Download or read book The Avian Gospels written by Adam Novy and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction. A city without a name is cursed by a plague of birds they probably deserve. But when an angry beggar child and his father learn they have the power to lift the curse—they "control" birds—they cannot agree on how to use their gift, and end up using it on each other, taking out everyone around them, especially those they love. This is BOOK II of a two-volume novel.

Download or read book The Avian Gospels written by Adam Novy and published by Short Flight/Long Drive Books. This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiction. A city without a name is cursed by a plague of birds they probably deserve. But when an angry beggar child and his father learn they have the power to lift the curse—they "control" birds—they cannot agree on how to use their gift, and end up using it on each other, taking out everyone around them, especially those they love. Includes Book I and Book 2 of a two-volume novel.

Download or read book The Cornbread Gospels written by Crescent Dragonwagon and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2007-11-22 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Cornbread? I LOVE cornbread!” For six years, that’s the response Crescent Dragonwagon got when people asked her what she was writing about. Over time, she came to understand: Not only is hot, just baked cornbread delicious, it evokes—powerfully—the heart, soul, and taste of home. There is an abundance of satisfying cornbreads, as Crescent discovered when she followed the cornbread trail from the Appalachians to the Rockies to the Green Mountains. Traveling to family reunions, potlucks, tortilleras, stone-grinding mills, and the National Cornbread Festival in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee, she heard the stories, tasted the breads, learned the secrets. Join her in this overflowing cornucopia: over 200 irresistible recipes for cornbreads, muffins, fritters, pancakes, and go-withs. Cornbreads from below the Mason-Dixon line (Skillet-Sizzled Buttermilk Cornbread, Truman Capote’s Family’s Alabama Cornbread) meet those from above (Durgin-Park Boston Cornbread, Vermont Maple-Sweetened Cornbread). Southwestern offerings—Chou-Chou’s Dallas Hot Stuff Cornbread, delectable homemade tamales, and tortillas from scratch—meet internationals like India’s Makki Ki Roti. A Thanksgiving with Crescent’s Sweet-Savory Cornbread Dressing is rapturous. Desserts like Very Lemony Gorgeous Cornmeal Pound Cake make any meal exceptional. Along with this, Crescent gives us the greens, the beans, the salads, stews, and soups that accompany cornbread to perfection. And she tells us the stories, too. Enthusiastic and heartfelt, this thoughtful, exuberant love song to America’s favorite breadstuff and all that goes with it will embrace readers and cooks everywhere.

Download or read book When God Was a Bird written by Mark I. Wallace and published by Fordham Univ Press. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a time of rapid climate change and species extinction, what role have the world’s religions played in ameliorating—or causing—the crisis we now face? Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, appears to bear a disproportionate burden for creating humankind’s exploitative attitudes toward nature through unearthly theologies that divorce human beings and their spiritual yearnings from their natural origins. In this regard, Christianity has become an otherworldly religion that views the natural world as “fallen,” as empty of signs of God’s presence. And yet, buried deep within the Christian tradition are startling portrayals of God as the beaked and feathered Holy Spirit – the “animal God,” as it were, of historic Christian witness. Through biblical readings, historical theology, continental philosophy, and personal stories of sacred nature, this book recovers the model of God in Christianity as a creaturely, avian being who signals the presence of spirit in everything, human and more-than-human alike. Mark Wallace’s recovery of the bird-God of the Bible signals a deep grounding of faith in the natural world. The moral implications of nature-based Christianity are profound. All life is deserving of humans’ care and protection insofar as the world is envisioned as alive with sacred animals, plants, and landscapes. From the perspective of Christian animism, the Earth is the holy place that God made and that humankind is enjoined to watch over and cherish in like manner. Saving the environment, then, is not a political issue on the left or the right of the ideological spectrum, but, rather, an innermost passion shared by all people of faith and good will in a world damaged by anthropogenic warming, massive species extinction, and the loss of arable land, potable water, and breathable air. To Wallace, this passion is inviolable and flows directly from the heart of Christian teaching that God is a carnal, fleshy reality who is promiscuously incarnated within all things, making the whole world a sacred embodiment of God’s presence, and worthy of our affectionate concern. This beautifully and accessibly written book shows that “Christian animism” is not a strange oxymoron, but Christianity’s natural habitat. Challenging traditional Christianity’s self-definition as an other-worldly religion, Wallace paves the way for a new Earth-loving spirituality grounded in the ancient image of an animal God.

