Download or read book An Abecedarian of Sacred Trees written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-12-09 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every person has seen a tree and maybe planted or climbed one! In all world religions, various trees are considered sacred. Trees have the ability to help us reach wholeness if we learn their wisdom and integrate it into our lives. This abecedarian--a book whose contents are in alphabetical order--explores the spiritual growth that is possible by reflecting on the wisdom of woody plants, which help humans experience the divine. In these pages you can explore trees from Acacia to Zaqqum. For each of the forty entries, the author presents a text identifying the tree, a reflective study, a question for journaling or personal meditation, and a concluding prayer. Some trees you may have heard about, and some may be new to you. The spiritual life is enhanced by the trees that surround and share the earth with us while also disclosing the divine to us.

Download or read book An Abecedarian of Sacred Trees written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2016-12-09 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every person has seen a tree and maybe planted or climbed one! In all world religions, various trees are considered sacred. Trees have the ability to help us reach wholeness if we learn their wisdom and integrate it into our lives. This abecedarian--a book whose contents are in alphabetical order--explores the spiritual growth that is possible by reflecting on the wisdom of woody plants, which help humans experience the divine. In these pages you can explore trees from Acacia to Zaqqum. For each of the forty entries, the author presents a text identifying the tree, a reflective study, a question for journaling or personal meditation, and a concluding prayer. Some trees you may have heard about, and some may be new to you. The spiritual life is enhanced by the trees that surround and share the earth with us while also disclosing the divine to us.

Download or read book Tree Magic written by Sandra Kynes and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 60+ Trees to Deepen Your Connection with Nature Trees provide a gateway into a wider world of spirit and magic. This book helps you explore their timeless mysteries and work with their unique energy. Popular author Sandra Kynes shows you how to connect with the wonder of the forest and develop a deeper understanding and relationship with trees. This practical guide introduces you to more than sixty varieties of trees, providing illustrations, lore, botanical and historical information, ritual and magical uses, associated deities, and more. Sandra offers an abundance of resources, including correspondence charts, tree and rune calendars, and the Celtic ogham. Learn about tools from the woods like staffs, wands, and wreaths. Discover what items you can use to connect to a particular tree when it's not available in your area. Whether you're looking for a tree aligned with Venus or one to aid your divination, Tree Magic is the ideal resource to bring the magic, spirit, and wisdom of trees into your life.

Download or read book Monthly Entries for the Spiritual but not Religious through the Year written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about spirituality for the spiritual but not religious. Those who identify themselves as spiritual but not religious make up one quarter of the population in the United States. This book provides 189 monthly entries based on the national and international celebrations that occur every month. Each entry begins with the name of the occasion and the date when it is marked during the month. A text from the Bible, a US public law, a presidential proclamation, a United Nations declaration, etc. that illustrates the day is presented. The text is followed by a reflection which gleans the spirituality from the text and provides historical background on the day being celebrated. Journal/meditation questions follow the reflection, and a prayer concludes the entry. This book is for the spiritual but not religious, a practice of spirituality that does not regard organized religion as a valuable means to further interior spiritual growth. A section of the introduction to the book explores who the spiritual but not religious are and presents the common themes that surface from research about them.

