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A Silent Action: engagements with Thomas Merton
Spiritual GrowthThomas Merton's life, especially once he had become a writer, was to a great extent one of dialogue with people who were distant, both geographically and historically. In these probing and perceptive studies, Rowan Williams looks closely at the key intellectual and spiritual relationships that emerge in Merton's writings, exploring the impact on him of thinkers as diverse as Hannah Arendt, Karl Barth, William Blake, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Olivier Clement, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Paul Evdokimov, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Vladimir Lossky, John Henry Newman, Boris Pasternak and St John of the Cross.£11.99 -
With Pity Not With Blame: contemplative praying with Julian of Norwich and the cloud of unknowing
Saints & Mystics, Spiritual ExercisesBased on a series of retreat addresses to clergy, parishes and religious communities given over a period of five years, this is one of the most acclaimed guides to Christian contemplative prayer. First published 30 years ago, it is truly a modern spiritual classic. Robert Llewelyn provides a practical yet profound guide for anyone venturing on the path of prayer and contemplation. He explores Julian of Norwich's way of prayer and discovers its enduring wisdom for today. He also finds essential insights into the contemplative life from Julian's contemporary, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing. The treasures of this medieval English mystical tradition are brought to fresh life with simple and homely examples that illustrate their lasting appeal and power for today.£12.99 -
Julian of Norwich: A Very Brief History
Saints & MysticsOver six hundred years ago a woman known as Julian of Norwich wrote what is now regarded as one of the greatest works of literature in English. Based on a sequence of mystical visions she received in 1373, her book is called Revelations of Divine Love. Julian lived through an age of political and religious turmoil, as well as through the misery of the Black Death, and her writing engages with timeless questions about life, love and the meaning of suffering. But who was Julian of Norwich? And what can she teach us today? Medievalist and TV historian Janina Ramirez invites you to join her in exploring Julian's remarkable life and times, offering insights into how and why her writing has survived, and what we can learn from this fourteenth-century mystic whose work lay hidden in the shadows of her male contemporaries for far too long£10.99 -
The Cost of Discipleship
Influences & Suggested ReadingWhat can the call to discipleship, the adherence to the word of Jesus, mean today to the businessman, the soldier, the labourer, or the aristocrat? What did Jesus mean to say to us? What is His will for us today? Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between 'cheap grace' and 'costly grace'. 'Cheap grace', Bonhoeffer wrote, 'is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship...Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know...It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it give the man the only true life.' The Cost of Discipleshipis a compelling statement of the demands of sacrifice and ethical consistency from a man whose life and thought were exemplary articulations of a new type of leadership inspired by the Gospel, and imbued with the spirit of Christian humanism and a creative sense of civic duty.£21.99 -
When God is Silent
Influences & Suggested Reading, Leadership, The Inner Journey“Barbara Brown Taylor’s concise, pithy and challenging prose is evidence that she is practicing what she preaches:that Christian pastors take more care with the words they use and treat language with economy, courtesy and reverence. . . .She offers concrete and practical suggestions for ways to improve our relationship with both silence and the words God has given us.” - KATHLEEN NORRIS, for Christian Century Renowned minister Barbara Brown Taylor focuses on the task of preaching in a world where people thirst for communication with a God who often seems to be silent. Originally delivered as the 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures in preaching at Yale Divinity School, When God is Silent addresses questions essential not only to preachers, but also to anyone yearning to hear from God.£12.99 -
Bread of Angels
Scripture & Prayer, Spiritual GrowthAs the Israelites received the bread of angels― manna―as they made their way through the wilderness, so too is God made known to us in the simple things that sustain our lives. With humour and an eye for human stubbornness, Barbara Brown Taylor reflects on moments of divine providence and encounter in the Bible, from the stories of Moses, David, and Daniel to the Book of Acts. Along the way, she explores with honesty and grace the questions that we all ask about whether God answers prayer, whether miracles happen, and how we recognise God in the unexpected. As enjoyable as they are profound, her meditations on the life of faith and the cost of discipleship will inspire preachers and delight readers.£12.99 -
Poverty – Simplicity – Joy: Stories of St Francis and his Companions for Everyone
Saints & Mystics, Spiritual ExercisesOccasionally in the Church some spirit is raised up who proves to have a universal significance that endures through the ages. Such a one was Francis of Assisi, whose life continues to inspire countless thousands of Christians, and even people of other faiths and none. When the present pope chose the name Francis, the Church thrilled with a sense of something new, radical, focused on Jesus and the poor. The name Francis alone symbolizes a way of life that challenges and offers hope. It returns us to the basic message of Christianity, the love that is ever ancient, ever new, and demands a response on our part. Francis was born in 1182. It was the era of the crusades, which heralded enormous changes in the Christian West. During his lifetime Francis himself was to go to the East, not as a fighting Crusader, but as one who wanted to bring peace through dialogue and understanding. It was also a new era of lay holiness. There was a reaction to the wealth of the Church and its distance from the ordinary person. People flocked to the growing cities, but for most it was a life of misery and squalor. They were uprooted from the land they had lived on for years, and there was little provision in urban areas for their spiritual welfare or material well-being.£5.95 -
Spiritual Maladies