Download or read book The Dionysian Gospel written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.” Dennis R. MacDonald offers a provocative explanation of those scandalous words of Christ from the Fourth Gospel—an explanation that he argues would hardly have surprised some of the Gospel’s early readers. John sounds themes that would have instantly been recognized as proper to the Greek god Dionysos (the Roman Bacchus), not least as he was depicted in Euripides’s play The Bacchae. A divine figure, the offspring of a divine father and human mother, takes on flesh to live among mortals, but is rejected by his own. He miraculously provides wine and offers it as a sacred gift to his devotees, women prominent among them, dies a violent death—and returns to life. Yet John takes his drama in a dramatically different direction: while Euripides’s Dionysos exacts vengeance on the Theban throne, the Johannine Christ offers life to his followers. MacDonald employs mimesis criticism to argue that the earliest Evangelist not only imitated Euripides but expected his readers to recognize Jesus as greater than Dionysos.

Download or read book The Gospels and Homer written by Dennis R. MacDonald and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-11-05 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These two volumes of The New Testament and Greek Literature are the magnum opus of biblical scholar Dennis R. MacDonald, outlining the profound connections between the New Testament and classical Greek poetry. MacDonald argues that the Gospel writers borrowed from established literary sources to create stories about Jesus that readers of the day would find convincing. In The Gospels and Homer MacDonald leads readers through Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, highlighting models that the authors of the Gospel of Mark and Luke-Acts may have imitated for their portrayals of Jesus and his earliest followers such as Paul. The book applies mimesis criticism to show the popularity of the targets being imitated, the distinctiveness in the Gospels, and evidence that ancient readers recognized these similarities. Using side-by-side comparisons, the book provides English translations of Byzantine poetry that shows how Christian writers used lines from Homer to retell the life of Jesus. The potential imitations include adventures and shipwrecks, savages living in cages, meals for thousands, transfigurations, visits from the dead, blind seers, and more. MacDonald makes a compelling case that the Gospel writers successfully imitated the epics to provide their readers with heroes and an authoritative foundation for Christianity.

Download or read book Finding God in the Singing River written by Mark I. Wallace and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2005-03-04 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an age of vast and rapid destruction of habitats and species. Yet Christianity holds great potential for healing this situation. Indeed, the Bible and Christian tradition are a treasure trove of rich images and stories about God as an "earthen" being who sustains the natural world with compassion and thereby models for humankind environmentally healthy ways of being.Mark Wallace's stimulating book retrieves a central but often neglected biblical theme - the idea of God as carnal Spirit who indwells all things - as the basis for constructing a "green spirituality" responsive to the environmental needs of our time.In the biblical tradition, he writes, God as Spirit is an ecological presence that shows itself to us daily by living in and through the earth. One message of Christianity, therefore, is celebration of the bodily, material world - ancient redwoods, vernal springs, broad-winged hawks, everyday pigweed - as the place that God indwells and cares for in order to maintain the well-being of our common planetary home.Alongside his green reading of the Bible and tradition, Wallace employs the resources of deep ecology, Neopagan spirituality, and the environmental justice movement to rethink Christianity as an earth-based, body-loving religion. He also analyzes color images reproduced in the book. Wallace's bold yet careful work reawakens our sense of the sacrality of the earth and the life that the trinitarian God creates there. It also grounds the impulses of New Age spirituality in a profoundly biblical notion of God's being and activity.

Download or read book Encountering Earth written by Trevor George Hunsberger Bechtel and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-05-14 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One day, Matthew Eaton was walking through an impromptu animal shelter display at his local pet store when suddenly an eight-month-old kitten dug his claws into Eaton's flesh. Eaton recognized that the "eyes of this cat and the curve of his claw" compelled a response analogous to those found in the writings of Buber, Levinas, and Derrida. And not just Eaton but a whole community of theologians have found themselves in an encounter with particular places and animals that demands rich theological reflection. Eaton enlisted fellow editors Harvie and Bechtel to collect the essays in this volume, in which theologians listen to horses, rats, snakes, cats, dogs, and the earth itself, who become new theological voices demanding a response. In this volume, the voice of the more-than-human world is heard as making theology possible. These essays suggest that what we say theologically represents not simply ideas of our own making subsequently superimposed onto the natural world through our own discovery, but rather flow from an expressive Earth.

Download or read book The Four Gospels written by George Campbell and published by . This book was released on 1811 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sibley s Birding Basics written by David Allen Sibley and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2008-12-18 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the renowned author of the New York Times best seller The Sibley Guide to Birds, a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated guide to identifying birds in the field. Sibley's Birding Basics is an essential companion for birders of all skill and experience levels. With Sibley as your guide, learn how to interpret what the feathers, the anatomical structure, the sounds of a bird tell you. When you know the clues that show you why there’s no such thing as, for example, “just a duck” birding will be more fun, and more meaningful. An essential addition to the Sibley shelf! The Sibley Guide to Birds and The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior are both universally acclaimed as the new standard source of species information. And now David Sibley, America’s premier birder and best-known bird artist, turns his attention to the general characteristics that influence the appearance of all birds, unlocking the clues to their identity. In 200 beautifully rendered illustrations and 16 essays, this scientifically precise volume distills the essence of Sibley’s own experience and skills, providing a solid introduction to “naming” the birds. Birding Basics reviews how one can get started as a birder—the equipment necessary, where and when to go birding, and perhaps most important, the essential things to look for when birds appear in the field—as well as the basic concepts of bird identification and the variations that can change the appearance of a bird over time or in different settings. Sibley also provides critical information on the aspects of avian life that differ from species to species: feathers (color, arrangement, shape, molt), behavior and habitat, and sounds.

