No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters


Ursula K. Le Guin - 2017
    Le Guin, and with an introduction by Karen Joy Fowler, a collection of thoughts—always adroit, often acerbic—on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.Ursula K. Le Guin has taken readers to imaginary worlds for decades. Now she’s in the last great frontier of life, old age, and exploring new literary territory: the blog, a forum where her voice—sharp, witty, as compassionate as it is critical—shines. No Time to Spare collects the best of Ursula’s blog, presenting perfectly crystallized dispatches on what matters to her now, her concerns with this world, and her wonder at it.   On the absurdity of denying your age, she says, If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub. On cultural perceptions of fantasy: The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusation of? On her new cat: He still won’t sit on a lap…I don’t know if he ever will. He just doesn’t accept the lap hypothesis. On breakfast: Eating an egg from the shell takes not only practice, but resolution, even courage, possibly willingness to commit crime. And on all that is unknown, all that we discover as we muddle through life: How rich we are in knowledge, and in all that lies around us yet to learn. Billionaires, all of us.

Finding True Happiness: Satisfying Our Restless Hearts


Robert J. Spitzer - 2015
    The explanation for this current fixation seems to lie in the contrary phenomenon—unhappiness. Despite the fact that we have tremendous access to every imaginable form of entertainment, we experience a pervading sense of insecurity, emptiness, and malaise amid sporadic peak experiences.The problem seems to lie less in the external environment than in the internal one. We seem, in the words of Viktor Frankl, to be suffering from an absence of meaning that pervades both individuals and societies, giving rise to a collective emptiness, loneliness, and alienation.Finding True Happiness attempts to provide a way out of this personal and cultural vacuum by helping people to identify and then reach for happiness. As Aristotle noted 2,400 years ago, happiness is the one thing we can choose for its own sake—everything else is chosen for the sake of happiness.After an exhaustive investigation of philosophical, psychological, and theological systems of happiness, author Fr. Spitzer developed the “Four Levels of Happiness”, which he based on the classical thinkers Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas; the contemporary philosophers Marcel, Scheler, Buber, Ricoeur, and Jaspers; and the modern psychologists Maslow, Frankl, Erikson, Seligman, Kohlberg and Gilligan.Finding True Happiness is both a philosophical itinerary and a practical guidebook for life’s most important journey—from the mundane and the meaningless to transcendent fulfillment No other book currently available combines such breadth of practical advice and such depth of philosophical, psychological, and spiritual wisdom.

Not Safe: Discovering God's Dangerous Plan for Your Life


Mark Batterson - 2019
    Here is a challenge to go all in and all out by fully surrendering your life to daring plan God has for you.The message of Not Safe is simple: If Jesus is not Lord of all then Jesus is not lord at all.  It's all or nothing. Now or never. Not safe or safe.Spanish edition also available.

The God Of The Mundane


Matthew B. Redmond - 2012
    You would sell your belongings. You would become a missionary and move to another country.” Matthew B. Redmond has preached the gospel of doing more for God, and he wants out. In this collection of essays, he asks a simple question: what about the rest of us? Is there a God for our often-mundane lives?This is a book about pastors, plumbers, dental hygienists, and stay-at-home moms. It finds grace and mercy in chicken fingers, smiles from strangers, and classic films, and ultimately convicts us of something Matt Redmond has learned himself: there is a God of the mundane, and it’s not about what we do for him. It’s about what he does for us.

The Way of Blessing: Stepping into the Mission and Presence of God


Roy Godwin - 2016
    Within that small, praying community known as Ffald-y-Brenin, the deaf hear, the blind see, and the broken receive healing. Roy Godwin reveals how God has given believers the authority to bless others. As the executive director of the Wales retreat center, he shares how this ministry began, stories of miraculous healings, and ways you can usher God’s presence into your community. It begins when we stop chasing blessings and become God’s conduit for blessing others.

