Radical hope : ethics in the face of cultural devastation

by Jonathan Lear     (Get the book)
Lear, a psychoanalyst and professor of philosophy, delves into what he calls the blind spot of any culture: the inability to conceive of its own devastation. He molds his thoughts around a poignant historical model, the decimated nation of Crow Indians in the early decades of the twentieth century. The last Crow chief, Plenty Coups, told his white friend and biographer, Frank B. Linderman, about what happened to his people when the buffalo went away. They were despondent, and in Plenty Coups' words, After this nothing happened. Lear dissects this phenomenon, and the Crows' struggle for continued survival, in a highly esoteric discussion drawing on the writings of Aristotle, Plato, and other philosophers. What makes this discussion relevant to mainstream readers is his application of the blind-spot hypothesis to the present, in which the twenty-first century was ushered in by terrorist attacks, social upheavals, and natural catastrophes, leaving us with an uncanny sense of menace and a heightened perception of how vulnerable our civilizations are to destruction, as was the Crow's. --Booklist

Seven thousand ways to listen : staying close to what is sacred

by Mark Nepo    (Get the Book)
MARK NEPO MOVED AND INSPIRED millions of people with his #1 New York Times bestseller The Book of Awakening, a spiritual daybook that draws on his awakening through cancer to offer life lessons from all the spiritual traditions. In his continuing exploration of the human journey, Nepo has been called "one of the finest spiritual guides of our time," "a consummate storyteller," and "an eloquent spiritual teacher." In his latest book, he inquires into the endless ways we are asked to listen. Experiencing hearing loss himself, Nepo affirms that listening is one of the most mysterious, luminous, and challenging art forms on Earth: "Whatever difficulty you face, there are time-tried ways you can listen your way through. Because listening is the doorway to everything that matters. It enlivens the heart the way breathing enlivens the lungs. We listen to awaken our heart. We do this to stay vital and alive." In Seven Thousand Ways to Listen , Nepo offers ancient and contemporary practices to help us stay close to what is sacred. --Publisher

Read the Bible for life : your guide to understanding & living God's word

by George H. Guthrie    (Get the Book)
As a Bible scholar at Union University, one of the oldest American universities in the Southern Baptist tradition, Guthrie has tracked the decline in biblical literacy with consternation. With earlier books (The Structure of Hebrews and Biblical Greek Exegesis) best suited for academia, Guthrie has switched gears to produce a reader-friendly, digestible, biblical literacy study program that includes this book as well as a participant's workbook, study leader's CD-ROM, and three DVDs for group use. Anyone "touched by the English language or Western culture," argues Guthrie, should be conversant in biblical literature. Through informal kitchen-table conversations with evangelical scholars, Guthrie guides the reader through a study of historical context, differences in Bible translations, varieties of literary genres, and finally a heartfelt devotional on how to read the Bible in a postmodern world. Though successful in reaching beyond a Southern Baptist audience, Guthrie remains limited by the Protestant concept of "progressive revelation," which prefers later parts of the Bible over earlier ones, a concept not accepted by Roman Catholics or Orthodox Christians. --Publishers Weekly

Prayer : the art of believing

by Neville Gaddard    (Get the Book)
PRAYER is the master key. A key may fit one door of a house, but when it fits all doors it may well claim to be a master key. Such and no less a key is prayer to all earthly problems. This book is an attempt to reduce the unknown to the known, by pointing out the conditions on which prayers are answered, and without which they cannot be answered. It defines the conditions governing prayer in laws that are simply a generalization of our observations. The universal law of reversibility is the foundation on which its claims are based. (Summary)