Fresh Air Books

Woman Overboard

Tue, 24 May 2022 16:01:35 GMT

Do you long for more passion in your life? How do you define passion?

Many people associate passion with intense romance, adventure, creativity, vocation, or calling. If you ask a pastor or priest to define passion, he or she would likely link the word to the passion of Christ, to the events of Holy Week.

The definition of passion has evolved over the years. Originally the word came from the Latin passio, which means "to suffer."

Woman Overboard invites you to join an adventure of discovering

how to find out what you were born for
how to live out your particular calling in the context of your Christian faith
how to make sense of a broken world in light of the passion of Christ

The passionate life isn't easy, Kadlecek says. Suffering can come when we pursue our passions. We have to take risks; we must jump overboard. We need to recognize that jumping overboard could be hard, scary, and dangerous. But consider how dangerous it would be to just stay where you are.

When we anchor our identity in the passion of Christ, we are free to jump overboard. We are free to take the risks we've always wanted to take, to pursue the things we've always wanted to pursue.

So what are you waiting for? Dive into the journey of waking up to the passion and gifts around you!

Fresh Air 4 Series

Wed, 18 May 2022 20:50:13 GMT

A collection of books that explore four topics: the powerful emotion of anger, the freedom of forgiveness, the role hope in our lives, and cultivating compassion in our lives. A delightful gift for any occasion.

Rally

Wed, 18 May 2022 14:31:55 GMT

"This is a prayer book for revolution—a revolution of love and compassion and justice," Shane Claiborne writes in the foreword. The prayers in this collection are meant to be prayed in community.

Rally is a prayer book for faith communities searching for words to respond to the injustices around them. It's a prayer book for Christian activists who believe in putting feet to their prayers. The book supplies words for concerned Christians who yearn to lift their voices to God about such issues as racism; the abuse of power and privilege; mistreatment of migrants and refugees; lives tragically lost; our violent society; white supremacy; and people being marginalized because of their gender, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, or economic status. Rally contains prayers for perpetrators, for loving our bodies, for listening to one another, for those who have been wounded by the church. In this resource, readers will find prayers that evoke hope and connection, guidance for sifting through the news and social media headlines, laments about destruction of the earth, and pleas for loving alike though we don't think alike.

The beauty of this book lies in the rich variety of voices and experiences of its writers—leaders who work at the intersection of Christianity and social justice and who want to resource those who gather to lament the needs and celebrate the possibilities of a better world. "Lord, stir us up to holy action," cries this powerful book. Rally spurs people to compassionately continue the important work of loving God and neighbor until all of God's people feel safe and seen.

Woman Overboard

Tue, 17 May 2022 01:01:19 GMT

Do you long for more passion in your life? How do you define passion?

The definition of passion has evolved over the years. Originally the word came from the Latin passio, which means "to suffer."

Woman Overboard invites you to join an adventure of discovering

how to find out what you were born for
how to live out your particular calling in the context of your Christian faith
how to make sense of a broken world in light of the passion of Christ

When we anchor our identity in the passion of Christ, we are free to jump overboard. We are free to take the risks we've always wanted to take, to pursue the things we've always wanted to pursue.

So what are you waiting for? Dive into the journey of waking up to the passion and gifts around you!

Rally

Sat, 14 May 2022 04:16:26 GMT

"This is a prayer book for revolution—a revolution of love and compassion and justice," Shane Claiborne writes in the foreword. The prayers in this collection are meant to be prayed in community.

Forgiveness

Sat, 14 May 2022 04:00:37 GMT

Go beyond merely forgiving and forgetting … and discover how to make peace with your past.

"Like many of you, I've been dealt a few cards I do not think I deserved," writes Amy Lyles Wilson. "In response, I used to think forgiving and forgetting meant I had to act like I had never been wronged. The writers in this collection tell me otherwise. Forgiving, they say, does not require pretending you were never hurt. It does mean, however, that you'll need to make peace with your past to embrace the future."

Learn how to genuinely free yourself from resentments and get on with your life through gentle guiding words from Henri Nouwen, Douglas Steere, Mary Lou Redding, Marjorie Thompson, Flora Slosson Wuellner, and others.

This insightful, healing book addresses such questions as:

What exactly is forgiveness, and what is it not?
Should all hurts or offenses be forgiven?
What do I do if someone refuses to forgive me?
How do I forgive myself?

If forgiveness doesn't come easily to you, take heart. With practice, you'll learn how to let go and move on.

Compassion

Sat, 14 May 2022 04:00:09 GMT

Do you practice extreme compassion? When a calamity strikes, you're ready to organize, donate, volunteer.

