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Encountering Exile
Re-imagining Church, Scripture & Prayer, The Inner JourneyThe decline of the Church in the West means many Christian leaders are forced to taste a bittersweet draught of hopes fulfilled and deferred, liberally laced with failure and even shame. Our world seems so different to the joyful simplicity of the new Church of the New Testament. Where else in the Scriptures could we look to cope and hope?' George Lings investigates. This booklet is part of the Encounters on the Edge series. A downloadable PDF version of the booklet is also available.£2.00 -
Seven Sacred Spaces
Influences & Suggested Reading, The Inner Journey, Traditional MonasticismGeorge Lings spent an extended time with us at the Northumbria Community in 2009 and during this and other visits and studies brought together some key thinking about healthy communities. During his stay he facilitated a teaching and discussion weekend around this and other topics and it was during this weekend that George admits he added the seventh sacred space - the chapter house. What makes a healthy Christian community? George Lings, director of Church Army's Research Unit, believes we have much to learn from monastic communities.£4.00 -
Simplicity: The freedom of letting go
Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneySimplicity – The Freedom of Letting Go by Richard Rohr St Francis’s ancient call to the simple life of freedom and happiness, as seen by America’s foremost Franciscan. Richard Rohr shows you how to: Recognize your radical dependence on others Understand why less is more Break through to contemplation Embrace a deeper spiritual freedom “Rohr’s kind of contemplation is an adventure in the wilderness, letting God call me by name and take me to a deeper place of peace that the world cannot give.” St. Anthony Messenger£16.50 -
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Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method
Spiritual Growth‘For anyone wrestling with the much used and little defined concept of spirituality this book is a must. By setting spiritualities in their historical context Philip Sheldrake helps us to grasp the intensity of past religious lives while recognising their distance from our own. He therefore enables us to dust off and demystify the term, drawing inspiration from the past without being enslaved by it’£15.00Shap Working Party on World Religions
‘Philip Sheldrake is a master of lucid exposition …. I cannot remember when I last read through so much serious and carefully nuanced material, so digestibly arranged in so short a space.’
The Month
‘This study challenges traditional approaches, creates an alternative perspective, introduces readers to relevant contemporary literature, and begins to recover some of the hitherto neglected strands of spirituality…. The methodology is what makes the book so attractive, but the challenge to long-accepted assumptions is what makes it required reading for all theological students everywhere.’
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Simple Ways to Pray for Healing
Everyday Life, Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyThis illustrated book by Matthew Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn and Dennis Linn, contains a guide to the eight simple ways to pray for healing that they have used most often in their ministry. They are simple enough for small children yet profound enough to touch sophisticated adults.£12.99 -
Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit
Influences & Suggested Reading, Spiritual Growth£12.99Spiritual formation, I have come to believe, is not about steps or stages on the way to perfection. It’s about the movements from the mind to the heart through prayer in its many forms that reunite us with God, each other, and our truest selves.
Henri Nouwen, from the Introduction
Henri Nouwen, beloved author, priest and spiritual guide, counseled many people during his lifetime, but his principles of spiritual formation were never written down. Now, Michael Christensen, one of Nouwen’s longtime students, and Rebecca Laird have taken the famous course in spiritual formation and supplemented it with his unpublished writings to reveal Nouwen’s sage advice on how to live out the five classic stages of spiritual development.
I always knew I was in the presence of a spiritual master when I was with Henri Nouwen. Here are some simple, wise words that will allow the master to continue to teach.
Richard Rohr, O.F.M., author of The Naked Now
One of the book’s many strengths is its integration of an area especially important to Nouwen, the contemplation of icons and other works of art – visio divina – in order ‘to behold the beauty of the Lord’.
