Things Seen and Unseen starts with Nora Gallagher entering the labyrinth of her life ... and ultimately it leads to the center of her being."--The Boston GlobeIt started with an occasional Sunday, a "tourist's" visit to a local church. Eventually Nora Gallagher entered into a yearlong journey to discover her faith and a relationship with God, using the Christian calendar as her compass.Whether writing about her brother's battle against cancer, talking to homeless men about the World Series, or questioning the afterlife ("One world at a time"), Gallagher draws us into a world of journeys and mysteries, yet grounded in a gritty reality. She braids together the symbols of the Christian calendar, the events of a year in one church, and her own spiritual journey, each strand combed out with harrowing intimacy. Thought provoking and profoundly perceptive, Things Seen and Unseen is a remarkable demonstration that "the road to the sacred is paved with the ordinary.""Like Kathleen Norris in Amazing Grace, Gallagher is renewing the language of ultimate concerns."--San Francisco Chronicle"The deep serenity that suffuses Gallagher's work, the lyrical cadences in which she writes, do not blunt the sharp edges of what she discovered in her quest for meaning."--Los Angeles Times

    That’s exactly what happened to Lisa Brockman, a six-generation Mormon with lineage tracing back to the early church. In college, Lisa found herself challenged to defend her faith, and the beliefs she knew to be true began to unravel.  In Out of Zion, Lisa shares her journey of discovering the biblical Jesus and the key conversations that led her from the faith of her ancestors to conversion to Christianity. If you have reached a place of questioning what you believe, or you long for confidence to share your faith with others, Lisa provides the framework you need to…understand the nuances of the history and evolution of Mormon culturelearn to identify the vital differences between the Mormon and biblical plans of salvationcompassionately engage in conversation with your Mormon friends and neighborsAs you follow the evolution of Lisa’s faith, you will face the same challenge to defend what you believe and, ultimately, learn to share the gospel effectively with others.

    Yes his family had Friday-night dinners, and yes they kept a kosher house, but somehow it was never the most important part of his identity. He wasn’t even sure what he was supposed to be believing in. And yet he had to contend with the responsibility of his ancestry. That’s what first struck me about this book—how tradition and expectation sit heavily on one’s shoulders, and how Greene offers a fresh new voice for the generations of Jews who were born after the Holocaust.

    She’s a radical, self-styled hippie, and he is New York’s famous district attorney, a legal luminary of the establishment; she’s a prizewinning New York Times journalist who has chained herself to fences, bloodied draft files, and otherwise broken the law for her beliefs, and he is a secret iconoclast who could have put her in jail.     Timeless: Love, Morgenthau, and Me is the memoir of their triumph against the odds, their ongoing thirty-five-year marriage, a union between two people so deeply in love but so different—and with so many decades separating them—that their family and friends fought to keep them apart.     Franks offers a confidential tour of their marriage, as well as the never-revealed, behind-the-scenes details of Morgenthau’s famous cases. We see a red-faced Ronald Lauder storm into Morgenthau’s office after the DA seizes a priceless Egon Schiele painting from the walls of the Museum of Modern Art; we witness the CIA dismissing Morgenthau’s discovery of the growing terrorist cell in New York that would become al-Qaeda headquarters. This is an unusually close look at the privates lives of two well-known people who have always refused to reveal themselves to the public.

    Catholic homeschooler Cari Donaldson here relates how her friend’s newborn baby, a portrait of the Virgin Mary, and the words of the Miraculous Medal called her forth from a selfish, small way of life into the welcoming arms of the Church.

    In this book, John Prine curates a selection of his best loved songs. Included are lyrics, guitar chords, commentary from John and over 100 photographs - may never before published - from his personal collection. John Prine has written songs that have become central to the American musical heritage. This former Maywood, Illinois mailman came to prominence with his debut record, 'John Prine' in 1971, which includes classics like, "Angel from Montgomery," "Sam Stone," "Paradise," and "Hello in There." His lyrics speak to the everyday experience of ordinary people, with a simple honesty and an extraordinary ability to connect with the heart.

    For many, it involves dramatic changes of everyday routines and personal habits.Davidman bases her analysis on in-depth conversations with forty ex-Hasidic individuals. From these conversations emerge accounts of the great fear, angst, and sense of danger that come of leaving a highly bounded enclave community. Many of those interviewed spoke of feeling marginal in their owncommunities; of strain in their homes due to death, divorce, or their parents' profound religious differences; experienced sexual, physical, or verbal abuse; or expressed an acute awareness of gender inequality, the dissimilar lives of their secular relatives, and forbidden television shows, movies, websites, and books.Becoming Un-Orthodox draws much-needed attention to the vital role of the body and bodily behavior in religious practices. It is through physical rituals and routines that the members of a religion, particularly a highly conservative one, constantly create, perform, and reinforce the culture of thereligion. Because of the many observances and daily rituals required by their faith, Hasidic defectors are an exemplary case study for exploring the centrality of the body in shaping, maintaining, and shedding religions.This book provides both a moving narrative of the struggles of Hasidic defectors and a compelling call for greater collective understanding of the complex significance of the body in society.

