Walking Gently on the Earth


Book Description

Sociologist and author Lisa McMinn and Megan Anna Neff invite you to rediscover, through new eyes, the beauty and goodness of our earth, and to make faithful choices that will help it prosper. Each chapter uniquely begins with a prelude by Megan Anna that highlights an African perspective or practice, and Lisa's fluid, passionate writing then offers both the truth about the state of the earth and inspiration to get back to shalom--a peace that allows all things to thrive.




Walk Gently Upon the Earth


Book Description

Awaken your connection to Mother Earth as you journey through these peaceful encounters with the birds, the wind, and the trees. This collection of stories, poems, and meditations touches your soul and refreshes your spirit with its gentle wisdom and simple beauty. Evocative meditations will help you deepen your own connection to the Earth and will open your heart to the glorious world we are blessed to live in. Written by a shamanic healer and teacher who is deeply in touch with nature, Walk Gently Upon the Earth will awaken you to the living, vibrant beauty of this precious planet.




Love Letter to the Earth


Book Description

World-renowned Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh champions a more mindful, spiritual approach to protecting nature and limiting climate change—one that recognizes people and planet as one and the same. While many experts point to the enormous complexity in addressing issues ranging from the destruction of ecosystems to the loss of millions of species, Thich Nhat Hanh identifies one key issue as having the potential to create a tipping point. He believes that we need to move beyond the concept of the “environment,” as it leads people to experience themselves and Earth as two separate entities and to see the planet only in terms of what it can do for them. Here, Thich Nhat Hanh points to the lack of meaning and connection in peoples’ lives as being the cause of our addiction to consumerism. He deems it vital that we recognize and respond to the stress we are putting on the Earth if civilization is to survive. Rejecting the conventional economic approach, Thich Nhat Hanh shows that mindfulness and a spiritual revolution are needed to protect nature and limit climate change. Love Letter to the Earth is a hopeful book that gives us a path to follow by showing that change is possible only with the recognition that people and the planet are ultimately one and the same.




Nurturing Young Children as Spiritual Beings in a Globalized World


Book Description

This book brings together leading academics and practitioners to provide research-informed strategies for nurturing young children as spiritual beings. Globalization and performativity have led to a narrowing of education in early years settings and schools, and this book considers the types of knowledge and capabilities children and educators need to address the challenges this presents. The chapters explore and critique existing practices in a range of areas including sustainability, inclusion, relationships with parents, ethics of care, and the role of the arts. Written by contributors based in Australia, Canada, Malta, the UK and the USA, the book offers theoretical discussion and practical strategies to help educators nurture young children's spirituality emphasising holistic approaches and caring relationships as an antidote to current neoliberal discourse.




Handbook of Curriculum Theory, Research, and Practice


Book Description

Zusammenfassung: This Handbook paints a portrait of what the international field of curriculum entails in theory, research and practice. It represents the field accurately and comprehensively by preserving the individual voices of curriculum theorist, researchers and practitioners in relation to the ideas, rules, and principles that have evolved out of the history of curriculum as theory, research and practice dealing with specific and general issues. Due to its approach to both specific and general curriculum issues, the chapters in this volume vary with respect to scope. Some engage the purposes and politics of schooling in general. Others focus on particular topics such as evaluation, the use of instructional objectives, or curriculum integration. They illustrate recurrent themes and historical antecedents and the curricular debates arising from and grounded in epistemological traditions. Furthermore, the issues raised in the handbook cut across a variety of subject areas and levels of education and how curricular research and practice have developed over time. This includes the epistemological foundations of dominant ideas in the field around theory, research and practice that have led to marginalization based on race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, religion, and ability. The book argues that basic curriculum issues extend well beyond schooling to include the concerns of anyone interested in how people come to acquire the knowledge, skills, and values that they do in relation to subjectivity and experience




