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Too often we turn prayer into well-intentioned patterns of our own making. Too often we assume prayer is primarily about words. Sometimes there's an almost magical understanding that if we get the words right, if we trust enough or believe enough, God will "answer." But most of us know that God is not a divine magician or our own personal valet and that prayer is much more than our feeble attempts to make God pay attention to what God already knows. Using the alphabet as a template of descriptive words and actions, Holy Ground: An Alphabet of Prayer invites reflection about prayer as paying Attention, looking for Beauty, showing Compassion, practicing Devotion, celebrating Enthusiasm--all the way to the end of the alphabet and discovering Wonder, X as mystery, and Z as Zeal. These reflections will help readers experience prayer as a place, an action, or attitude, a stance for recognizing and acknowledging God's presence in the midst of ordinary life--something like the sigh of the shoemaker, too busy to drop his worn shoes and kneel in disciplined prayer, but not too busy to sigh his prayer of gratitude. Prayer is so much more than words.
For all who know the security of home—in all its iterations—and for those who don’t, finding home is complicated. Home always is characterized by joy and sorrow, grief and gladness, the realities of complicated lives. What is it like to flee the horrors of war as a refugee in search of home? When daily life is unbearable, what exactly does home mean? How do we learn to be at home in our bodies, at home with ourselves? What does it mean to be made in the likeness of the Holy One? Can we find home in the company of strangers and how do we reclaim our earth home? So many images swim just below the surface of my memory, all the houses where I came to know home. It takes little to retrieve them—a shared story, the pungent smell of tide flats, the sound of rain on a tin roof. But home, of course, is much more than houses. These reflections invite readers to explore identity, the importance of rootedness, discovering home away from home, what it means to be home for one another. Finding home—literally and metaphorically—is challenging.
This eclectic, perhaps quirky collection of reflections celebrates a longing to know who we are, who and what God is, and what the world is like. In joy and sorrow, each one mirrors the holiness of life, eliciting reverence--for ourselves, the natural world, and the mystery of what it means to be. Each conveys a sense of awe and wonder while pointing beyond mere observation, a deeper and more profound encounter than may first meet the eye. The faces of poets Mary Oliver and Brian Doyle help illumine the natural world. The faces of prophets Brian Blount, Desmond Tutu, and John Lewis inspire engagement and action. Julian of Norwich continues to astound and astonish with her discerning writings and visions. And the Buddha, in his last hours, admonishes frightened villagers to "make of yourselves a light." Readers will be reminded of faces from the recent pandemic and the grief of suicide together with the joy of new life. In faces known and unknown, this book honors holy faces that grace our lives. These are faces where I see God.
Benedictions is about the presence of the sacred in ordinary things: the ground beneath our feet, the ways we bless each other, loss and grief, the making of our homes, even doubt and darkness. In the everyday experiences described here, God's presence is palpable and real. "Cleave the wood and I am there," says Isaiah in the apocryphal gospel of Thomas. "Lift up the stone and you will find me there." These benedictions--literally good words, blessings, tastes of God--remind readers to live life with feeling and passion and art, to pay attention to the holiness of the commonplace. Each reflection opens a door inviting the reader into an experience they might understand as an encounter with God, and an exploration of the many meanings of the sacred. Benedictions is also a personal collection about places and people, seasons of life, and seasons of experience that convey much more than the ordinary. A statement and questions for further conversation and discussion follow each reflection. Hopefully, readers will discover their own benedictions here in the wonder, grace, and mystery of God's presence in daily life.
One Hope: Re-Membering the Body of Christ is a rich ecumenical resource designed to help Catholic and Lutheran communities mark the approaching 500th anniversary of the Reformation. By gathering together to reflect on and discuss its contents, Christians will foster the church’s unity on a grassroots level and grow in their awareness of the ways that unity already exists. The essays in One Hope are the product of an intense collaborative process by six gifted scholars and pastoral leaders, three Lutheran and three Catholic.
This book offers ecumenical essays that focus on Reformation Christianity and on current Lutheran-Catholic understandings and relationships. It addresses important issues, including the meaning of the Reformation, the reception of Luther in Germany and beyond, contemporary ecumenical dialogues, and pathways to the future. There is also some inclusion of Jewish and Orthodox traditions as well as attention to global issues. Taken as a whole, the primary method of this book is theology informed by history, hermeneutics, ethics, and social theory. Within the structure of the book can be found the classic hermeneutical circle: What was the meaning of the Reformation for Luther in his own time? What are various ways in which Luther and the Reformation have been interpreted in history? How does knowledge of these things help us today to understand the Reformation and to move forward?
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Too often we turn prayer into well-intentioned patterns of our own making. Too often we assume prayer is primarily about words. Sometimes there's an almost magical understanding that if we get the words right, if we trust enough or believe enough, God will "answer." But most of us know that God is not a divine magician or our own personal valet and that prayer is much more than our feeble attempts to make God pay attention to what God already knows. Using the alphabet as a template of descriptive words and actions, Holy Ground: An Alphabet of Prayer invites reflection about prayer as paying Attention, looking for Beauty, showing Compassion, practicing Devotion, celebrating Enthusiasm--all the way to the end of the alphabet and discovering Wonder, X as mystery, and Z as Zeal. These reflections will help readers experience prayer as a place, an action or attitude, a stance for recognizing and acknowledging God's presence in the midst of ordinary life--something like the sigh of the shoemaker, too busy to drop his worn shoes and kneel in disciplined prayer but not too busy to sigh his prayer of gratitude. Prayer is so much more than words.
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