Download or read book The Bird Name Book written by Susan Myers and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A marvelously illustrated A-to-Z compendium of bird names from around the globe The Bird Name Book is an alphabetical reference book on the origins and meanings of common group bird names, from “accentor” to “zeledonia.” A cornucopia of engaging facts and anecdotes, this superbly researched compendium presents a wealth of incisive entries alongside stunning photos by the author and beautiful historic prints and watercolors. Myers provides brief biographies of prominent figures in ornithology—such as John Gould, John Latham, Alfred Newton, and Robert Ridgway—and goes on to describe the etymological history of every common group bird name found in standardized English. She interweaves the stories behind the names with quotes from publications dating back to the 1400s, illuminating the shared evolution of language and our relationships with birds, and rooting the names in the history of ornithological discovery. Whether you are a well-traveled birder or have ever wondered how the birds in your backyard got their names, The Bird Name Book is an ideal companion.

Download or read book John s Use of Ezekiel written by Brian Neil Peterson and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. This book was released on 2015 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars have long puzzled over the distinctive themes and sequence of Johns narrative in contrast to the Synoptic Gospels. Brian Neil Peterson now offers a remarkable explanation for some of the most unusual features of John, including the early placement of Jesus cleansing of the temple, the emphasis on signs confirming Jesus identity, the prominence of Jesus I Am sayings, and a number of others. The Fourth Evangelist relied on models, motifs, and even the macrostructure of the Book of Ezekiel.

Download or read book The People of Paper written by Salvador Plascencia and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part memoir, part lies, this imaginative tale is a story about loving a woman made of paper, about the wounds made by first love and sharp objects.

Download or read book Creation and Hope written by Nicola Hoggard Creegan and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-04-25 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in an ecological age. Science in the last few hundred years has given us a picture of nature as blind to the future and mechanical in its workings, even while ecology and physics have made us aware of our interconnectedness and dependency upon the web of life. As we witness a possible sixth great mass-extinction, there is increasing awareness too of the fragility of life on this planet. In such a context, what is the nature of Christian hope? St Paul declares that all of creation "will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." How are we to imagine this "freedom" when death and decay are essential to biological life as we currently experience it, and when the scientific predictions for life are bleak at best? This book explores these questions, reflecting on how our traditions shape our imagination of the future, and considering how a theology of hope may sustain Christians engaged in conservation initiatives. The essays in this volume are partly in dialogue with the ground-breaking work of Celia Deane-Drummond, and are set in the context of global and local (Aotearoa New Zealand) ecological challenges.

Download or read book Finish Period written by Sonny Holmes and published by WestBow Press. This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ministry is hard. Hundreds of pastors leave their post every month. Finish. Period. Going the Distance in Ministry provides practical, biblical strategies for reaching the finish line in ministry service. Chapters include assessments of current church culture, some of the unique character traits of those called to ministry, five steps to the finish line, and lessons on endurance for the journey.

Download or read book Awake to the Moment written by Laurel C. Schneider and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 2004-12-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most introductory textbooks in theology see their primary task as explaining Christian doctrines that no one quite understands anymore. While this is one of theology's jobs, it is by no means the only, nor even the most important, one. Theology has also been called to change the world, to help people connect deeply rooted beliefs about the world's source and goal to questions of personal meaning and communal thriving. Theology is here to help us make sense of the complex, flawed world into which we've been thrust and to assist us in our attempt to love our neighbors and live toward the common good. For more than forty years, the Workgroup on Constructive Theology has brought the liberal and liberationist theological traditions into creative encounter with lived human experience. In this introduction to the methods and tasks of theology, they invite a new generation of readers, many who will have little or no exposure to Christian doctrine, to see theology as a partner in the struggle for a better world. They demonstrate how theological ideas have "legs," playing themselves out not only in religious communities but in the public square as well. Theology, the authors tell us, is constructive when it joins in God's work of building human lives and human societies. Readers will learn to think about all of life in light of their religious commitments and to see theology as an essential tool for a life well lived.

Download or read book Wings of the Gods written by Peter (Petra) Gardella and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wings of the Gods surveys the many roles that birds have played in the development of religions, from legends, rituals, costumes, wars, and spiritual disciplines to the current ecological crisis. Peter (Petra) Gardella and Laurence Krute, both scholars and birdwatchers, transcend a narrow focus on humanity to explore the agency of birds in world history.