Download or read book A Clearing Season written by Sarah Parsons and published by Upper Room Books. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cities across the world celebrate Mardi Gras with colorful parades and over-the-top parties. Then Ash Wednesday arrives … Sigh. Lent has begun. You hear about devout friends giving up seemingly innocent things like chocolate or stressing out as they try to live a more perfect life during six grueling weeks—for reasons you don't completely understand. Sermons about penitence are preached, and guilt soaks the congregation. Sound like a good time?! It's time to rethink Lent. Or at least see it for the positive opportunity it offers. It's spring cleaning for the soul! Lent offers you time to pause, consider, and renew your relationship with God—an altogether hopeful (not dreary) experience. "To arrive at newness of life, we first name parts of our lives that are shrouded in darkness," writes Parsons. "To put it very dramatically,… your first order of business is to break your heart for God. We walk through some muck so that we can leave it behind and find Easter joy beyond…. With God's help we will clear the darkness away and begin to experience greater joy and newness of life." Sure, there's work to be done during Lent, but it's the gentle, gradual work of opening one's heart and mind to grace. A Clearing Season will move you week by week from "wilderness to holy ground," using a personal tone that will stir and challenge personal reflection. Parsons includes exercises for small groups, as well as questions at the end of each chapter for individual reflection. Also included is an appendix of spiritual practices for Lent. This Lent, clear away the obstacles that block you from God, and experience spiritual renewal.

Download or read book The Province of Joy written by Angela Alaimo O'Donnell and published by Paraclete Press (MA). This book was released on 2012 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Like a beautiful quilt, Province of Joy is a deeply loving, imaginative work of art and faith.” - Elizabeth A. Johnson This unique “Book of Hours” is modeled on the spiritual life and prayer practices of one of our most interesting writers. “Flannery O'Connor's stories help us see grace in the most difficult of circumstances. O'Donnell artfully combines selections from her writings with daily prayers and readings for something wonderful: a prayer book that is old and new, timely and timeless, comforting and provocative.” - James Martin, SJ, author of Between Heaven and Mirth

Download or read book The Book of Joy written by Dalai Lama and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An instant New York Times bestseller Two spiritual giants. Five days. One timeless question. Nobel Peace Prize Laureates His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have survived more than fifty years of exile and the soul-crushing violence of oppression. Despite their hardships—or, as they would say, because of them—they are two of the most joyful people on the planet. In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness's eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life's inevitable suffering? They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy. This book offers us a rare opportunity to experience their astonishing and unprecendented week together, from the first embrace to the final good-bye. We get to listen as they explore the Nature of True Joy and confront each of the Obstacles of Joy—from fear, stress, and anger to grief, illness, and death. They then offer us the Eight Pillars of Joy, which provide the foundation for lasting happiness. Throughout, they include stories, wisdom, and science. Finally, they share their daily Joy Practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.

Download or read book The Painted Province written by Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking and published by . This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I gain a strong sense of interconnectedness and belonging when I look at her work. There is a universality and humanity Joy finds every time." --Sheree Fitch Since 1972, Joy Laking has lived and painted in Nova Scotia, capturing beauty in watercolours, oils, and acrylics in many locations. She sees beauty in both the usual and the unusual. The Painted Province lets the reader see Nova Scotia through an artist's eyes. Here, Joy has grouped some of her favourite paintings into forty regions, each with her personal commentary. In each of the regions, one of the images will have its GPS coordinates. You are encouraged to bring this book along in your travels to find some of the places where she created paintings. When you discover the exact spot, please take a photo. Then email it to her and she will post it on her website. Joy constantly finds ways to enhance her own creativity. Every year, she paints in unfamiliar countries, such as Bolivia, Ghana, India, and Sri Lanka, to return home to see Nova Scotia through fresh eyes. Joy has also written a play, children's books, articles about rural life, and work for the CBC.

Download or read book The Joy of X written by Steven Henry Strogatz and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2012 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightful tour of the greatest ideas of math, showing how math intersects with philosophy, science, art, business, current events, and everyday life, by an acclaimed science communicator and regular contributor to the "New York Times."

Download or read book Dreams of Joy written by Lisa See and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Astonishing . . . one of those hard-to-put-down-until-four-in-the morning books . . . a story with characters who enter a reader’s life, take up residence, and illuminate the myriad decisions and stories that make up human history.”—Los Angeles Times In her most powerful novel yet, acclaimed author Lisa See returns to the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy. Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the Communist regime. Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy’s and Pearl’s separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China’s history threatens their very lives. BONUS: This edition contains a Dreams of Joy discussion guide. Praise for Dreams of Joy “[Lisa] See is a gifted historical novelist. . . . The real love story, the one that’s artfully shown, is between mother and daughter, and aunt and daughter, as both of the women who had a part in making Joy return to China come to her rescue. . . . [In Dreams of Joy,] there are no clear heroes or villains, just people who often take wrong turns to their own detriment but for the good of the story, leading to greater strength of character and more durable relationships.”—San Francisco Chronicle “A heartwarming story of heroic love between a mother and daughter . . . No writer has better captured the voice and heart of Chinese culture.”—Bookreporter “Once again, See’s research feels impeccable, and she has created an authentic, visually arresting world.”—The Washington Post

Download or read book Chosen for a Special Joy written by Jean L. Andrianoff and published by Moody Publishers. This book was released on 2001-01-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 1947, Ted and Ruth Andrianoff and their two small children boarded a troop ship bound for Southeast Asia. Today, Hmong Christians around the world trace their spiritual geneology to the rebirth of the first convert in Xieng Khouang Province in 1950 and to the couple whose willing obedience allowed them to experience God's spectacular power.

