But over the next 12 years, this white city slicker entered a world of life, death, nature, and manhood that came to seem not brutal or outdated but beautiful in a way his experience in Washington was not. The Everlasting Stream is the absorbing, touching, and often hilarious story of how hunting with these "good ol' boys" forced an "enlightened" man to reexamine his modern notions of guilt and responsibility, friendship and masculinity, ambition and satisfaction.In crisp prose that bring autumn mornings crackling to life, Harrington shares the lessons that led him to leave Washington. When his son turned 14, Harrington began taking him hunting too, believing that these rough-edged, whiskey-drinking men could teach his suburban boy something worthwhile about lives different from his own, the joy of small moments, and the old-fashioned belief that a man's actions mean more than his words.The Everlasting Stream is a funny, intimate, inspiring meditation on the meaning of a life well lived.CHAPTER ONEWalt recounts the first time he went shooting with his father-in-law, Alex, in rural Glasgow, Kentucky, during a Thanksgiving visit with his wife. “I lived in Washington DC, where most people I knew believed hunters were sick, violent men.” His attitude toward his African-American hunting mates (“I was white, and I figured it was going to be my worry to fit in”) is “condescending as hell,” but it all turns around when he shoots his first rabbit, and surprises himself with the purity of his exhuberence when he calls out, “I got him!” He discusses the repulsion over having to clean his rabbit, but when his guests act similarly repulsed when he serves them rabbit dinner, he says “I think I’m going to kill some more.”CHAPTER TWOHe describes hunting with Alex, Bobby, Lewis and Carl in a gully half the length of football field. “Over the years I’ve become convinced that Alex, Bobby, Lewis, and Carl have discovered the secrets of living life well,” although “the idea that these men had anything to teach me didn’t come to me for many Thanksgiving vacations.” He is attracted by how well they get to know a place through hunting it: “How many of us can say that about any place in our lives?” The men are like relics of a bygone era, but they eventually convinced him that he should bring his son along too. He introduces Carl and Bobby, who have retired from factory jobs—they own sixty acres together in the country. Lewis bought his own 18-wheel rig a few years ago and still hauls freight. Alex is retired and has many hobbies. The men talk in a colorful drawl about their dogs, teasing each other mercilessly.CHAPTER THREEHe talks about hunting at the Old Collins Place. Every time he comes back there, he sees something for the first time. He talks about how ambitious he was as a kid, determined to make a name for himself in journalism. He meets his wife-to-be, Keran, and works thankless 70-hour weeks until he finally writes a profile of George Bush that gets him major attention, a huge raise, and freedom to cover other figures such as Jesse Jackson, Jerry Falwell, etc.CHAPTER FOUR: BOBBY’S BARNHis son Matt catches a rabbit and gets a sip off the post-hunting bottle of Wild Turkey. He discusses his tough decision of taking the boy hunting for the first time when he was seven: “Really I rolled the dice. I knew that most affluent city perople would shield their sons from such rough men and gritty settings. But after my first few years of hunting I deced that the forests, fields, wind, rain moon, stars, leaves, weeds, guns, killing, cursing, drinking—and naturally the men themselves—would be good for Matt.” He describes skinning and gutting a rabit—he does it without squeamishness because “it has to be done,” the same way you have to clean up a kid’s vomit.LAWSON BOTTOMHe discusses the time it dawned on him that he had come to savor things—the Miro painting he owns, for instance— and asks himself “I love my work but what if the day comes when I don’t? What happens to all of this? What happens to me? Will I be trapped in my affluence for the rest of my life?” (The climax of his career comes when President Bush is seriously considering appointing him as his official biographer, and even invites him to a celebrity-studded dinner, but eventually Bush decides the security risk is too great. Harrington considers it a blessing in disguise, thinking about all of the quality time he would have lost with his son, etc.)THE EVERLASTING STREAMHe recalls a morning of picture-perfect contentment at a place called the Everlasting Stream—“such memorable moments are like waking versions of lucid dreams. We are within them and outside them at once as they are happening.” He reflects “To this day I don’t believe I have ever seen men so at ease, so thoroughly enjoying one another’s company.” He realizes he hasn’t had true friends like these since he was kid.BEHIND BC WITT’S FARMHe talks about the way that moment at the Everlasting Stream has caused him to think of hunting not just as a diversion, but to think of it off and on throughout the year. Carl takes him to the four-room shack where he grew up and Harrington is shocked by how small and run-down it is. Carl says “We hunted to eat.”THE SQUAREHe describes being in the zone—“hunters since Socrates onward have described an ethereal hunter’s state of mental and emotional clarity. What nature writer James Swan calls the Zen of hunting--- ‘a state of awe and reverence, which I sthe emotional foundation for transcendence.”LEWIS’S GARAGEHe talks about the joys of hanging out in Lewis’s garage after hunting. “I have come to love hearing the men laugh. After all the years, if I were blind I’d still know the men by their laughs.” .. “Listening to the men is like watching a pinball bounce around its board. The action is impossible to predict but it isn’t random. The point is to relax and lety my time with the men wash over me in the way that a Christmas midnight Mass with candles and organ and incense would wash over me as a boy.”

