Download or read book Ravished by Beauty written by Belden C. Lane and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-05-05 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Belden Lane weaves autobiographical essays that illuminate his own experience of nature into a "green theology" drawn from the unexpected resources of Reformed Christian spirituality. He offers a surprising new portrait of the Reformed tradition, revealing a Calvin who spoke of himself as "ravished" by the earth's beauty and a Jonathan Edwards who urged a sensuous enjoyment of God's beauty as the only real way of knowing God. Lane explores the apparent paradox of Reformed spirituality, arguing that Calvinists who may seem prudish are in fact a people of passionate desire.
Download or read book Ravished by Beauty written by Belden C. Lane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-21 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this novel exploration of Reformed spirituality, Belden C. Lane uncovers a "green theology" that celebrates a community of jubilant creatures of all languages and species. Lane reveals an ecologically sensitive Calvin who spoke of himself as ''ravished'' by the earth's beauty. He speaks of Puritans who fostered a ''lusty'' spirituality in which Christ figured as a lover who encouraged meditation on the wonders of creation. He presents a Jonathan Edwards who urged a sensuous ''enjoyment'' of God's beauty as the only real way of knowing God. Lane argues for the ''double irony'' of Reformed spirituality, showing that Calvinists who often seem prudish and proper are in fact a people of passionate desire. Similarly, Reformed Christians who appear totally focused on divine transcendence turn out at times to be closet nature mystics, exulting in God's glory everywhere. Lane also demonstrates, however, that a spirituality of desire can be derailed, ending in sexual excess and pantheism. Ecologically, holy longing can be redirected from a contemplation of God's splendor in the earth's beauty to a craving for land itself, resulting in disastrous misuse of its resources. Between the major chapters of the book are engaging personal essays drawn from the author's own love of nature as a Reformed Christian, and providing a thoughtful discussion of contemporary issues of species diversity and the honoring of an earth community.
Download or read book Ravished by Beauty written by Belden C. Lane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-21 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this novel exploration of Reformed spirituality, Belden C. Lane uncovers a "green theology" that celebrates a community of jubilant creatures of all languages and species. Lane reveals an ecologically sensitive Calvin who spoke of himself as ''ravished'' by the earth's beauty. He speaks of Puritans who fostered a ''lusty'' spirituality in which Christ figured as a lover who encouraged meditation on the wonders of creation. He presents a Jonathan Edwards who urged a sensuous ''enjoyment'' of God's beauty as the only real way of knowing God. Lane argues for the ''double irony'' of Reformed spirituality, showing that Calvinists who often seem prudish and proper are in fact a people of passionate desire. Similarly, Reformed Christians who appear totally focused on divine transcendence turn out at times to be closet nature mystics, exulting in God's glory everywhere. Lane also demonstrates, however, that a spirituality of desire can be derailed, ending in sexual excess and pantheism. Ecologically, holy longing can be redirected from a contemplation of God's splendor in the earth's beauty to a craving for land itself, resulting in disastrous misuse of its resources. Between the major chapters of the book are engaging personal essays drawn from the author's own love of nature as a Reformed Christian, and providing a thoughtful discussion of contemporary issues of species diversity and the honoring of an earth community.
Download or read book Ravished written by Amanda Quick and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2009-12-23 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the cozy confines of a tiny seaside village to the glittering crush of the a fashionable London soiree comes an enthralling tale of a thoroughly mismatched couple . . . poised to discover the rapture of love. There was no doubt about it. What Miss Harriet Pomeroy needed was a man. Someone powerful and clever who could help her rout the unscrupulous thieves who were using her beloved caves to hide their loot. But when Harriet summoned Gideon Westbrook, Viscount St. Justin, to her aid, she could not know that she was summoning the devil himself. . . . Dubbed the Beast of Blackthorne Hall for his scarred face and lecherous past, Gideon was strong and fierce and notoriously menacing. Yet Harriet could not find it in her heart to fear him. For in his tawny gaze she sensed a savage pain she longed to soothe . . . and a searing passion she yearned to answer. Now, caught up in the Beast’s clutches, Harriet must find a way to win his heart–and evade the deadly trap of a scheming villain who would see them parted for all time.