But there are quieter personal tragedies all around you every day. Whether it's a faraway look in the eyes of a coworker, friend, family member, or stranger at the next table in the coffee shop, burdens come in all sizes but weigh equally.

Carrying one another's burdens means being attuned to stressed intimates as well as suffering strangers.

Sometimes we all may be a little guilty of stepping over those we know and love to reach out as part of a big project to someone in trouble across the globe. And we should do that. But assume someone near you right now needs a little of your time, a bit of your spirit and your listening heart.

"Compassion: Thoughts on Cultivating a Good Heart invites us to consider that our attention to the little things makes it easier to appreciate the concerns of our friends, families, communities, and the world at large," writes compiler and editor Amy Lyles Wilson. "In so doing, we can begin to conduct our lives with an ever-present spirit of compassion instead of saving such outpouring for tragic situations and natural disasters."

The essays in this powerful little book provide examples for doing just that — whether it's tending injured animals or bearing the burdens of another. Writers as varied as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wendy Wright, and Robert Corin Morris urge us to appreciate the gift that compassion offers. You'll be guided through several practical paths of enhancing your capacity to care.

Remember: What goes around comes around. Think how grateful you'll be when someone notices the lost, faraway look in your eyes one day and responds with compassion.

Hope

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:59:40 GMT

A collection of writings that reminds us how hope plays a role in our lives today, not just tomorrow, and that hope is more than false optimism to those who believe.

Anger

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:59:12 GMT

Does anger sometimes get the best of you? Are there days when you feel mad at the world?

Anger is a common human emotion, yet it often leaves us squirming with discomfort and worrying that we're not spiritual enough.

In Anger: Minding Your Passion, you'll find a collection of writings that explore the constructive use of this powerful emotion. Sometimes we have every right to get good and mad. It's what we do with our anger that matters.

As you read and ponder thoughts from such noted authors as Frederick Buechner, Sue Monk Kidd, Madeleine L'Engle, and Thich Nhat Hanh, you'll find validation for your feelings, as well as suggestions for handling anger. You'll discover that you can cope with anger while still believing in and having a relationship with God.

This Is My Body

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:17:22 GMT

Kneeling at the Communion rail, Hannah Shanks trembled as she received the bread and cup. Hours before, she had discovered she was pregnant. She heard the familiar words—"The body of Christ, broken for you; The blood of Christ, shed for you" as if for the first time. She remembered Jesus' words: "This is my body." Shanks realized that these words not only describe Jesus' death but also apply to every birth that has taken place. Suddenly, she felt a closer connection to God.

This Is My Body is organized around the framework of Communion, a central act of the Christian faith. Part personal narrative and part reflection on scripture from a woman's point of view, this book is about finding a new relationship to the acts of Christian community through the experiences of a woman's body, including pregnancy and childbirth.

Though the book centers on women's experiences, it offers an opportunity for women and men to consider how they too might be freed in the gospel proclamation, "This is my body; This is my blood." The author approaches motherhood with an understanding of its sacred nature and its profound ability to change her identity. She battles church stereotypes attached to mothering and emerges with a deeper understanding of herself and her relationship to the Holy.

This Is My Body

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:17:09 GMT

Practicing Compassion

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:16:49 GMT

Praise for Practicing Compassion

Everybody believes in compassion, but nobody tells you how to practice it. Until now. Frank Rogers turns compassion into a doable, daily practice—as simple as catching your breath and taking your pulse. If you want to read a book that actually has the capacity to change your life (and the world), beginning today, this is the book to read.

—Brian D. McLaren
Author/speaker/blogger/activist (brianmclaren.net)

If you want clear, practical guidance on how to cultivate the inner resources to become a healing presence and force of good for the world, there is no better book than this and no better guide than Frank Rogers.

—John Makransky
Professor of Comparative Theology, Boston College
Author of Awakening through Love

Compassion is more than a sympathetic feeling—it's the bond of human connection. Most religions lift up compassion, yet few people actually teach how to practice it.

Through rich and moving stories of people from various faiths, Frank Rogers shows ways to incorporate compassion in our daily lives. His interfaith perspective on mercy, kindness, and caring for one another trains us to Pay attention, Understand empathically, Love with connection, Sense the sacredness, and Embody new life (PULSE).

Practicing Compassion

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:16:36 GMT

Praise for Practicing Compassion

—Brian D. McLaren
Author/speaker/blogger/activist (brianmclaren.net)

—John Makransky
Professor of Comparative Theology, Boston College
Author of Awakening through Love

Compassion is more than a sympathetic feeling—it's the bond of human connection. Most religions lift up compassion, yet few people actually teach how to practice it.

Freestyle

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:16:14 GMT

In this prophetic collection of essays, Michael Waters comments on current issues from his perspective as pastor, husband, father, and expert on hip-hop culture.