Walking in the Wilderness


Book Description

People of faith are struggling these days as they watch unbelievable events unfold. The United States, once a refuge for immigrants, has closed its borders to many of the world's most vulnerable citizens. Fear of people different from us has created an atmosphere of hatred, incivility, and violence. We are living in a time of wilderness and exile. Yet the wilderness is a familiar place for those who follow Jesus. Like Jesus, we spend 40 days in the wilderness. During Lent God calls us to examine ourselves, repent, and make room in our lives for the Holy One. Walking in the Wilderness is meant to be a companion for readers' journey through Lent. It may be studied by individuals or groups. The book includes daily reflections for Ash Wednesday through Easter. Sunday of each week introduces a spiritual practice for the wilderness. The practices for the six Sundays of Lent are Being Present, Lament, Lectio Divina, Trust, Compassion, and Hospitality. Each reading contains a quotation from an Upper Room resource, a short scripture passage, an insightful reflection and prayer written by Richardson, and a single word for readers to carry with them throughout the day. "We come hungry to this season of Lent," Richardson writes, "hungry for words of life, for rituals of preparation, for disciplines to help us on our way." Walking in the Wilderness provides a spiritual feast for readers during the longest season of the Christian year.




The Ethic of Traditional Communities and the Spirit of Healing Justice


Book Description

In this groundbreaking international comparative study on healing justice, the author examines a number of traditional communities. Sawatsky identifies the common patterns, themes, and imagination which these communities share. These commonalities among those that practice healing justice are then examined for their implications for wider society.




Jesus Journey


Book Description

Jesus was human, like you and me. If the gospel is true, he still is. Christians worldwide believe that Jesus is God. But this belief wasn’t the starting point for Jesus’ earliest followers. While Jesus’ humanity was a given for the disciples, his divinity was a truth they grew into believing—it was a journey of faith. As Christians today, we are also called into a faith journey—this time, to rediscover Jesus’ humanity. Yes, we believe that Jesus is God, but do we truly believe that Jesus is human? And if so, how does that transform our own experience of being human? Through eye-opening yet down-to-earth reflections, Jesus Journey invites you to encounter Jesus again—as if for the first time—by experiencing his breathing, heart-beating, body-and-blood, crying-and-laughing humanity. Join Bible teacher and storyteller Trent Sheppard as he shines new light on the vibrant humanity of the historical Jesus through an up-close look at Jesus’ relationships with Mary and Joseph, with the God he called Abba, with his closest friends and followers, and how, ultimately, his crucifixion and resurrection finally and forever redefine what we mean by the word God. Come encounter the human who radically transforms our view of God. Come encounter the God who forever changes what it means to be human.




James Dickey and the Gentle Ecstasy of Earth


Book Description

Robert Kirschten maintains that most formal analyses of Jams Dickey’s poetry have been unsatisfactory or at best only partially complete. Some critics have labeled Dickey an American romantic, while others have called him a mystic, a pantheist, a comic poet. In James Dickey and the Gentle Ecstasy of Earth, Kirschten provides a fuller understanding of Dickey’s lyric vision by employing what Ronald Crane calls “multiple working hypotheses.” The first three of these—mysticism, neoplatonism, and romanticism—serve primarily to align general traits in Dickey’s poetry with familiar literary traditions. The fourth of Kirschten’s hypotheses—primitivism—is drawn from the field of anthropology. Kirschten shows that such anthropological concepts as magic, rites of passage, and ritual violence are vital in describing Dickey’s central methods. After synthesizing the four hypotheses to establish a critical base, Kirschten investigates three crucial elements in Dickey’s poetry: his lyric speakers, central narrative devices, and poetic diction. The final chapter, in a culmination of the entire investigation, offers a reading of the long poem “The Shark’s Parlor.” Kirschten’s study reveals a sure grasp of the philosophical principles of literary criticism as well as a wide range of reading, especially in the literature of romanticism. This lucid examination gives us genuine new insights into the work of one of the country’s premier poets.




Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies, Volume 19, Number 1


Book Description

THE JOURNAL SEEKS TO PROVIDE A FORUM: To encourage serious theological thinking and articulation by Pentecostals/Charismatics in Asia; to promote interaction among Asian Pentecostals/Charismatics and dialogue with other Christian traditions; to stimulate creative contextualization of the Christian faith; and to provide a means for Pentecostals/Charismatics to share their theological reflections.