Download or read book The Sacred Tree written by Carole M. Cusack and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2011-05-25 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fundamental nature of the tree as a symbol for many communities reflects the historical reality that human beings have always interacted with and depended upon trees for their survival. Trees provided one of the earliest forms of shelter, along with caves, and the bounty of trees, nuts, fruits, and berries, gave sustenance to gatherer-hunter populations. This study has concentrated on the tree as sacred and significant for a particular group of societies, living in the ancient and medieval eras in the geographical confines of Europe, and sharing a common Indo-European inheritance, but sacred trees are found throughout the world, in vastly different cultures and historical periods. Sacred trees feature in the religious frameworks of the Ghanaian Akan, Arctic Altaic shamanic communities, and in China and Japan. The power of the sacred tree as a symbol is derived from the fact that trees function as homologues of both human beings and of the cosmos. This study concentrates the tree as axis mundi (hub or centre of the world) and the tree as imago mundi (picture of the world). The Greeks and Romans in the ancient world, and the Irish, Anglo-Saxons, continental Germans and Scandinavians in the medieval world, all understood the power of the tree, and its derivative the pillar, as markers of the centre. Sacred trees and pillars dotted their landscapes, and the territory around them derived its meaning from their presence. Unfamiliar or even hostile lands could be tamed and made meaningful by the erection of a monument that replicated the sacred centre. Such monuments also linked with boundaries, and by extension with law and order, custom and tradition. The sacred tree and pillar as centre symbolized the stability of the cosmos and of society. When the Pagan peoples of Europe adopted Christianity, the sacred trees and pillars, visible signs of the presence of the gods in the landscape, were popular targets for axe-wielding saints and missionaries who desired to force the conversion of the landscape as well as the people. Yet Christianity had its own tree monument, the cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified, and which came to signify resurrected life and the conquest of eternal death for the devout. As European Pagans were converted to Christianity, their tree and pillar monuments were changed into Christian forms; the great standing crosses of Anglo-Saxon northern England played many of the same roles as Pagan sacred trees and pillars. Irish and Anglo-Saxons Christians often combined the image of the Tree of Life from the Garden of Eden with Christ on the cross, to produce a Christian version of the tree as imago mundi.

Download or read book Spirituality for the Solitary written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-06-15 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about spirituality for the solitary, those people who live alone. In the past they were known as hermits, eremites, and anchorites; today they are known as pioneers, mountain men and women, widows, widowers, and people who choose to live alone in the country or in the city. They spend their days like other ordinary people taking care of daily chores, but also spending some time in prayer and meditation. The solitary life is alive and well, and it appears in all world religions. The solitary seeks solitude for prayer, meditation, self-awareness, and personal development. Living alone in a house or apartment begins to transform one’s life; a person sets off on the path of purpose, the path of integrity, the path of transcendence that lifts his or her heart, mind, and spirit to the divine presence, God, who transforms more and more as the solitary dives deeper and deeper. This book provides an in-depth exploration of spirituality for the solitary along with eight-part exercises designed to further enhance solitary spirituality. Included are prayers, psalms in contemporary English, and celebrations using natural things, such as water, oil, and fire.

Download or read book Journey into God written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-01-28 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about spirituality, more specifically, the spiritual journey. Before beginning any journey or trip—spiritual or otherwise—we experience a state of order. Then comes the call to journey, to travel, to take a trip, to walk, to pilgrimage, to hit the road, etc. The call to begin a journey may come from an urge within us; it may be an invitation from a spouse or a friend to fly somewhere; it may be as simple as taking the dog for a walk in the neighborhood, even taking different streets! The call disrupts our ordered lives. We prepare for our excursion. We enter into the stage of chaos when we take the journey; also, we enter into the process of transformation. By the time we get home, we will be transformed. These are the steps of the spiritual journey into God: order, hearing the call to journey, answering the call with preparation, entering the chaos of the journey, and being and coming home transformed. Ninety-seven reflections are presented in this book in seven chapters devoted to journey; road; path; route, highway, gateway; walk; way; and more.

Download or read book Four Catholic Pioneers in Missouri Lamarque Kenrick Fox and Hogan written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-12-21 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about four Roman Catholic pioneers--explorers and developers--whose lives crossed each other's paths in Old Mines, Missouri, in the middle of the 1800s. Two of them were priests, and one of them was a bishop, then an archbishop. One was a laywoman, who was very generous with her riches. Three of them were not only of Irish descent but came from Ireland. The laywoman was French, and she came from Ste. Genevieve. The Great Potato Famine in Ireland in the 1840s brought all of them together in the oldest village in the state of Missouri: Old Mines. The potato famine brought many Irish to Missouri in the nineteenth century to farm, to build railroads, and to construct churches for worship. This is the story of pioneers Marie-Louise (Bolduc) Lamarque, Peter Richard Kenrick, James Fox, and John Joseph Hogan. Their lives crossed each other's paths in Old Mines, Missouri, a lead-mining village about sixty miles south of St. Louis (before St. Louis existed) and about forty miles east of Ste. Genevieve (before Ste. Genevieve existed).

