The Road Less Traveled: My Journey to Unexpected Destinations


Book Description

Embark on a transformative journey with Arlo Caspian, as he throws caution to the wind and ventures beyond the confines of the familiar. Prepare to be swept away by his captivating chronicle of unexpected destinations, exhilarating challenges, and profound self-discovery. This is a story about embracing the whispers of your heart, defying expectations, and discovering the extraordinary that awaits on the road less traveled. Join Arlo and witness firsthand the transformative power of the unknown as he navigates breathtaking landscapes, vibrant cultures, and encounters beings beyond earthly imagination. This autobiography is a testament to the courage required to forge your own path, a celebration of the unexpected gifts that life offers, and a reminder that the most meaningful experiences often lie beyond the horizon. Get ready to be surprised, challenged, and ultimately inspired as you embark on this journey alongside Arlo Caspian.




The Road Less Traveled


Book Description

The Road Less Traveled is an undeniable example of a mothers intense love and devotion. As the mother of a son with multiple special needs, Heidi shares the rollercoaster of events that took place before, during, and after the adoption of her son AJ. While believing she was changing his life, he truly changed hers.




One Year Alone with God


Book Description

Hard Sayings: The Rhetoric of Christian Orthodoxy in Late Modern Fiction by Thomas F. Haddox examines the work of six avowedly Christian writers of fiction in the period from World War II to the present. This period is often characterized in western societies by such catchphrases as "postmodernism" and "secularization," with the frequent implication that orthodox belief in the dogmas of Christianity has become untenable among educated readers. How, then, do we account for the continued existence of writers of self-consciously literary fiction who attempt to persuade readers of the truth, desirability, and utility of the dogmas of Christianity? Is it possible to take these writers' efforts on their own terms and to understand and evaluate the rhetorical strategies that this kind of persuasion might entail? Informed by the school of rhetorical narratology that includes such critics as Wayne Booth, James Phelan, and Richard Walsh, Hard Sayings offers fresh new readings of fictive works by Flannery O'Connor, Muriel Spark, John Updike, Walker Percy, Mary Gordon, and Marilynne Robinson. In its argument that orthodox Christianity, as represented in fiction, still has the power to persuade and to trouble, it contributes to ongoing debates about the nature and scope of modernity, postmodernity, and secularization.




The Geography of Bliss


Book Description

What makes a nation happy? Is one country's sense of happiness the same as another's? In the last two decades, psychologists and economists have learned a lot about who's happy and who isn't. The Dutch are, the Romanians aren't, and Americans are somewhere in between... After years of going to the world's least happy countries, Eric Weiner, a veteran foreign correspondent, decided to travel and evaluate each country's different sense of happiness and discover the nation that seemed happiest of all. ·He discovers the relationship between money and happiness in tiny and extremely wealthy Qatar (and it's not a good one) ·He goes to Thailand, and finds that not thinking is a contented way of life. ·He goes to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and discovers they have an official policy of Gross National Happiness! ·He asks himself why the British don't do happiness? In Weiner's quest to find the world's happiest places, he eats rotten Icelandic shark, meditates in Bangalore, visits strip clubs in Bangkok and drinks himself into a stupor in Reykjavik. Full of inspired moments, The Geography of Bliss accomplishes a feat few travel books dare and even fewer achieve: to make you happier.




Here Not There


Book Description

Design a truly unique vacation with 100 intriguing alternatives to more predictable, expensive, and overcrowded destinations. Let’s face it. These days, many of the world’s most beloved places have become expensive and overcrowded, making their celebrated allure that much harder to enjoy. But fear not: Here Not There helps you create a more robust, off-the-beaten path vacation by revealing 100 alternative destinations to the standard travel playbook—as well as expert tips on when to visit, where to eat, what to see, and where to stay. In this surprising collection of lively travel itineraries, you’ll find authentic, unexpected, and rewarding destinations of a lifetime to add to your bucket list, including: A trip to Quito, Ecuador, instead of Lima, Peru, for iconic architecture and top-notch South American cuisine. A road trip along West Virginia’s byways instead of New England’s highways for brilliant autumn colors. A romantic rendezvous to Lecce, Italy, instead of mega-touristed Florence for art, wine, and artifacts. A hiking excursion in Chile’s Lake District instead of England’s for an unexpected natural wonder. A theater-infused visit to Cleveland, Ohio, where the performances match the levels of New York City’s Broadway. A tour of Portugal’s Azores, rather than the Hawaiian islands, for flora, fauna, and underwater adventures. A water-filled excursion through New York’s Thousand Islands instead of a cruise down Germany’s Rhine River. A trip to Detroit to find Art Deco skyscrapers (and even a beach in Motown) that rival those of Miami. Both surprising and inspiring, Here Not There offers readers a chance to think beyond our typical borders and discover undreamed-of destinations.