    They were already used to a simple life, having spent the last three years living on their boat in France for the summer seasons, and returning to the UK and their caravan for the winters. This tiny cabin would now be their new home for the winter months, taking them a step further along the road to self-sufficiency. They had no electricity, no kitchen, no bathroom or bedroom and the loo was a bucket in a shed, but the property came with five acres of field and woodland.From now on their lives would be simple, pared back to the basics, but they found that an off-grid lifestyle was by no means an uncomfortable experience. Responsibilities didn’t disappear but they changed, becoming less onerous. There was more time to think, and to appreciate the natural world around them. Living in such rural isolation, each day brought something new to marvel at: deer browsing in the field at dusk, salamanders on the doorstep, owls calling by night.If their own world felt increasingly magical, the outside world was far from it. They had moved to a foreign country at an historic time, living through a pandemic and adapting to the day-to-day implications of Brexit.A Simple Life doesn’t just follow Mary-Jane and Michael as they settle into their new lives, it also raises questions about what really matters to people. What makes us happy? How does it feel to have few possessions? Will life become unbearable without a flushing toilet?Thought-provoking and amusing, this book opens a window onto a different way of living. Mary-Jane shares a wealth of information and, if you have ever found yourself longing for a simpler life, this might tempt you to take those first tentative steps on the journey.

    It’s a book about making it stop.What if I told you that a lot of what keeps you unbelievably busy is not only pointless, but avoidable, nonsensical and entirely driven by your own fears, insecurities and ego? You’d probably want to slap me, if you could find the time, right?Don’t worry, I was once just like you: exhausted, harried, overcommitted and flummoxed as to what to cut back on. I’m not completely cured, but for the first time in years I have room to breathe and to think about what kind of life I really want to live. And I have Buddhism to thank for this.In this book I’ve compiled the teachings, ideas and practices that got me to this point. Buddhism helped me dig deep to discover why I was determined to do so much, and why I was so afraid to stand still and be alone with myself. It’s not hippy-trippy stuff, believe me. Buddhism is just as relevant and practical in our modern world as it’s ever been.As crazy as it sounds, I’m asking you to add one more thing to your list today: read this book, and let it help you free yourself from the grind of your unbelievable busyness. Live the peaceful life you know you deserve and be the person you want to be.

    They went to the streets with a single intention: to be as present as possible to everyone we met, offering them sustained and nonjudgmental attention. Such attention is the heart of compassion. This book chronicles their streets experiences. It will thrust you out the door of your comfortable life, straight into the unknown. It will force you to confront what might happen to you, and who you might become, if suddenly you had no home. The meditative narrative is accompanied by pinhole photographs shot by James using cameras he constructed from trash. This is the third edition of the book, lightly edited. Though recounting events that occurred in 1999, The Emptiness of Our Hands remains as relevant today as ever. An "eye-opening" and "life-changing" read! Read this book on its own or in the company of Practicing Presence: Insights from the Streets, which Phyllis wrote on the tenth anniversary of her time on the streets. Take your reading slow, perhaps one chapter per day, so you can absorb and reflect. If you happen to be Christian, you might consider using this book and Practicing Presence as companion resources during Lent and Holy Week, which served as a backdrop for Phyllis and James's experience. But you don’t need to be a Christian to take this stumbling journey into practicing mindfulness on the streets. Just allow these forty-seven days to be for you what they were for Phyllis and James: a deep embrace of core values that human beings around the world have held in common for millennia. These values might best be articulated as questions: How do we treat others as we would have them treat us? How do we love our neighbors, including those who seem “alien” and “other?” How do we extend hospitality to strangers, allowing them an honored place among us? These age-old questions have no simple answers. We must seek to answer them daily with our lives. Get your free sampler of Phyllis's work when you join her mailing list at http://subscribe.phylliscoledai.com/. It includes music, poetry, spiritual nonfiction and historical fiction. You can also join her mailing list at http://www.phylliscoledai.com. CATEGORIES FOR THIS BOOK: --spirituality --memoir --mindfulness --homelessness --Lent & Holy Week --social conscience --engaged Buddhism