Download or read book The Ravished Bride written by Sheila O'Hallion and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful new romance from the author of The Captured Heart. At the tender age of 20, Princess Margaret Drummond is the fairest maid in all Christendom. But the headstrong beauty will not be a pawn in a heartless royal game and, when she's betrothed to an elderly monarch, Margaret's only hope lies in escape--and in the arms of the renegade rebel Jamie MacDonel.
Download or read book Enslave written by Cathy Yardley and published by Avon Red. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Enslave, author Cathy Yardley updates the famous “Beauty and the Beast” story, giving it a distinctly adult, deliciously erotic treatment. Having previously reimagined “Sleeping Beauty” (Ravish) and “Snow White” (Crave), Yardley now completes the trilogy, cementing her reputation as one of the hottest stars of literary erotica with a steamy and sensation bedtime tale that would make the Brothers Grimm blush. Some fairy tales are definitely not for children!
Download or read book Landscapes of the Sacred written by Belden C. Lane and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This substantially expanded edition of Belden C. Lane's Landscapes of the Sacred includes a new introductory chapter that offers three new interpretive models for understanding American sacred space. Lane maintains his approach of interspersing shorter and more personal pieces among full-length essays that explore how Native American, early French and Spanish, Puritan New England, and Catholic Worker traditions has each expressed the connection between spirituality and place. A new section at the end of the book includes three chapters that address methodological issues in the study of spirituality, the symbol-making process of religious experience, and the tension between place and placelessness in Christian spirituality.
Download or read book The Great Conversation written by Belden C. Lane and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the face of climate change, species loss, and vast environmental destruction, Belden C. Lane's spiritually centered environmentalism suggests that we must look to teachers in nature to understand how to save ourselves. Pairing anecdotes of personal encounters with nature with the teachings of spiritual leaders from a range of religious traditions, this book invites us to participate once more in the great conversation among all creatures and the earth itself.
Download or read book The Second Commandment written by Joey R. Peyton and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2024-02-07 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an increasingly broken world filled with hate and violence, God’s plan from the beginning was to save and restore the world to the glory for which he had created it. This simple plan has not changed with the evolution of sin, time, or man’s rejection of his creator. Rather, God’s simple twofold plan of redemption included both a commandment to love the creator with all one’s heart, mind, soul, and strength, and a commandment to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. Neither commandment stands in isolation, for one cannot fully love others without a consuming love for God, and neither can one completely love God without a love for the neighbor created by God. The answer to hate is love; the answer to war is love; the answer to violence is love; and the answer to all of societal disfunction is love. The answer is not a commandment to like God and others, because one only likes others because of likeness. Rather, love is a choice. A choice to love what you don’t like. A choice to love what you don’t understand. A choice to love until the God you love sets everything right in eternity.
Download or read book Reformed Spirituality written by Howard L. Rice and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Rice makes a concerted effort to point us toward new and exciting avenues of spiritual growth and development. I find the book provocative, stimulating, and challenging".---Ben Campbell Johnson, Peachtree Professor of Evangelism and Church Growth, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia
Download or read book Ravished by the Rake written by Louise Allen and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2012-01-24 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Vivacious lady Perdita Brooke prides herself on her social poise ... except when faced with devastatingly dashing Alistair Lyndon. The dreamy young man Dita once knew is now a hardened rake, who clearly does not remember their passionate night together ... however much it's emblazoned on her memory! Now Dita has the perfect opportunity to remind Alistair of their sizzling chemistry. But soon she is in over her head. Provoking him is supposed to be a deliciously wicked game, with her holding all the cards -- until Alistair reveals the ace up his sleeve!"--Publisher.
