Invitation to Retreat


Book Description

When we choose retreat we make a generous investment in our friendship with Christ. Seasoned spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton gently and eloquently leads us into an exploration of retreat as a key practice that opens us to God, guiding us through seven invitations to retreat. You will discover how to say yes to God's winsome invitation to greater freedom and surrender.







A Place for God


Book Description

These days more and more people are scheduling getaways to retreat centers for their spiritual well-being--over 1.2 million Catholics alone during 1997. Located throughout the United States and Canada, these centers cater to the needs of people seeking quiet time, regardless of religious affiliation. Retreat possibilities range from one day of solitude surrounded by nature, to a few days of quiet time under the guidance of a resident spiritual director, to a week experiencing the rigorous rhythms of community monastery life. In A PLACE FOR GOD, Timothy Jones shares the wisdom of his pilgrimages to retreat centers as diverse as a mountaintop hermitage overlooking the Pacific and a monastic oasis on Chicago's South Side. First he explains everything about retreats: what they are, why people go, how to prepare, what to pack, and what to do while there. Then he provides an extensive directory of over 250 retreat centers in all fifty states and Canada, complete with all the information readers need to contact the retreat center that is right for them. A PLACE FOR GOD is the perfect resource for anyone who wants to find spiritual fulfillment or simply a place to get away.




Spiritual Florida


Book Description

Do you need a break from the demands and pressures of daily life? Spending a weekend, a few days, or even just an hour away from the world may be exactly what you need to renew your spirit. Going on spiritual journeys and retreats is not new-people have been going on pilgrimages and journeying to sacred shrines for centuries. Florida's modern options include monasteries, spiritual retreat centers, and unique religious sites in peaceful, secluded, and spiritually nurturing settings that you can enjoy individually or in groups.




Going on Retreat


Book Description

"Covers such information as why people go on retreats, what types of retreats are available, what role the retreat companion plays, how people prepare for retreats and subsequently sustain their retreat experience, and how to find a retreat center that is nearby."--from amazon.com.




Mrs. Oswald Chambers


Book Description

Among Christian devotional works, My Utmost for His Highest stands head and shoulders above the rest, with more than 13 million copies sold. But most readers have no idea that Oswald Chambers's most famous work was not published until ten years after his death. The remarkable person behind its compilation and publication was his wife, Biddy. And her story of living her utmost for God's highest is one without parallel. Bestselling novelist Michelle Ule brings Biddy's story to life as she traces her upbringing in Victorian England to her experiences in a WWI YMCA camp in Egypt. Readers will marvel at this young woman's strength as she returns to post-war Britain a destitute widow with a toddler in tow. Refusing personal payment, Biddy proceeds to publish not just My Utmost for His Highest, but also 29 other books with her husband's name on the covers. All the while she raises a child alone, provides hospitality to a never-ending stream of visitors and missionaries, and nearly loses everything in the London Blitz during WWII. The inspiring story of a devoted woman ahead of her times will quickly become a favorite of those who love true stories of overcoming incredible odds, making a life out of nothing, and serving God's kingdom.




She's Still There


Book Description

Have you wandered from the life you want to live? Chrystal Evans Hurst shares raw and vulnerable stories from her own life to let you know how you too can find your way back after a few missteps. Over 100,000 copies sold! What happens when a woman looks at herself in the mirror, lingering just a little longer than usual and realizes that she no longer recognizes the person staring back at her? What does she do when she sees that, somehow, her life has drifted away from all her original hopes, dreams, or plans? Speaker, blogger, and writer Chrystal Evans Hurst wrote this book because she was that woman. One day she realized that she had somehow wandered from the life she was meant to live. Chrystal since discovered that this moment of awareness happens to lots of women at different seasons of their lives. Poor decisions, a lack of intentionality or planning, or a long-term denial of deep hopes and dreams can leave a woman, old or young, reeling from the realization that she is lost, disappointed, or simply numb. And she just needs encouragement. This woman simply needs someone to hold her hand, cheer her on, and believe with her that she is still capable of being the person she intended to be. Chrystal uses her poignant story of an early and unexpected pregnancy, as well as other raw and vulnerable moments in her life, to let readers know she understands what it's like to try and find your way after some missteps or decisions you didn't plan on. In She's Still There Chrystal emphasizes the importance of the personal process and the beauty of authentically sharing your journey one girlfriend to another. It’s a book of "me toos," reminders of the hoped for, and challenges for the path ahead--to find direction, purpose, and true satisfaction. Also available: She's Still There DVD series and study guide.




How Enlightenment Changes Your Brain


Book Description

The bestselling authors of How God Changes Your Brain reveal the neurological underpinnings of enlightenment, offering unique strategies to help readers experience its many benefits. In this original and groundbreaking book, Dr Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman turn their attention to the pinnacle of the human experience: enlightenment. Through his brain-scan studies on Brazilian psychic mediums, Sufi mystics, Buddhist meditators, Franciscan nuns, Pentecostals, and participants in secular spirituality rituals, Newberg has found the specific neurological mechanisms responsible for an enlightenment experience - and how we can activate those circuits in our own brains. In his survey of more than one thousand people who have experienced enlightenment, Newberg has also discovered that in the aftermath they have had profound, positive life changes. Enlightenment offers us the possibility to: · become permanently less stress-prone, · break bad habits, · improve our collaboration and creativity skills, and · lead happier, more satisfying lives. Relaying the story of his own transformational experience as well as including the stories of others who try to describe an event that is truly indescribable, Newberg brings us a new paradigm for deep and lasting change.




A Long Retreat


Book Description

This gorgeously written memoir, A Long Retreat, tells the story of one man's search for his religious calling-a search that led him to the Dominican Republic and Central Europe, to Moscow and the South Bronx, and finally into married life with a woman whose search for God coincided with his own. In 1990 Andrew Krivak-poet, yacht rigger, ocean lifeguard, student of the classics-entered the Society of Jesus. The heart of Jesuit training is the Long Retreat, thirty days of silence and prayer in which the Jesuit novice reflects on the Gospels and tests his desire for the priesthood. For Krivak, eight years of Jesuit formation turned out to be a long retreat in its own right, as he tested all his desires-for poetry, for travel, for independence, for love-against the pledge to do all "for the greater glory of God." And in this deeply affecting book the long retreat becomes a pattern for our own spiritual lives, enabling us to embrace our desire for solitude and perspective in our own circumstances, the way Krivak has in his new life as a husband, father, and writer. The search for God is finally the search for oneself, St. Augustine wrote. Krivak's story pushes past the awful stories of scandal in the Catholic Church to reveal why a modern, forward-looking man would yearn to be a priest. Unlike those stories, it has an happy ending-one in which we can recognize ourselves.




Cloud Devotion


Book Description

A personal invitation to walk with God through of the great classics of Christian spirituality. This book of daily devotions is based upon The Cloud of Unknowing. In this edition Robinson sought to remain as true as possible to the voice of this medieval classic. Cloud Devotion follows the original Middle English text sentence by sentence, with Robinson’s own translation and paraphrase, divided work into 366 small portions, with a Scripture passage related to the theme from each daily reading. “My heart has yearned for this book. I wanted a guide to help me savor and reflect on the spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing. David has insightfully discerned how we might do this. The partnership of this unknown, ancient writer and this known, living pastor is masterful. I invite you into the clouds with the slow reading of this book.” —Dr. MaryKate Morse, author and mentor-professor of formation and leadership