Waters seeks to inspire hope in people who live in urban centers and in those who provide relief and minister with this context, where it often seems that hope is bankrupt. Freestyle seeks to restore Christian hope by pointing to the presence of God at work within these communities.

Michael Waters is the founder of Joy Tabernacle, one of the African Methodist Episcopal Church's fastest-growing congregations in Texas. He blogs frequently for Huffington Post on current issues. In Freestyle, he addresses the following topics and more:

the U.S. civil rights movement
how good manners and civility seem to be in short supply
coming of age in the age of 9/11
addiction, absent parents, children born out of wedlock
racism
violence in America
the media's portrayal of black achievement
the legacy of Trayvon Martin

Author Romal Tune calls Michael Waters "provocative and prophetic," saying he provides a fresh perspective on issues that impact our communities, families, and the future of our country.

Don't miss this insightful book from a noted pastor, professor, motivational speaker, and community organizer who inspires us all with a message of hope and empowerment.

Freestyle

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:16:02 GMT

In this prophetic collection of essays, Michael Waters comments on current issues from his perspective as pastor, husband, father, and expert on hip-hop culture.

the U.S. civil rights movement
how good manners and civility seem to be in short supply
coming of age in the age of 9/11
addiction, absent parents, children born out of wedlock
racism
violence in America
the media's portrayal of black achievement
the legacy of Trayvon Martin

Author Romal Tune calls Michael Waters "provocative and prophetic," saying he provides a fresh perspective on issues that impact our communities, families, and the future of our country.

Don't miss this insightful book from a noted pastor, professor, motivational speaker, and community organizer who inspires us all with a message of hope and empowerment.

Reluctant Pilgrim

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:15:05 GMT

Finalist in the "Best Books 2010" Awards

"This is one of those books that you read and then have to sit back or curl up in a ball and 'be still and know.' In these honest, tear-stained pages are clear signs that there is a 'Hound of Heaven' hunting us down—this Spirit that is stalking us with love, winking at us with miracles, tickling us with grace, subverting everything that could destroy us, and whispering in our ears that we are truly beloved."

—Shane Claiborne
Author, activist, recovering sinner

Love God, but not so sure about church? If you've ever had doubts or felt the gnawing need to examine your interior life, you'll find a trustworthy companion in Enuma Okoro, a purse-shopping, tea-sipping, shaky follower of Jesus who wouldn't mind meeting a guy who loves God and has decent hair.

But after her father's unexpected death, her grief seems to morph into the panicky feeling that God wants something more from her, like maybe becoming a nun.

As she seeks to unravel those feelings, Okoro takes us back to the places that formed her, from her first years in church at a parish in Queens, New York, to her years in West Africa where she collected crucifixes along with Richie Rich comic books, to her studies in Europe and the United States.

Part Augustine, part Jane Austen with a side of Anne Lamott, Okoro attempts to reconcile her theological understanding of God's call to community with her painful and disappointing experiences of community in churches where she often felt invisible, pigeonholed, or out of place.

At turns snarky and luminous, laugh-out-loud funny and vulnerably poignant, Reluctant Pilgrim is the no-holds-barred account of a woman who prays to savor God's goodness and never be satisfied. It is a daring, insightful, and deeply moving field guide for the curious, the confused, and the convicted.

Reluctant Pilgrim

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:14:53 GMT

Finalist in the "Best Books 2010" Awards

—Shane Claiborne
Author, activist, recovering sinner

But after her father's unexpected death, her grief seems to morph into the panicky feeling that God wants something more from her, like maybe becoming a nun.

Woman Overboard

Sat, 14 May 2022 03:14:29 GMT

Do you long for more passion in your life? How do you define passion?

The definition of passion has evolved over the years. Originally the word came from the Latin passio, which means "to suffer."

Woman Overboard invites you to join an adventure of discovering

how to find out what you were born for
how to live out your particular calling in the context of your Christian faith
how to make sense of a broken world in light of the passion of Christ

When we anchor our identity in the passion of Christ, we are free to jump overboard. We are free to take the risks we've always wanted to take, to pursue the things we've always wanted to pursue.

So what are you waiting for? Dive into the journey of waking up to the passion and gifts around you!

Practicing Compassion

Sat, 14 May 2022 00:15:19 GMT

Praise for Practicing Compassion

—Brian D. McLaren
Author/speaker/blogger/activist (brianmclaren.net)

—John Makransky
Professor of Comparative Theology, Boston College
Author of Awakening through Love

Compassion is more than a sympathetic feeling—it's the bond of human connection. Most religions lift up compassion, yet few people actually teach how to practice it.

This Is My Body

Thu, 05 May 2022 20:34:53 GMT