Download or read book Ravished written by Pamela Slaughter and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Great and Terrible Beauty written by Libba Bray and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-05-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's 1895, and after the death of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's being followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls - and their foray into the spiritual world - lead to?
Download or read book Facing Beauty written by Aileen Ribeiro and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the history of the Western world, countless attempts have been made to define beauty in art and life. This text examines concepts of female beauty in terms of the ideal and the real, investigating paradigms of beauty as represented in art and literature and how beauty has been enhanced by cosmetics and hairstyles
Download or read book The Solace of Fierce Landscapes written by Belden C. Lane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-02-26 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Kathleen Norris, Terry Tempest Williams, and Thomas Merton, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes explores the impulse that has drawn seekers into the wilderness for centuries and offers eloquent testimony to the healing power of mountain silence and desert indifference. Interweaving a memoir of his mother's long struggle with Alzheimer's and cancer, meditations on his own wilderness experience, and illuminating commentary on the Christian via negativa--a mystical tradition that seeks God in the silence beyond language--Lane rejects the easy affirmations of pop spirituality for the harsher but more profound truths that wilderness can teach us. "There is an unaccountable solace that fierce landscapes offer to the soul. They heal, as well as mirror, the brokeness we find within." It is this apparent paradox that lies at the heart of this remarkable book: that inhuman landscapes should be the source of spiritual comfort. Lane shows that the very indifference of the wilderness can release us from the demands of the endlessly anxious ego, teach us to ignore the inessential in our own lives, and enable us to transcend the "false self" that is ever-obsessed with managing impressions. Drawing upon the wisdom of St. John of the Cross, Meister Eckhardt, Simone Weil, Edward Abbey, and many other Christian and non-Christian writers, Lane also demonstrates how those of us cut off from the wilderness might "make some desert" in our lives. Written with vivid intelligence, narrative ease, and a gracefulness that is itself a comfort, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes gives us not only a description but a "performance" of an ancient and increasingly relevant spiritual tradition.
Download or read book A Spirituality of Listening written by Keith R. Anderson and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2016-02-09 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God is speaking in our everyday world. How can we become more attuned to listening for God's voice? Keith Anderson walks us through key biblical themes that help us see and experience how God is present with us if we would only listen, paying attention to the moments that make up our days. Listen—and step into a world alive with God's presence.
Download or read book Backpacking with the Saints written by Belden C. Lane and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014-11-12 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carrying only basic camping equipment and a collection of the world's great spiritual writings, Belden C. Lane embarks on solitary spiritual treks through the Ozarks and across the American Southwest. For companions, he has only such teachers as Rumi, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Thomas Merton, and as he walks, he engages their writings with the natural wonders he encounters--Bell Mountain Wilderness with Søren Kierkegaard, Moonshine Hollow with Thich Nhat Hanh--demonstrating how being alone in the wild opens a rare view onto one's interior landscape, and how the saints' writings reveal the divine in nature. The discipline of backpacking, Lane shows, is a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Just as the wilderness offered revelations to the early Desert Christians, backpacking hones crucial spiritual skills: paying attention, traveling light, practicing silence, and exercising wonder. Lane engages the practice not only with a wide range of spiritual writings--Celtic, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi Muslim--but with the fascination of other lovers of the backcountry, from John Muir and Ed Abbey to Bill Plotkin and Cheryl Strayed. In this intimate and down-to-earth narrative, backpacking is shown to be a spiritual practice that allows the discovery of God amidst the beauty and unexpected terrors of nature. Adoration, Lane suggests, is the most appropriate human response to what we cannot explain, but have nonetheless learned to love. An enchanting narrative for Christians of all denominations, Backpacking with the Saints is an inspiring exploration of how solitude, simplicity, and mindfulness are illuminated and encouraged by the discipline of backcountry wandering, and of how the wilderness itself becomes a way of knowing-an ecology of the soul.
