Trampling over the boundaries between the religious and the secular in order to tackle some of the key questions facing Muslims in the contemporary age, this text presents an account of modern Islam.

    Sylvia Boorstein, Zoketsu Norman Fischer, and Tsoknyi Rinpoche draw on their own experiences with suffering, as well as their many years of practice, to illustrate how we can find serenity and compassion in even the most stressful situations. Solid Ground offers humor, insight, and practical advice as well as five guided meditations for soothing our thoughts and increasing our capacity for equanimity and joy.

    Wayne Dyer is an inspirational guide to thousands. Now his main titles—including the perennial blockbuster Real Magic—are available in one boxed set perfect for gift-giving.Author Biography: Wayne W. Dyer is one of the most widely read authors today in the field of self-development. He is the author of many books, including such bestsellers as Your Erroneous Zones, You'll See It When You Believe It, and Real Magic. A psychotherapist, Dyer received his doctorate in counseling psychology from Wayne State University and the University of Michigan, and has taught at many levels of education from high school through graduate study. He is the co-author of three textbooks, contributes to numerous professional journals and lectures extensively in the United States as well as abroad. He appears regularly on radio and television shows around the country.

    In Heaven in Stone and Glass, Catholic priest and professor of theology at Mundelein Seminary in Chicago teaches us how to read these secrets, with beautiful reflections on aspects such as light and darkness, the labyrinth, the meaning of gargoyles and demons, and the imagery of vertical space. whether you are preparing for a pilgrimage to York Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, or looking ahead to inspirational bedside reading, this book is the perfect guide.

    Biographies will only take you so far. It's impossible to truly understand Francis of Assisi without reading his own words. A scholar and lover of Francis, Sweeney has added six writings to his bestselling compilation, additional texts that we're most certain came from Francis himself. Now, short writings such as "The Form of Life He Wished for Clare," "The Sermon to the Birds," and "The Source of True Joy," combine with Francis's Rules, letters, messages, songs, praises, canticles, and final spiritual Testament in a most ideal introduction to the saint. An expanded introduction and notes add historical and theological context.

    If God is dead, why is religion back? Digging up the roots of all things religious, John D. Caputo inspects them with clarity and style. Along the way, some fascinating questions crop up: What do I love when I love my God? What can the film Star Wars tell us about religion and what does "may the force be with you" really mean? What are people doing when they preform an act "in the name of God?"

    However, this debate is not a new phenomenon. For centuries, our greatest philosophers, from Aristotle to Nietzsche, have sought to clarify the idea of a Supreme Being and examine the unique conundrums that He raises. Revealing the thoughts of history's biggest philosophers on the biggest question of all, "The God Question" will help you make your own mind up. Presenting pithy arguments from the faithful, atheistic, and downright heretical, Pessin's light-hearted prose will give you a captivating insight into a wide array of God-related puzzles, whether or not you are religiously inclined.

    Based on more than three decades of practical Bible teaching, these readings draw from the riches of God's Word and the compelling experiences of Mr. Carter's own life. Whether through fascinating glimpses into behind-the-scenes activity at the White House, or insightful remembrances of his career in the U.S. Navy, Mr. Carter never ceases to connect the wisdom of Scripture with your own crucial place on the stage of life. Frank, honest, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, and always relevant, Through the Year with Jimmy Carter challenges readers to be more Christ-like every day of their lives.