Download or read book Sufism in Ottoman Damascus written by Nikola Pantić and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-29 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sufism in Ottoman Damascus analyzes thaumaturgical beliefs and practices prevalent among Muslims in eighteenth-century Ottoman Syria. The study focuses on historical beliefs in baraka, which religious authorities often interpreted as Allah's grace, and the alleged Sufi-ulamaic role in distributing it to Ottoman subjects. This book highlights considerable overlaps between Sufis and ʿulamāʾ with state appointments in early modern Province of Damascus, arguing for the possibility of sociologically defining a Muslim priestly sodality, a group of religious authorities and wonder-workers responsible for Sunni orthodoxy in the Ottoman Empire. The Sufi-ʿulamāʾ were integral to Ottoman networks of the holy, networks of grace that comprised of hallowed individuals, places, and natural objects. Sufism in Ottoman Damascus sheds new light on the appropriate scholarly approach to historical studies of Sufism in the Ottoman Empire, revising its position in official early modern versions of Ottoman Sunnism. This book further re-approaches early modern Sunni beliefs in wonders and wonder-working, as well as the relationship between religion, thaumaturgy, and magic in Ottoman Sunni Islam, historical themes comparable to other religions and other parts of the world.

Download or read book My Life of Ministry Writing Teaching and Traveling written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In My Life of Ministry, Writing, Teaching, and Traveling: The Autobiography of an Old Mines Missionary, I present my life as a child growing up in a French village about sixty miles south of St. Louis in the middle of the twentieth century. After eighteen years of life in Old Mines, the oldest settlement in the state of Missouri, I moved to St. Louis for four years and then to St. Meinrad, Indiana, for four years where education opened my eyes to a world very much larger than my village of origin. Life continued for me after ordination as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church in Springfield and Joplin, Missouri. Because my life is the thread stitching together this book, I have made it manageable by dividing it into four categories: ministry, writing, teaching, and travel. These categories contain the stories of others whose life threads of seventy years are woven into my lifetime tapestry. This is my autobiography—one of a missionary from Old Mines to the thirty-nine counties forming the southern third of the state of Missouri—composed during my seventieth year of life.

Download or read book Talk to God and Listen to the Casual Reply written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-11-30 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was born Henry John Deutschendorf Jr., on December 31, 1943, in Roswell, New Mexico. The general public knows him better as John Denver, trained architect, international performer, a man who sings about his experiences of living, and, in doing so, reveals his spirituality. On October 12, 1997, at the age of fifty-three, Denver died in Monterey Bay, California, in a solo airplane crash. Through the lyrics of his songs on more than sixty albums, Denver reveals his spirituality, that invisible force that motivates or inspires his personal spirit and gives insight and meaning to what he did and why he did it. This book is designed to guide the reader through an analysis of John Denver's spirituality, as it is gleaned and categorized according to major and minor themes that emerge from the lyrics of his songs. The reader is invited to experience Denver’s spirituality through a reflection section at the end of each chapter.

Download or read book Divine Presence written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2017-04-06 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The glory of the LORD," a phrase used over one hundred times in the Bible, describes God's greatness and transcendence. This complex theological concept exhibits several natural elements which describe a theophany, a personification of God in the forces of nature. Thus, a theophany--the appearance of God in a visible form--is the physical manifestation of the divine presence most frequently associated with a storm. Of all the biblical accounts that illustrate the glory of the LORD, the narrative of Moses' encounter with God on Mount Sinai (Horeb) contains nineteen of the twenty-one elements that reveal the glory of the LORD: mountains, sacred numbers, God's voice, people's (person's) response, cloud, water, thunder, lightning, trumpet blast, smoke, fire, earthquake, terms of the event (covenant), sign, transformation of witnesses, altar, feast (meal), wind, light and darkness, jewels (precious stones), and dreams. Each element is examined closely using biblical texts that best illustrate it.