    Her pilgrimage is vividly captured in Radha: Diary of a Woman's Search, an account of Swami Sivananda Radha's journey of personal transformation. This book intelligently and intimately illustrates the challenges and victories of taking the first steps on the spiritual path. From the banks of the Ganges and the streets of Rishikesh, this engaging pilgrimage will take you inside the heart and mind of one of the foremost yoginis of our time.

    Long out of print, this special hardcover reissue of Fritz Peters' account of his five years with G.I. Gurdjieff ranks among the classics of Gurdjieffian literature. Only 11 years old when his aunt, Margaret Anderson, brought him to the Prieuré in June 1924, he immediately became devoted to Gurdjieff. Within weeks, however, Gurdjieff suffered a near fatal car crash. During his recovery the young boy became his "chair carrier." Other tasks included mowing the château's great lawns, kitchen boy, waiter and gatekeeper. He also was to clean Gurdjieff's room, no small task as Gurdjieff delighted in wrecking it. Peters was among the few to whom Gurdjieff gave individual lessons on the teaching. An acute observer and talented writer, Peters' crisp images and scenes, often hilarious, give a rare look at what life was like at Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. Peters' interactions with Miss Madison (Ethel Merston), Rachmilevitch, and Gurdjieff's dog Philos, as well as A. R. Orage and Gertrude Stein are quite telling. Said the writer Henry Miller of Peters' book, "It's full of amazing anecdotes and the wisdom of life."

    But of course Rebecca’s life is also colored with signs from the other world, with messages that spirits from the Other Side urgently want to share with their loved ones. Just like you, Rebecca can get overwhelmed at times, but she has developed strategies for coping with those feelings and refocusing when she feels herself going off-course. In this book, she shares those exercises, practices like creating a special space for tapping into higher spiritual guidance, how to get “spiritually dressed” in the morning by getting centered and protecting the energetic body, and how to cleanse negative energy from a room.After serving as a psychic medium between the spirit world and our day-to-day world for more than two decades, what Rebecca knows for sure is that the spirit world is always trying to get our attention. They intervene in our lives every day to let us know that our real-life struggles have a rhyme, a reason, and a purpose, and that we’re not alone to figure it all out. Our guides have our backs every step of the way, and What the Dead Have Taught Me About Living Well reveals how to become more in tune with their guidance.

    This uplifting book will guide you on your journey through grief and inspire you with evidence of the afterlife. A practicing lawyer for over two decades, Mark Anthony is also a gifted medium who has worked with thousands of clients. He shares incredible true stories of contact with spirits and their enduring messages of forgiveness, gratitude, and acceptance. Even more remarkable, you will be able to recognize and make contact with the spirits of your loved ones. Compelling, comforting, and inspiring for those of all backgrounds and faiths, Never Letting Go offers true healing through messages of hope from the Other Side. Praise:"This deep, emotionally touching book is destined to become a metaphysical classic."—Joyce Keller, author of SEVEN STEPS TO HEAVEN "An enlightening journey through coping with grief and discovering spiritual renewal. I highly recommend this book!"—Jeffrey A. Wands, author of ANOTHER DOOR OPENS

    It is a compelling narrative that blends remarkable experiences with an inner struggle and search for meaning.

    But then his hard-to-impress teenage son, Yonah, refused to have a Bar Mitzvah as he approached age thirteen. No dancing with grandma or chanting traditional prayers? Something had to be done to celebrate this rite of passage. So Matt, his wife Djina, Yonah, and little brother Solomon decided to saddle up for a physical ride of passage -- one that would take them 3,804 miles by bicycle from the waters of the Pacific Ocean, across the Rockies, through Midwest small towns, and all the way to Washington D.C. Armed with ibuprofen, several gallons of Gatorade, and one unpredictable tandem bike (the "Beast"), the Biers-Ariel family pedaled across the middle of America, chatting with locals along the way, roasting marshmallows at campgrounds, and quarrelling over the state of climate change, religious identity, and several flat tires. They also collected thousands of signatures on a self-made global-warming petition calling for the United States to undergo its own rite of passage -- one of energy conservation.The Bar Mitzvah and The Beast is a funny, thoughtful memoir of one ordinary American family's extraordinary journey by bicycle, and an enlightening, warm exploration of the bond between a spiritual, nature-loving father and his ambivalent, computer game-loving son.

    He also learned how to lie in order to please his often volatile father and put himself in harm's way to protect his mother and younger, weaker members of the family. Much later in life, as Atz began to reflect on his upbringing, seek to understand his father, and heal his emotional scars, he discovered that the work of pioneering the frontier of the soul is an infinitely more difficult task than any of the back-breaking chores he performed on his family's homestead. Learning to use new tools--honesty, vulnerability, forgiveness, acceptance--and building upon the good helped him heal and learn to embrace the value of resilience. This revised perspective has enabled him to tell an enhanced and more positive version of the legacy his father created and has him doing the most rewarding work of his life: mapping his own inner wilderness while drawing closer to his adult children, the next stewards of the land he helped his father carve out of the Alaskan frontier.

    He started the Give Kids the World foundation andDignity U Wear charity.