Scripture & Prayer, The Inner JourneyTo love is to live and to live is to love; this is God's intention for humanity. However, humanity falls ill along the way; its love of God and neighbour becomes diseased, infected with other loves; the love of money, of pleasure. . . . To these malaises God becomes our physician; he draws alongside us to heal and to restore us to fullness of life. The author enables us to rediscover this obscured face of God, the face of God our physician, full of compassion and very attentive--a God before whom it is best to lay bare all our ills in order to be healed. In this important corrective, Daniel Bourguet reorients readers. Sin is not so much law-breaking behaviour that requires a punitive judge as it is a spiritual malady of the passions in need of the Great Physician. From Cain's sin to Christ's ministry, we see grace as God's medicine for our sick world. This book is gentle, therapeutic gift.£13.00 -
Seize the Day
Daily Readings, Monasticism & New Monasticism, New Monasticism, Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyDietrich Bonhoeffer's faith-driven resistance to the Nazis during World War II resulted in his execution. Multitudes have been inspired by the hauntingly powrful words of this man who was willing to die for his convictions. In this collection of 365 meditations Dr Charles Ringma allows us to experience the power of Bonhoeffer's words in a way that challenges us to live out our discipleship daily - combining personal spirituality with an active concern for those around us. These daily meditations on Bonhoeffer's writings may make you uncomfortable. But if you are willing to wrestle - as Bonhoeffer did - with what it means to be a follower of Christ, you'll be empowered to seize each day.£20.99 -
Learning to Walk in the Dark
Influences & Suggested Reading, The Inner JourneyNew from best-selling author Barbara Brown Taylor, perhaps best known for An Altar in the World, comes Learning to Walk in the Dark. In this hardback book she writes with wisdom, grace and beauty as she seeks to rehabilitate what we have learned to fear - the dark. Here she reflects on how our lives do not only work when everything is brightly lit; twilight and deep darkness have treasures of their own waiting to be discovered. Babara Brown Taylor writes: 'Darkness is shorthand for anything that scares me - either because I am sure that I do not have the resources to survive ti or because I do not want to have to find out. If I had my way, I would eliminate everything from chronic back pain ti the fear of the devil from my life ad the lives of those I love. At least I think I would. The problem is this: when, despite all my best efforts, the lights have gone off in my life, plunging me into the kind of darkness that turns my knees to water, I have not died. The monsters have not dragged me out of bed and taken me back to their lair. Instead, I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light. Learning to Walk in the Dark is a wise spiritual companion and guide for those times in life when we don't have all the answers. Recognising our tendency to associate all that is good with light, and all that is evil and dangerous with darkness, Barbara Brown Taylor asks whether God doesn't work at night too? With her characteristic grace and generosity, she invites us to put aside our fears and anxieties and to discover all that the darkness has to teach us. She takes us to underground caverns, subterranean chapels, basement night clubs and unlit cabins in the woods on moonless nights. Through darkness, we begin to see the world and sense God's presence around us in new ways, guiding us through things seen an unseen, and teaching us to find out footing in times of uncertainty. Like seeds buried in the ground, we will find how darkness is essential for our own growth and flourishing.£12.99 -
Becoming a Disciple
Scripture & PrayerIn this little book Daniel Bourguet guides our meditations on three scriptural passages that lead the reader along the pathway ordained by Christ into the depths of his being. Successively, the disciple first follows behind Jesus along the way of perfect love (Mark 1:14-20); then experiences what it is to bear the yoke with Christ and there find rest (Matt 11:28-30); and finally enters the mystery of communion in which he is in Jesus and Jesus abides in him (John 15:1-17). It is a pathway passing from vocation to struggle and then to fellowship, but leading always to joy. In Becoming a Disciple, we see the fruit of Bourget's years of intercession, spiritual direction, and insightful exegesis--all of this at the feet of Christ. Here we see how the Gospels lead us into intimate encounters and authentic discipleship£16.00 -
Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s New Monasticism: A Central Influence
Core Teaching, Influences & Suggested Reading, Monasticism & New Monasticism, New Monasticism, Northumbria Community Resources & Teaching, Re-imagining ChurchThis booklet, by Trevor Miller, looks at the ways in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been an influence on our Community. A Lutheran Pastor in the Confessing Church in Germany in the 1930s, Bonhoeffer’s early exploration of Community and New Monasticism was cut short by the Nazi regime, but his writings have lived on. In this booklet Trevor helps us to make the connections between Bonhoeffer’s life and work and our own journey as a Community.£5.00 -
Home by another way: Biblical meditations through the Christian year
Daily Readings, Everyday Life, The Inner JourneyWritten by one of the world's greatest preachers, these insightful meditations began their life as beautifully crafted sermons that explore the meanings of the major seasons and holy days of the Christian year. Reviewer Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James's Picadilly, writes: "This is a deeply compassionate book that takes seriously what it's like to live in the world now, while holding out the scriptural hope of a life not yet imagined. Barbara Brown Taylor tells new parables that reveal meaning in everyday holiness, and the thoroughly human states of confusion, suffering and joy of which she is keenly aware.This book is for all who want to believe but can't quite get there, or for those whose jaded spirit needs a long cool drink at a freshwater spring. Reading these reflections is like being drenched in grace." Recently voted one of the world's top ten contemporary spiritual sages, Barbara Brown Taylor is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia. Her previous books include An Altar in the World and Leaving Church.£13.99 -
The Cloud of Unknowing for Everyone
Saints & Mystics, Spiritual ExercisesIn this adaptation of a classic 'how to' book of contemplative prayer, beautifully and simply expressed and illustrated, the riches of contemplative prayer are made available to all. Those who find this way of praying natural for them and those who wish to discover hitherto unknown facets of the beauty of prayer can alike find in it real spiritual nourishment.£5.95 -
A Month With Julian of Norwich
Daily Readings, Saints & MysticsThis short book contains 62 prayers and readings (one each morning and evening for a month). It will help the reader to steep him- or herself in the writings and thoughts of this favourite spiritual writer, and the introduction will introduce Julian of Norwich's particular appeal. The special angle unique to this series of books is the way they accompany the reader on a month-long journey with a favourite saint or writer.£7.99