Unexpected Destinations


Book Description

From Billy Graham to a Trappist monastery, from Capitol Hill to the helm of the Reformed Church in America, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson s personal pilgrimage has covered the length and breadth of Christianity in America. Now, drawing upon forty years of his own spiritual journals, this elder statesman of the church crystallizes his wide-ranging experiences into a sharp, lively memoir. Unexpected Destinations reveals a unique encounter with evangelical piety, Catholic contemplative spirituality, Reformed theology, Pentecostal practice, and ecumenical efforts an encounter that dares to envision unity between all these strands of Christianity. It provides fresh historical insights into the evangelical subculture of the 1970s, sheds new light on how denominations today grapple inwardly with such issues as homosexuality and missional renewal, and poignantly relates the joy and pain of one man s spiritual life journey.




Inside the Broken Heart


Book Description

How does the heart understand grief when it is broken by the death of a husband or wife? To survive and live forward, those who grieve must find answers. Inside the Broken Heart is for anyone who has ever grieved the death of a spouse and asked 'why?' The book meets the reader at a spiritual place reserved specifically for widows and widowers. Author Julie Yarbrough survived the sudden and untimely death of her beloved husband, a prominent United Methodist minister. As a lay grief facilitator, she believes that those who seek comfort and inspiration in grief best identify with an authentic point of view. We grieve because we love, in direct proportion to the depth of our love. Spousal love is a sacred gift ordained by God, the death of husband or wife unlike any other experience of loss. The marriage vow moment 'until death do us part' forever changes those who survive. Grief cannot be understood until it is experienced. Grief is not a crisis of faith, it is a crisis of the heart. Inside the Broken Heart uses topical references from the Bible to illuminate the unfamiliar emotions and questions of grief for the surviving spouse. Because we must grieve in order to live, the book explains spiritual and practical issues of grief and suggests specific coping strategies for widows and widowers. As journey through 'the valley of the shadow of death,' Inside the Broken Heart guides the way back to fullness of life. Through rediscovery of hope, pain and sorrow are vanquished, death is rendered powerless, and grief is no more. We are healed by God's triumphant adequacy, 'He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds' (Psalm 147:3).




Miraculous Days with Mohanji


Book Description

After a Master's degree in Physics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), I dived straight into a a world of utter materialism for nineteen plus years working in information technology. Ran the corporate rat race by day, dabbled in comfort zone spirituality by night. Engineer by trade, Analytical by mind, Wanderer by heart, Lost as a soul. I had my separate material and spiritual worlds. Neatly compartmentalized and entered as per convenience. That was until I met my spiritual Master, Mohanji and started travelling with Him. A journey of five years and counting that shook my foundations. The worlds collided, went topsy-turvy, and spun out of control. Join me in my walk with a Master on the road less traveled, expecting the unexpected, and making sense of the nonsense.




Traveling to Unknown Places


Book Description

Traveling to Unknown Places presents a compelling, incisive analysis of how French and American writers reshaped their personal and collective identities as they traveled in foreign countries after the social upheavals of the eighteenth-century Atlantic revolutions. Delving into the experiences of renowned figures like Flora Tristan and Margaret Fuller alongside lesser-known postrevolutionary travelers, this book illuminates how cross-cultural encounters pushed writers to redefine their views of nationality, language, race, slavery, gender, religion, science, and political ideologies. Lloyd Kramer deftly demonstrates how unsettling journeys challenged cultural preconceptions and fostered introspective writings that transcended geographical boundaries. By interweaving the perspectives of women and men whose travels led them far beyond their youthful social origins, Kramer unveils a rich tapestry of evolving selfhood, ambition, and political consciousness across the Atlantic world. Each traveler's experience was unique, but long journeys connected all these nineteenth-century writers with others who had traveled before; and trips into unknown, distant cultures also carried travelers toward previously unknown places within themselves.




Nowhere for Very Long


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER • USA TODAY! BESTSELLER In this beautifully written, vividly detailed memoir, a young woman chronicles her adventures traveling across the deserts of the American West in an orange van named Bertha and reflects on an unconventional approach to life. A woman defined by motion, Brianna Madia bought a beat-up bright orange van, filled it with her two dogs Bucket and Dagwood, and headed into the canyons of Utah with her husband. Nowhere for Very Long is her deeply felt, immaculately told story of exploration—of the world outside and the spirit within. However, pursuing a life of intention isn’t always what it seems. In fact, at times it was downright boring, exhausting, and even desperate—when Bertha overheated and she was forced to pull over on a lonely stretch of South Dakota highway; when the weather was bitterly cold and her water jugs froze beneath her as she slept in the parking lot of her office; when she worried about money, her marriage, and the looming question mark of her future. But Brianna was committed to living a life true to herself, come what may, and that made all the difference. Nowhere for Very Long is the true story of a woman learning and unlearning, from backroads to breakdowns, from married to solo, and finally, from lost to found to lost again . . . this time, on purpose.