The Basic Sources of Happiness


Dalai Lama XIV - 2013
    

Integral Christianity: The Spirit's Call to Evolve


Paul R. Smith - 2011
    The perspectives of integral theory and practice, articulated by Ken Wilber, help uncover the integral approach that Jesus advocated and demonstrated in the metaphors of his time and that traditional Christianity has largely been unable to see. Smith incorporates elements of traditional, modern, and postmodern theological viewpoints, including progressive, New Thought, and emerging/emergent ones. However, he goes beyond all of them and moves to a Christianity that is devoted to following both the historical Jesus and the Risen Christ whose Spirit beckons to us from the future. Smith says, "The oldest thing you can say about God is that God is always doing something new. Jesus pushed his own religion to newness by including the best of its past, and transcending the worst of its present. He calls us to do the same, whatever our religion is today."

Two Hours to Freedom: A Simple and Effective Model for Healing and Deliverance


Charles H. Kraft - 2010
    Yet what happens if we continue to be plagued with spiritual and emotional problems, and the intimacy we long for with Christ seems elusive?What we need, says inner healing expert Charles H. Kraft, is deep-level healing: healing for our whole person--spirit, body, mind, emotions and will. Using a simple, proven process, refined through 25 years of successful ministry, Kraft leads readers step by step through deep-level healing.Once you experience true freedom, you will find the intimacy with Jesus that you desire, and you'll be equipped to help others find this freedom as well.

9 Days to a Deeper Prayer Life with the Holy Spirit


John-Paul Deddens - 2014
     The entire purpose of the spiritual life is to come closer to God through prayer and action. The best way to initiate a better and deeper prayer life is through the giver of life Himself, the Holy Spirit.

Walking in Light


Kelvin Cruickshank - 2009
    From his early days growing up in an isolated rural environment to travelling the world as an acclaimed psychic investigator, Kelvin's life story is amazing, inspirational and at times heart-breaking. Walking In Light shares memories of his earliest psychic experiences and his struggles to accept his gift, and recalls many of the amazingly accurate communications he has shared with believers and sceptics alike.

The Stone Boy and Other Stories


Thich Nhat Hanh - 1996
    Combining the traditional and the contemporary, Stone Boy and Other Stories contains ten works of short fiction that illuminate Buddhist themes and Vietnamese culture.

Stuff That Needs to Be Said: Essential Words on Life, Death, Faith, Politics, Love, and Giving a Damn


John Pavlovitz - 2020
    This expansive, like-hearted community transcends race, orientation, gender, religious tradition, political affiliation, and nation of origin--and finds its affinity in the deeper place of our shared humanity, which is the True North of his writing. This collection lovingly pulls together some of John's most widely-read and most beloved essays on faith, politics, grief, and the elemental parts of being human. It is an encouraging, inspiring, challenging storehouse of "stuff that needs to be said."

Just Call Me Lopez: Getting to the Heart of Ignatius Loyola


Margaret Silf - 2012
    St. Ignatius of Loyola wasn’t always the heroic and holy figure that you hear about today; he was a flawed, fallible, and relatable man named Íñigo Lopez. In Just Call Me Lopez, a twenty-first-century woman, Rachel, meets the man who becomes the saint, and both are transformed by their unlikely friendship and series of thought-provoking conversations.Their worlds literally collide when Rachel is struck by a hit-and-run driver, and Lopez is there to help her. They realize that this chance accident is actually an act of God that allows Rachel and Lopez, through the medium of their friendship, to come to terms with their personal struggles. Lopez shares his life with Rachel, describing the obstacles he faces during his unbelievable conversion from a womanizing soldier to a man of God. While Rachel keeps mostly silent about her personal struggles, she observes and is astounded by Lopez’s metamorphosis from mess to mystic. Rachel finally faces her troubling situation, and Lopez gently guides her through the process of discernment to make a difficult, but inspired, life choice.Just Call Me Lopez helps us realize that our very human faults and imperfect behavior do not prevent us from receiving God’s grace; rather, knowing our weaknesses and giving ourselves over to the Holy Spirit can create a new way for us to live.

The Place Within: The Poetry of Pope John Paul II


Pope John Paul II - 1994
    this fall. In 1982, Random House released the Pope's Collected Poems; now Random House issues this volume in trade paperback, retitled The Place Within.

Mother Teresa's Secret Fire: The Encounter That Changed Her Life, and How It Can Transform Your Own


Joseph Langford - 2007
    Published at Mother Teresa's personal request to share her message with the world, it contains personal stories, revealing insights and never-before-seen letters from Mother Teresa.