Quest for Eternal Sunshine


Book Description

Quest for Eternal Sunshine chronicles the triumphant, true story of Mendek Rubin, a brilliant inventor who overcame both the trauma of the Holocaust and decades of unrelenting depression to live a life of deep peace and boundless joy. Born into a Hassidic Jewish family in Poland in 1924, Mendek grew up surrounded by extreme anti-Semitism. Armed with an ingenious mind, he survived three horrific years in Nazi slave-labor concentration camps while virtually his entire family was murdered in Auschwitz. After arriving in America in 1946—despite having no money or professional skills—his inventions helped revolutionize both the jewelry and packaged-salad industries. Remarkably, Mendek also applied his ingenuity to his own psyche, developing innovative ways to heal his heart and end his emotional suffering. After Mendek died in 2012, his daughter, Myra Goodman, found an unfinished manuscript in which he’d revealed the intimate details of his healing journey. Quest for Eternal Sunshine—the extraordinary result of a posthumous father-daughter collaboration—tells Mendek’s whole story and is filled with eye-opening revelations, effective self-healing techniques, and profound wisdom that have the power to transform the way we live our lives. An inspirational biography of a Holocaust survivor overcoming depression and PTSD. An essential new addition to Jewish Holocaust history.




American Philosophy


Book Description

The epic wisdom contained in a lost library helps the author turn his life around John Kaag is a dispirited young philosopher at sea in his marriage and his career when he stumbles upon West Wind, a ruin of an estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that belonged to the eminent Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy and a direct intellectual descendent of William James, the father of American philosophy and psychology, with whom Kaag feels a deep kinship. It is James’s question “Is life worth living?” that guides this remarkable book. The books Kaag discovers in the Hocking library are crawling with insects and full of mold. But he resolves to restore them, as he immediately recognizes their importance. Not only does the library at West Wind contain handwritten notes from Whitman and inscriptions from Frost, but there are startlingly rare first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As Kaag begins to catalog and read through these priceless volumes, he embarks on a thrilling journey that leads him to the life-affirming tenets of American philosophy—self-reliance, pragmatism, and transcendence—and to a brilliant young Kantian who joins him in the restoration of the Hocking books. Part intellectual history, part memoir, American Philosophy is ultimately about love, freedom, and the role that wisdom can play in turning one’s life around.




Charity and Its Fruits


Book Description




Being Human in the Ultimate


Book Description

For John M. Anderson philosophy, as the love of wisdom, is a concern for what is ultimate. The essays in this volume take to heart this understanding of philosophy, and are therefore responses to the ultimate. The first four essays by Kaelin, Schrag, Baillif and Johnstone, deal with Anderson's own account of ultimacy as it is presented in his reflections on the aesthetic occasion, the experience of the sublime, on freedom and on insight. The concern for what is ultimate is formulated differently by each of the other eight essays. Desmond articulates ways of our encounter with the ultimate by means of what he calls essential perplexity. Gendlin reflects on Aristotle's characterization of thinking as an activity that is ultimate. Biemel and Lingis present death as an aspect of the ultimate. Hersch sees our loss of meaning and value as the result of our refusal of finitude and thus of our denial of the ultimate which reveals itself in this finitude. Ginsberg initiates us into the ultimacy of the human encounter that is dialogue. Verene speaks of the ultimate through his account of the fool. For Kockelmans philosophy, unlike science, deals with what-is as it manifests itself in our encounter with our lived world which is a source of meaning, and in that sense an ultimate. Finally, John M. Anderson writes of the awareness of our becoming more than we are, and does so by bespeaking the origin of the dialogue we are.




Relational Depth


Book Description

This wide-ranging textbook offers a fascinating survey of the latest thinking and research on in-depth therapeutic encounters by bringing together the latest theory, research and practice on working at relational depth with clients in counselling and psychotherapy. By exploring the meaning, challenges and experiences of relational depth, it provides insight into an important dimension of therapeutic practice and, for many, will act as a guide to new ways of thinking about their therapeutic relationships. This book is an essential read for all trainees and practitioners in counselling and psychotherapy who want to deepen their levels of therapeutic relating.




Aphorisms on Love and Hate


Book Description

'We must learn to love, learn to be kind, and this from our earliest youth ... Likewise, hatred must be learned and nurtured, if one wishes to become a proficient hater' This volume contains a selection of Nietzsche's brilliant and challenging aphorisms, examining the pleasures of revenge, the falsity of pity, and the incompatibility of marriage with the philosophical life. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Nietzsche's works available in Penguin Classics are A Nietzsche Reader, Beyond Good and Evil, Ecce Homo, Human, All Too Human, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Birth of Tragedy, The Portable Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight of Idols and Anti-Christ.




American Liturgy


Book Description

How can celebrating the “holy days” of American culture help us to understand what it means to be both Christian and American? In timely essays on Super Bowl Sunday, Mother’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and other holidays of the secular calendar, James Calvin Davis explores the wisdom that Christian tradition brings to our sense of American identity, as well as the ways in which American culture might prompt us to discern the imperatives of faith in new ways. Rather than demonizing culture or naively baptizing it, Davis models a bidirectional mode of reflection, where faith convictions and cultural values converse with and critique one another. Focusing on topics like politics, race, parenting, music, and sports, these essays remind us that culture is as much human accomplishment and gift as it is a challenge to Christian values, and there is insight to be discovered in a theologically astute investment in America’s “holy days.”




Discovering the Word of Wisdom


Book Description

This book is a lively exploration of the amazing revelation known to Mormons as the “Word of Wisdom.” It counsels us how and what we should eat to reach our highest potential, both physically and spiritually. New and surprising insights are presented through the perspective of what has been proven to be the healthiest human diet, a way of eating supported both by history and by science: a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) diet. WFPB vegetarian diets have been scientifically proven to both prevent and cure chronic disease, help you achieve your maximum physical potential, and make it easy to reach and maintain your ideal weight. In this book, you’ll find the stories of dozens of people who are enjoying the blessings of following a Word of Wisdom diet, and you’ll get concrete advice on how to get started! You will discover: What we should and should not eat to enjoy maximum physical health. How food is intimately connected to our spiritual well being. Why Latter-day Saints are succumbing to the same chronic diseases as the rest of the population, despite not smoking, drinking, or doing drugs. How the Word of Wisdom was designed specifically for our day. How you can receive the “hidden treasures” and other blessings promised in the Word of Wisdom. Why eating the foods God has ordained for our use is better not just for our bodies, but for the animals and for the earth. You may think you know what the Word of Wisdom says, but you’ll be amazed at what you have missed. Learn why Mormons all over the world are “waking up” to the Word of Wisdom!