Download or read book Smothered with Inexhaustible Mercy written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2023-03-17 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smothered with Inexhaustible Mercy: An Anthology of Poems represents almost fifty years of well-known spiritual master Mark G. Boyer's poetry writing. After writing seventy books of prose on spirituality and history, he has collected over two hundred of his poems and divided them into nineteen chapters (collections). You will find poems on Alaska, Christmas, Colorado, day and night, Easter, friendship, ocean, seasons, wind and rain, and more. Over the years, a few were published in now out-of-print journals, magazines, newspapers, and books, but most are taken from his handwritten files and organized according to themes, arranged alphabetically in this book. The poetry lover will find a variety of styles, rhythm, and length in this collection of poems that delve into the insight of things and people, because there is also more than what is at first perceived. As the title indicates, the author hopes that this book of poems smothers the reader with inexhaustible mercy.

Download or read book The Shelbydog Chronicles by Shelby Cole written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-12-01 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shelbydog Chronicles by Shelby Cole is a novel that illustrates what one brindle Labrador-Boxer mix, female dog says and thinks. With the help of Mark G. Boyer, who serves as the recorder of Shelby's words, Cole narrates the story of her life from birth, to puppyhood, into adulthood, and her life with several owners, including Boyer. Included in the thirteen chapters of this novel are Shelby's adventures and birthdays up to her tenth human year and sixty-seventh dog year. She also tells the story of how she came to live with Boyer and how he has become her translator from dog talk to English. This novel provides the readers--both dog-lovers and others--with a few hours of insight into what a dog says and what she thinks about through the years.

Download or read book All Things Mary written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-12-17 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All Things Mary provides reflections on all Scripture texts associated with celebrations in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary during the liturgical year, in addition to biblical texts presented in the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It honors the Mother of God as the exemplar of the Christian life by presenting an anthology of Marian reflections grounded in Scripture texts, litanies, and catechetical teaching about Mary. This book is designed to be used by individuals for private study and prayer and by ministers for study, prayer, and preaching. The goal of this book is to foster ordinary Marian spirituality as it flows from the Bible. An eight-part exercise is offered for each of the entries: (1) a title; (2) a footnote listing where a specific Scripture passage is used in Marian masses; (3) a text giving the notation for the biblical passage; (4) a few verses from the biblical text; (5) a two-paragraph reflection on the biblical text and its application to the Blessed Virgin Mary; (6) a second footnote identifying references to various post-Vatican II documents about Mary; (7) a journal/meditation question for personal appropriation of Mariology; and (8) a concluding prayer.

Download or read book From Contemplation to Action written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-09-10 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemplation is a spiritual process involving long, thoughtful, steady, serious, and attentive consideration or observation in order to achieve closer unity with God and to discover and understand God's will for the contemplative. Contemplation gives rise to activity, and activity, in turn, gives rise to more contemplation. The result of contemplation is often called discernment, seeing clearly what is at first not very clear or obvious, understanding what is not immediately obvious, resulting in accuracy of spiritual perception. Divine discernment is contemplation in action; it results in insight, inspiration, and an awareness of inner truth upon which one must act. While there are countless models of contemplation leading to action, the ninth-century BCE prophets Elijah and Elisha are the examples used in this book. Both are seers, messengers, and heralds of the LORD. They appear in activity when they are needed, and they disappear into solitude and silence when they are not.

Download or read book Very Short Reflections for Advent and Christmas Lent and Easter Ordinary Time and Saints through the Liturgical Year written by Mark G. Boyer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The title of this book, Very Short Reflections--for Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, Ordinary Time and Saints--through the Liturgical Year, accurately describes its contents. Chapter 1 presents a short reflection for every day of the Advent Season. Chapter 2 does the same for every day of the Christmas season. Lent is covered in chapter 3, the Sacred Paschal Triduum in chapter 4, and the fifty days of the Easter season in chapter 5. Chapter 6 covers Ordinary Time. And chapter 7 presents a short reflection for every solemnity, feast, and memorial of saints, whose special day falls during the liturgical year. The short reflections are based on sets of Mass texts--Entrance Antiphon, Collect, Prayer over the Offerings, Preface, Communion Antiphon, Prayer after Communion, and Prayer over the People--presented for every day of Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, Ordinary Time and saints in The Roman Missal. The reflection identifies the theme of the day and presents how it is manifested in the Mass texts. These very short reflections are designed to expose to the reader the liturgical spirituality that emanates from the Mass texts.