Jim Forest, author of Praying with Icons and The Road to Emmaus
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The Things He Said: The story of the first Easter Day
Lent & Easter, Scripture & PrayerMany a popular Good Friday devotion is based on Jesus' seven last words from the Cross. But there isn't the same emphasis on the words Jesus spoke on Easter Day - words, as it were, from an empty tomb. Following the resurrection, we would expect the triumphant 'I have risen from the dead!' Yet Jesus' statements are so different, so apparently unremarkable, that they are often overlooked. Each Gospel gives a different account of the very first words of the risen Lord. This book reveals how these words, and the events that followed, speak to us as powerfully as the words from the cross. They illuminate our understanding of the resurrection, helping us to penetrate its meaning and significance. They also speak of God's purpose for us today as we try to discover what it means to be an Easter people. The Christian faith stands or falls on the resurrection of Jesus; without it, says St Paul, we are to be most pitied. In this revelatory book of surprising reflections, Stephen Cotterell's retelling of the Easter story encourages us to slow down and hear it properly - perhaps for the very first time.£7.99 -
Living on the Border: Reflections on the Experience of Threshold
Celtic Studies & Spirituality, Spiritual Growth, The Inner Journey, Traditional MonasticismThere is a traditional saying of ancient wisdom: 'A threshold is a sacred thing. In some places of the world, in some traditional cultures and in monastic life, this is still remembered. It is something, however, that we often forget today. To take time to pause at a threshold - be it a place, or a moment between one action and the next - is to show reverence for the handling of space and time, and respect for those who we meet. Pausing allows us to let go of all the demands and expectations of the previous activity, and to prepare for the encounter with another. Esther de Waal explores what this ancient wisdom has to teach us about our public lives in the world today.£12.99 -
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Songs of the Isles: Selections from Carmina Gadelica
Celtic Prayer, Celtic Studies & Spirituality, Scripture & Prayer, Spiritual GrowthThe isles in the title of this book are the Hebrides which lie between the west of Scotland and the north of Ireland, and the songs are the prayers an blessings which originated there between the sixth and ninth centuries. They remained a purely oral tradition until a hundred years ago when Alexander Carmichael collected and published them as Carmina Gadelica, the source book that led to the revival of Celtic spirituality today. These prayers and songs capture the remarkable spiritual vision of a people keeping faith through good and ill, ekeing out an existence in a world that was often harsh and inhospitable. They rejoice at the birth of a child o a good harvest, glory in natural beauty, lament in suffering, cry out for help or protection, and invoke God's blessing on even the most humble tasks. Until now we have only known them in the Victorian language of Carmichael's collection, bu in Kathleen Jones' fresh translation, thir poetic simplicity and power is fully revealed and we hear authentic Celtci voices speaking with conviction about life and death, hearth and home, land and sea, and the journey of the soul beneath the protecting power of heaven.£14.99 -
The Selfless Way of Christ
Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyDownward Mobility and the Spiritual Life by Henri Nouwen In these short reflections Herne Nouwen explores the theme of downward mobility as the way of Christ, and the things that tempt us away from it, namely, the lure of success, of power, of being needed and important. Originally serialized in the magazine Sojourners, Nouwen wrote the articles during his years as a professor at Yale Divinity School. There he enjoyed academic success and found fame as a spiritual writer, but was struggling to find his true vocation. Here he seeks to explain for himself and his readers how choosing the downwardly mobile path can, conversely, be the means of growth and new life in Christ.£8.99 -
Sleeping with Bread
Spiritual ExercisesThis illustrated book by Matthew Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn and Dennis Linn contains a simple process, for individuals, families and others to share, of reflecting on each day's consolations and desolations. This process can help us to get in touch each day with both hurts and healing, guide our decisions and help us to fid the purpose of our life. Includes a question and answer section at the end. Especially recommended for family spirituality.£11.99 -
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Merton’s Palace of Nowhere
Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneySpiritual identity is the quest to know who we are, to find meaning in life and to overcome that sense of "is that all there is?" At the heart of this quest are found Thomas Meron's illuminating insights leading from an awareness of the false and illusory self as the way to a realization of the true self. For twenty-five years, Merton's Palace of Nowhere has been the standard for exploring, reflecting on, and understanding this rich vein of Merton's thought.£14.00