    His mission was straightforward: to help the refugees who had settled in the sprawling slums of Nairobi, Kenya, to begin small businesses and earn a living. He imagined that he would be teaching them much, and he did. But the Kenyans and refugees with whom the author worked - from Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia - would end up teaching him much more about life, about survival and faith, and about love and friendship.

    Exceptional power. And exceptional blessings.Gwen Smith knows how easy it is to dismiss God’s plans with the thoughts, I can’t make a big difference for God because I’m just an ordinary woman with an ordinary life. Yet God created us to join Him in doing amazing work in the world. He created us to live with abundant joy, courage, and influence. But not the joy, courage, and influence of the world. He offers His grace for each failure, His love that shatters hate, His peace that soothes the turmoil, His comfort, guidance, wisdom, rest, power, and significance. Every blessing He has for us is ours for the taking.I Want It All will ignite a fire in your heart to experience more faith, more power, and more impact. More of Jesus. All of Jesus. Everything that God has for you.

    The murder of Matthew McKay’s son, Jordan, sent him on a journey in search of ways to communicate with his son despite fears and uncertainty. Here he recounts his efforts — including past-life and between-lives hypnotic regressions, a technique called induced after-death communication, channeled writing, and more.McKay, a psychologist and researcher, ultimately learned how to reach his son. In this book he provides extraordinary revelations — direct from Jordan — about the soul’s life after death, how karma works, why we incarnate, why there is so much pain in the world, the single force that connects us, and our future as souls. Unlike many books about after-death communication, near-death experiences, and past-life memories, this is a book for those who do not believe yet yearn to know what happens after death. In addition to being riveting reading, Seeking Jordan is a unique heart-, soul-, and mind-stirring reflection on the issues each of us will ultimately face.

    Scholastica monastery in Atchison, Kansas. The Benedictine sisters who invited Valente presented her with a view of monastic life and wisdom that brought spiritual healing to her fast-paced life--and promises to do the same for her readers. The first time Judith Valente arrived at Mount St. Scholastica monastery, she came prepared to teach a course on poetry and the soul. Instead, she found herself the student, taking lessons from the Benedictine sisters in the healing nature of silence, how to cultivate habits of mindful living, and the freeing reality that conversion is a lifelong process. With the heart of a poet and the eye of a journalist, she tells how her many visits and interviews with the Benedictine sisters forced her to confront aspects of her own life that needed healing--a journey that will invite readers to healing of their own. A beautiful and heartfelt work that crosses The Cloister Walk with Tuesdays with Morrie, Atchison Blue will resonate with readers of Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Mary Gordon, and Anne Lamott.

    During his early years, when the author contracted arthritis and suffered it for 10 years. Then he met his spiritual teacher, who cured him in 60 seconds flat! The minute that happened, his life changed.The second half of his life was devoted to practice, philosophy and philanthropy. His learnings, which are the secrets of the spiritual path, have been guardedly kept close to his chest. But as he approaches the final phase of his life, he has decided to share them with those fortunate enough to receive them.So here is spiritualism; not sacrificed, but SIMPLIFIED.

    In his next book, Jim takes the reader along into the wide open spaces of exploring and experiencing God beyond religion. Jim writes, "It is no secret that God can be lost beneath the waving banner of religion. Divine Nobodies is my story of how this happened to me. Sometimes you have to disentangle God from religion, even Christ from Christianity, to find the truth. With the help of some unsuspecting nobodies, I uncovered a new starting line with God. As I've put one foot in front of another, I've experienced God in ways that are deeply transforming."Each chapter revolves around a central question related to knowing God on fresh terms: Is God a belief system? Is the Bible a landing strip or launching pad? Can what we're feeling inside be God? Are we too religiously minded to be any earthly good?Brian McLaren wrote, "I am tempted to say that Jim Palmer could well be the next Don Miller, but what they have in common, along with an honest spirituality and extraordinary skill as storytellers, is a unique voice."The Library Reviews said of him, "Jim Palmer's casual, yet compelling writing style cuts through the religious rhetoric and gets to the real issues…readers will love this author! His sense of humor is alternately mixed with shocking sentences and poignant moments. Laced throughout is a refreshing honesty that ties his ideas together with a ribbon of reality…each turn of the page strips away a little more of the contrived mystery of Christianity until the simplicity and sincerity of it stands in realistic splendor."More and more people seek a deeper spirituality beyond status-quo religion. Others are left empty and weary from a shallow and narrow pop-Christianity. Palmer says that God's kingdom of love, peace, and freedom can be a present reality in any person's life. He proclaims that God is indeed in the process of birthing something deep and wide among unlikely people in unconventional ways, which is changing the world...one "nobody" at a time.

