Spirituality

Advent for Everyone: A Journey with the Apostles provides readers with an inspirational guide through the Advent season, from the first Sunday in Advent through the Saturday after the Fourth Sunday in Advent. Popular biblical scholar and author N. T. Wright provides his own Scripture translation, brief reflection, and a prayer for each day of the season, helping readers understand Advent in the wider context of God's love.

Wright's engaging and accessible writing and imagery help us see Advent both in relation to the gospel message and in our own lives today. Each Sunday's text uses the Mark passage from the Revised Common Lectionary, with the rest of the week drawn from other passages in the Gospel and the lectionary. This book is suitable for both individual and group study and reflection.

Work proposes that we take whatever is happening in our world -- a political election or the latest war will do -- and set the Lord's Prayer in the middle of it. Let that prayer shed light on the scene and expose what matters. Then pray it. Then look again and see how the prayer is a response to what matters. These three movements give structure to the book as a whole and to each chapter within it. Prayed this way, the Lord's Prayer is always new and never quite the same.

Ecumenical, evangelical, postmodern, and irenic in tone, Ain't Too Proud to Beg ends not with a neat scholarly wrap-up but with an open-ended Amen -- three sparkling, joyful sermons -- a fitting ending to Work's provocative exploration of prayer as a theological process.

This well-researched anthology looks at American history through the prayers its people have offered over the past two-and-a-half centuries. Prayers are drawn from a wide variety of faiths, including Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

Sections include:
Prayers for America: for an Election, for the Government, in Times of War or Crisis, for Repentance and Renewal, for Peace, Thanksgivings and Litanies

Prayers for national occasions: Inauguration Day, Presidential birthdays, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Election Day, Thanksgiving Day, and others

Prayers from American history: Prayers said on historic occasions such as Washington's funeral, the American Revolution, the death of George Washington, the slave trade and abolition, the Civil War, the death of Abraham Lincoln, the Industrial Revolution, the Spanish-American War, the First World War, the Second World War, the Clinton impeachment crisis, the 9/11 attack, and more.

Part One, "Entering the Desert," introduces the reader to principles of awareness, deep listening, and contemplation as essential for "hearing" what Scripture has to say. Part Two details the importance of mystery and struggle in the process of healing from any past or present wounds. And Part Three explores the "undivided heart" that is possible when we come to know God in silence and stillness.

With Be Still it is possible to explore the contemplative dimensions of the Bible, either on your own or in a group setting, as you perhaps never have before.

What's in your God-box?

Each of us, says author Anne Robertson, builds our own way of understanding God-our God-box-- and fills it up with bits of scripture, wisdom, and our experiences of God at work in our lives. It's a perfectly good way to puzzle out what God means to us. Encountering God through our human limitations, we learn something about the meaning of Incarnation. But to say that our experience of God is the only valid one is to put a lid on the box and create an idol.

This book is about examining our God-boxes and bursting them wide open. Blowing the Lid Off the God-Box starts with the ministry of Jesus - who blew the lid off everyone's God-box by constantly challenging his followers with the unexpected. Subsequent chapters examine the God-boxes we create with scripture, worship, and political and social agendas.