    Perfect timing andcrackling dialogue, as well as heartrending pain balanced by uproarious predicaments, make for a shout-hallelujah tale of transgression and grace, a gospel of lusty and everlasting love."-- Booklist “Like Dostoyevsky, Allen colorfully evokes the gambling milieu—the chained (mis)fortunes of the players, their vanities and grotesqueries, their quasi-philosophical ruminations on chance. Like Burroughs, he is a dispassionate chronicler of the addict’s daily ritual, neither glorifying nor vilifying the matter at hand.”-- The New York Times Book Review , on All or NothingInto an austere community of Christian believers at the Church of Our Blessed Redeemer Who Walked Upon the Waters come the star-crossed African American Romeo and Juliet. In the world of Jesus Boy, Romeo is sixteen-year-old Elwyn Parker, a devout and sincere piano prodigy who learns too late that the saintly girl he has had a crush on all his life is inexplicably pregnant and soon to be wed. Juliet is the beautiful widow, Sister Morrisohn, age forty-two, who, in the pain and confused emotions of her grieving, ends up in Elwyn’s arms.Despite the problems posed by their age difference and the strict prohibitions of their strong religious beliefs, Elwyn and Sister Morrisohn’s love is true, and as it grows among the ascetics, abstainers, and holy ghost rollers of their church, it exposes with wit, poignancy, and insight the dark secrets and ancient crimes of the pious. In Jesus Boy, Elwyn learns through tragedy and epiphany that the holy are no different from the rest of us.

    Thompson of American Islam — wanders through Muslim countries, navigating between conflicting visions of his religion. Visiting holy sites in Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia, Knight engages both the puritanical Islam promoted by Saudi globalization and the heretical strands of popular folk Islam: shrines, magic, music, and drugs. The conflict of “global” and “local” Islam speaks to Knight’s own experience approaching the Islamic world as a uniquely American Muslim with his own sources: the modern mythologies of the Nation of Islam and Five Percenters, as well as the arguments of Progressive Muslim thinkers for feminism and reform.Knight’s travels conclude at Islam’s spiritual center, the holy city of Mecca, where he performs the hajj required of every Muslim. During the rites of pilgrimage, he watches as all variations of Islam converge in one place, under the supervision of Saudi Arabia’s religious police. What results is a struggle to separate the spiritual from the political, Knight searching for a personal relationship to Islam in the context of how it's defined by the external world.

    While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe.Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival.Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos.

    It's the controversial, bestselling account of what we know about the life of Jesus. This book is considered a revolutionary biography.

    Rabbi Kushner shows how religious commitment does have a place in our daily lives, filling a need for connection, joy, and community. For anyone who has ever wanted a more fulfilling life or wished to make a difference in the lives of others...for anyone who has ever felt guilty, afraid, or alone...Rabbi Kushner shares a path to faith that offers new sources of comfort and strength for all of us. Powerful, provocative, and persuasive, Who Needs God is a message of universal appeal.

    But with many decisions, there's a certain amount of danger. One wrong decision can destroy a career or a marriage. A string of wrong decisions can derail a life. So how do we know if our decisions are wise ones?Pastor Bob Merritt has found that the best way to get it right is to cultivate godly wisdom. In Get Wise, he takes God's best wisdom as found in the book of Proverbs and applies it to the top decisions every person has to make--decisions about education, work, family, friends, sex, parenting, money, and more. Topic by topic, he shows readers how to make choices that result in long-term benefits in health, reputation, peace, and finances.

    Understanding its origin and development through the experiences of Wilford Woodruff will answer questions posed by individuals inside and outside of the Church. What is the relationship of temple ordinances and Old Testament rituals? Why have some ordinances been discontinued? Why did married women choose to be sealed to Joseph Smith? What is priesthood adoption? When were proxy ordinances introduced?Many books and articles address a specific temple ordinance or a period of time in Mormon history, but the development of all temple ordinances has never been included in a single volume - until now.Jennifer Mackley's meticulously researched biographical narrative chronicles the development of temple doctrine through the examination of Wilford Woodruff's personal life. The account unfolds in Woodruff's own words, drawn from primary sources including journals, discourses, and letters. Mackley elucidates the doctrine's sixty-year progression from Old Testament practices of washings and anointings in the 1830s, to the endowment, sealings, and priesthood adoptions in the 1840s, through all of the vicarious ordinances for the dead in the 1870s, to the sealing of multigenerational families in the 1890s. Her narrative is enhanced by 120 archival images (some previously unpublished), as well as extensive footnotes and citations for the reader's further study. More information can be found at www.wilfordwoodruff.info.