    He shares transparently, recounting his own history of depression and panic attacks until Jesus rescued him and showed him how to do the works of the Father. As Norris explains, "I had no paradigm for that." Then he challenges readers to engage with the supernatural. Even though Jesus said we will do even greater things than he did, we don't. Norris's engaging narrative style lowers readers' defenses and opens their minds to the idea that these "greater things" are more attainable than they think. Because we are loved more than we imagine, says Norris, we are more capable of doing the Father's works than we have ever considered.

    This is the genuinely compelling story, and spiritual odyssey, of Ole and Hannah Nydahl, who in 1968 became the first Western students of the great Tibetan master, His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa. Their exciting travels on the worn path between the green lowlands of Europe to the peaks of the Himalayas, led them to experience the skillful teachings of numerous Tibetan lamas who helped transform their lives into "limitless clarity and joy." From their first contact with Tibetan Buddhism in Kathmandu in the form of a lama with extraordinary psychic powers, Ole and Hannah encountered the full spectrum of the Buddhist "view." Their aim in writing this book is "to form a bridge between two worlds, and especially to share with all who are looking for their true being ... an introduction to a time-proven way to Enlightenment." "One cannot really transmit anything, except what one has directly experienced, and the reason many of you will be able to identify with what happened to us is that, deep within, we are so very much alike."

    Jazz Notes captures the essential Don Miller with non-religious reflections on how Don's incredible spiritual odyssey got started; what happened to Don at one of the most liberal colleges in the world to help him experience faith and grace for the first time in his life; a recasting of Don's marvelous "confession booth" story; and how Don discovered the secret to really loving other people-and himself. Jazz Notes includes a bonus audio CD with Don Miller interview.BLUE LIKE JAZZ Highlight Notes:1 million copies sold45 appearances on the NY Times Bestseller List-and countingA publishing phenomenon that continues to sell more books each year it is in the marketplace!

     This was no chance meeting between heaven and earth and they soon became part of a phenomenon that would change their lives forever. 'In the still silence of the night, I said a little prayer asking the angels never to do anything that might startle me. Feeling somewhat reassured by this, I snuggled down and drifted off to sleep. I am not so sure I would have been quite so easily placated if I had had any notion of the sheer volume of angels and spirits that were soon to come into my life at every opportunity and everywhere I went, from that night forward.' Call of an Angel will appeal to a wide audience, including the many fans of angel author Lorna Byrne, and the growing force of modern millennial followers of angel gurus Kyle Gray and Radleigh Valentine.

    Popular blogger Kathryn Whitaker is a Dr Pepper super fan, Aggie-loving, type A mom of six with a personality the size of her native Texas. The stressful premature birth of her fifth child threw her orderly world into chaos and ultimately led her to rethink her priorities. In Live Big, Love Bigger, Whitaker shares her journey and challenges readers to understand that they, too, can live a life of authenticity with joy-filled purpose, love, and faith. Along the way, she’ll help readers see that choosing to say no is the only way they’ll be able to say yes to what matters most—Jesus.It’s not every family who would plan a week-long Texas barbecue pilgrimage for a family of eight, much less expand the idea to a multi-month quest to experience the state, eat amazing food, and visit some awesome religious sites along the way. But Whitaker did it—when she decided imperfect family road trips trumped a vacation at a luxury resort. “Barbecue encouraged us to hit the road, while Jesus met us at every single stop along the way—proof that he loves brisket as much as we do, right?”Ditching the fancy vacation was one way Whitaker learned to give up control and say no to perfectionism and over-achievement in order to live a new, more intentional life and discover what God truly has in store for her family.Whitaker’s sassy authenticity will make readers laugh—and cry—while encouraging them to be honest about mistakes in every area of their life, embrace them, and find a way to let God redeem it all.