traditional ballads and tunes from the British Isles and Ireland, a carrying stream that merged with sounds and songs of English, German, Welsh, African American, French, and Cherokee origin. Their enduring legacy of music flows today from Appalachia back to Ireland and Scotland and around the globe. Ritchie and Orr guide readers on a musical voyage across oceans, linking people and songs through centuries of adaptation and change.
Much-loved writer Margaret Silf invites you to make your own journey of prayer and lived experience alongside Jesus, from his birth, through his earthly ministry, suffering and death, and into resurrected life.
Can you feel nostalgic for a life you've never known? Suffused with her much-loved warmth and wit, Emma John's memoir follows her moving and memorable journey to master one of the hardest musical styles on earth - and to find her place in an alien world. Emma had fallen out of love with her violin when a chance trip to the American South introduced her to bluegrass music. Classically trained, highly strung and wedded to London life, Emma was about as country as a gin martini. So why did it feel like a homecoming? Answering that question takes Emma deep into the Appalachian mountains, where she uncovers a hidden culture that confounds every expectation - and learns some emotional truths of her own.
In his most ambitious work yet, New York Times bestseller James Lee Burke tells a classic American story through one man’s unforgettable life. In 1934, sixteen-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends with Weldon firing a gun, unsure whether it hit its mark. Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland barely survives the Battle of the Bulge, in the process saving the lives of his sergeant, Hershel Pine, and a young Spanish prisoner of war, Rosita Lowenstein—a woman who holds the same romantic power over him as the strawberry blonde Bonnie Parker, and is equally mysterious. The three return to Texas where Weldon and Hershel get in on the ground floor of the nascent oil business. In just a few years’ time Weldon will spar with the jackals of the industry, rub shoulders with dangerous men, and win and lose fortunes twice over. But it is the prospect of losing his one true love that will spur his most reckless act yet—one inspired by that encounter long ago with the outlaws of his youth. A tender love story and pulse-pounding thriller, Wayfaring Stranger “is a sprawling historical epic full of courage and loyalty and optimism and good-heartedness that reads like an ode to the American Dream” (Benjamin Percy, Poets & Writers).
This informal, inspiring book teaches readers how to create a personal spiritual retreat through readings, prayer, and their own imagination. Trained by the Jesuits to accompany and guide others in prayer, Margaret Silf brings her experiences and insights to a guide that will help all spiritual seekers–whether they are steeped in Christian tradition or have no background in prayer, retreat, and meditation–make their own journeys of prayer. In Wayfaring, Silf takes readers step-by-step through the Gospels, examining and elucidating the teachings they contain. Like a personal "spiritual trainer," she deftly encourages readers to tap into their own hearts and minds and discover how the life of Jesus can help them shape their own paths through life. Sil's previous books have garnered critical acclaim and have attracted a wide, enthusiastic audience in the United Kingdom. Wayfaring, the first of her books to be published by a mainstream publisher in America, is a valuable contribution to spiritual literature, sure to be embraced by many on this side of the Atlantic.
First published in 1948, this autobiography from Burl Ives, whom Carl Sandberg calls “the greatest folk ballad singer of them all,” is as fresh and wholesome as a summer’s breeze out of an Illinois cornfield. His ballads have long been an authentic expression of his land and its people—songs his grandmother taught him in the Midwestern farm country, songs remembered by old-timers in small towns all over the land, songs he heard hobos singing—songs we have come to know and love. In Wayfaring Stranger, writing in the stirring imaginative language of the ballad, Burt Ives tells of a night spent in a haystack with a pig, and of a brief fight with a railroad cop on top of a boxcar. He hitched a ride with Al Capone’s master bootlegger; he barely escaped the clutches of an old maid in Maine; he fell in love on a Great Lakes steamer; he played for evangelists and politicians; in speakeasies and public parks. Always he listened to the people, and he learned their songs. Anywhere he could get an audience, he sang his ballads: Barbara Allen, The Riddle Song, Fair Eleanor, Old Smokey, Silver Dagger, Foggy Foggy Dew. Now in Wayfaring Stranger, he has written his own story—as warm and appealing as the songs he sings. “It’s a fine book, warm, and full-bided, like Burl himself. Burl gives the reader the combination which is in everything he sings: a sense of dignity without pretentiousness, of simplicity without sentimentality. He makes the folk feeling richly alive. Some of his little character sketches remind me of the unforgettable etchings in Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg. In short, Burl tells stories just the way he plays and sings—naturally, unaffectedly, poignantly.”—Louis Untermeyer
"With Wayfaring, Jacobs continues his tradition of exploring Christian theology and experience by way of the essay-- Jacobs muses on the usefulness and dangers of blogging, the art of dictionary making, the world of Harry Potter, and an appreciation of trees."--Publisher's description.
A theologically and scientifically engaged exploration of modern mental health care The current model of mental health care doesn’t see people: it sees sets of symptoms that need fixing. While modern psychiatry has improved many patients’ quality of life, it falls short in addressing their relational and spiritual needs. As a theologian and practicing psychiatrist, Warren Kinghorn shares a Christian vision of accompanying those facing mental health challenges. Kinghorn reviews the successes and limitations of modern mental health care before offering an alternative paradigm of healing. Based in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, this model of personhood affirms four truths: We are known and loved by God. We are creatures made of earth who are formed in community. We are wayfarers on a journey. We are called not to control, but to wonder, love, praise, and rest. Drawing on theological wisdom and scientific evidence, Kinghorn reframes our understanding of mental health care from fixing machines to attending fellow wayfarers on the way to the Lord’s feast. With gentle guidance and practical suggestions, Wayfaring is an essential resource for pastors and practitioners as well as for Christians who seek mental health care.
