Spirituality

Illuminating with uncanny prescience Western society's evolving debates on gender and sexuality, Between Men still has much to teach us. With a new foreword by Wayne Koestenbaum emphasizing the work's ongoing relevance, Between Men engages with Shakespeare's Sonnets, Wycherley's The Country Wife, Sterne's A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Tennyson's The Princess, Eliot's Adam Bede, Thackeray's The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., and Dickens's Our Mutual Friend and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, among many other texts. Its pathbreaking analysis of homosocial desire in Western literature remains vital to the future of queer studies and to explorations of the social transformations in which it participates.

"Superb writing advice... hilarious, helpful and provocative." -- "New York Times Book Review."

"A warm, generous and hilarious guide through the writer's world and its treacherous swamps." -- "Los Angeles Times."

"A gift to all of us mortals who write or ever wanted to write... sidesplittingly funny, patiently wise and alternately cranky and kind -- a reveille to get off our duffs and start writing "now," while we still can." -- "Seattle Times."

Jacinta Prieto comes from such a background, and as housekeeper to the Contreras family, is privy to their innermost secrets. Jacinta has secrets of her own, including a love affair with a married man whose identity she risks all to conceal. By interweaving the stories of these women, Benitez draws dramatic differences and surprising parallels in their worlds, evoking their passions and revealing their hatred with amazing empathy.

Four unlikely teenagers are summoned by a mysterious stranger to save another world being destroyed by evil. Elli Adams and her friends Beatriz, Jamie, and Alex must overcome their own personal challenges of blindness, self-confidence, and Down syndrome as they struggle to fulfill their mysterious calling as Bairnmoor's last prophetic hope. Join them as they adventure through singing forests and stardust valleys full of mystical, glorious, and ferocious creatures, all of which test their resolve in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Eckblad's novel wrestles with the age-old questions of Good and Evil and the nature of the heroic life, even as it provides a fresh perspective on how we can have faith in the Good against every indication that Evil is prevailing -- and how each of us can be immensely more than we seem to be.

"With Elli and her friends we enter a convincingly imagined 'other world' of unforgettable creatures, piercing beauty, and exciting dangers. And in joining their heroic quest through this strange world, we discover, too, bracing portrayals of universal themes: choice and courage, freedom and destiny, good and evil. Stories of other worlds, it is said, may both delight and instruct; as with all good fantasies, Blackfire sends us back to our own world, refreshed and renewed." --David J. Gouwens Brite Divinity School

"This is a terrific story. The plot is riveting, and its unlikely heroes are people you care about. Woven throughout is a meditation on the nature of the conflict between good and evil, the meaning of faith, and the importance of the choices we all must make. To read it is to grow." --David Johnson Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary

"Blackfire invites readers into a world of the familiar and fantastic. In this tale, we journey with those who could be our neighbors next door as they confront the daunting task of saving the world from ruin. Along the way, we gain insight into the ongoing human struggle to counter forces that lead to destruction and embrace those that lead to blessing. In tones reminiscent of C. S. Lewis, Eckblad composes a tale that will appeal to young readers open to discovering essential truths about the world, and themselves." --Karl Kuhn Lakeland College

In two stories per day for a full calendar year, Ellsberg sketches figures from biblical times to the present age and from all corners of this world--ordinary figures whose extraordinary lives point to the new age in the world to come.

Blessed Among Us is drawn from Ellsberg's acclaimed column of the same name in Give Us This Day, a monthly resource for daily prayer published by Liturgical Press.

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.

An epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt?

Isolated by Mexico's deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury. In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets. In the process, he takes his readers from science labs at Harvard to the sun-baked valleys and freezing peaks across North America, where ever-growing numbers of ultra-runners are pushing their bodies to the limit, and, finally, to a climactic race in the Copper Canyons that pits America's best ultra-runners against the tribe. McDougall's incredible story will not only engage your mind but inspire your body when you realize that you, indeed all of us, were born to run.

This story of a community creating space for new life and breath is also the story of a young woman-working, raising her children, and struggling for spiritual breathing space. Through poignant, intimate stories, Neumark charts her journey alongside her parishioners as pastor, church, and community grow in wisdom and together experience transformation.