Download or read book Discovering Joy written by Joy Yoon and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-27 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A surprising discovery in the unlikeliest of places ... Joy Yoon and her husband spent more than ten years as humanitarian NGO workers in one of the world's most mysterious and closed societies. In this book she shares observations and insights, offering readers the chance to re-evaluate understandings of the so-called "Hermit Kingdom."

Download or read book Obasan written by Joy Kogawa and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the American Book Award Based on the author's own experiences, this award-winning novel was the first to tell the story of the evacuation, relocation, and dispersal of Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War.

Download or read book Photography for the Joy of It written by Freeman Patterson and published by . This book was released on 1993-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now revised, this book provides clear instructions for beginning color or black-and-white photographers on choosing equipment, selecting the correct exposure, understanding depth of field, and much more.

Download or read book Why Catholics Leave What They Miss and How They Might Return written by Bullivant, Stephen and published by Paulist Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The results of a project in the UK that invited Catholics who no longer regularly practice their faith to share their story. Why they left and what could be done to change this are two of the questions explored.

Download or read book Flannery O Connor written by Angela Ailamo O'Donnell and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2015-05-06 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flannery O’Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith tells the remarkable story of the gifted young woman who set out from her native Georgia to develop her talents as a writer and eventually succeeded in becoming one of the most accomplished fiction writers of the twentieth century. Struck with a fatal disease just as her career was blooming, O’Connor was forced to return to her rural home and to live an isolated life, far from the literary world she longed to be a part of. In this insightful new biography, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell depicts O’Connor’s passionate devotion to her vocation, despite her crippling illness, the rich interior life she lived through her reading and correspondence, and the development of her deep and abiding faith in the face of her own impending mortality. She also explores some of O’Connor’s most beloved stories, detailing the ways in which her fiction served as a means for her to express her own doubts and limitations, along with the challenges and consolations of living a faithful life. O’Donnell’s biography recounts the poignant story of America’s preeminent Catholic writer and offers the reader a guide to her novels and stories so deeply informed by her Catholic faith. People of God is a series of inspiring biographies for the general reader. Each volume offers a compelling and honest narrative of the life of an important twentieth or twenty-first century Catholic. Some living and some now deceased, each of these women and men has known challenges and weaknesses familiar to most of us but responded to them in ways that call us to our own forms of heroism. Each offers a credible and concrete witness of faith, hope, and love to people of our own day.

Download or read book Complicated Simplicity written by Joy Davis and published by Heritage House Publishing Co. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A frank, practical, and entertaining exploration of the pleasures and complexities of living on small islands. Many people dream of living simple lives on small islands, but few are aware of some of the unique challenges that accompany this distinctive lifestyle. From negotiating surrounding waters to creating a sustainable home and making a viable life away from urban conveniences, small-island living can be rewarding or difficult (or both), depending on myriad circumstances. Complicated Simplicity: Island Life in the Pacific Northwest draws on a variety sources to contextualize peoples' enduring fascination with islands worldwide, including the author's own experiences growing up on Bath Island (off Gabriola) and her interviews with over twenty intrepid figures who live on the San Juan Islands, the Gulf Islands, the Discovery Islands, and in Clayoquot Sound. Ingenuity, tenacity, and a passion for living in these special places shine through in the personal stories, as does a shared concern for safety, sustainability, and thoughtful stewardship. Engaging, inspiring, and often funny, Complicated Simplicity offers readers honest and useful insights on the joys, perils, and rewards of island life.

Download or read book The Awesome Music Project Canada written by Terry Stuart and published by Page Two. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MUSIC HEALS US. It can provide solace in difficult times, and help us celebrate moments of joy. The transformative power of music is at the heart of this compilation of intimate recollections by Canadians from every province and territory. In these remarkable stories, Canadians from all walks of life--including world-renowned celebrities from Sarah McLachlan and Chris Hadfield to Madeleine Thien and Theo Fleury--share how music changed their lives. The Awesome Music Project Canada: Songs of Hope and Happiness is a beautifully illustrated tribute to the music that comforts us, moves us, and lifts our spirits. Rounding out the book are descriptions of the neurological research confirming that music is good for us. It improves our mental, emotional, and physical health, wards off depression, and even delays dementia. Put simply: music makes us feel good. Written for the music lover in all of us, proceeds from The Awesome Music Project Canada will go to music and mental health research, starting with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital and one of the world's leading research centres.

Download or read book The Smart Set written by and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 738 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Report of the Farmers Institutes of the Province of Ontario written by and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 748 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part called 'Meetings and statistics' has main title: Annual report of the Farmers' Institutes of the Province of Ontario.

Download or read book The Book of Joy The Sunday Times Bestseller written by Dalai Lama and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two spiritual giants. Seven days. One timeless question. 'The ultimate source of happiness is within us' DALAI LAMA 'We grow in kindness when our kindness is tested' DESMOND TUTU Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have been friends for many, many years. Between them, they have endured exile, violence and oppression. And in the face of these hardships, they have continued to radiate compassion, humour and above all, joy. To celebrate His Holiness's eightieth birthday, Archbishop Tutu travelled to the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala. The two men spent a week discussing a single burning question: how do we find joy in the face of suffering? This book is a gift from two of the most important spiritual figures of our time. Full of love, warmth and hope, The Book of Joy offers us the chance to experience their journey from first embrace to final goodbye.