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Holy Habits
Spiritual Exercises, The Inner JourneyThe call to Christian discipleship is a call to adventure. Holy Habits explores the nature of that adventure through a rich mix of biblical material and inspiring stories. The nurturing role of the ten holy habits of discipleship as seen in Acts 2 is then explored. The ten habits are: biblical teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, giving, service, eating together, gladness and generosity, worship and making more disciples. Each chapter has suggestions for further reflection and action that can be used individually or by smaller or larger Christian communities.£10.99 -
Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers
The Inner JourneyThere are two ways to live the Christian life. You can live it either for the heart of Christ or from the heart of Christ. You can live for the smile of God or from it. For a new identity as a son or daughter of God or from it. For your union with Christ or from it. The battle of the Christian life is to bring your own heart into alignment with Christ’s, that is, getting up each morning and replacing your natural orphan mind-set with a mind-set of full and free adoption into the family of God through the work of Christ… Jesus’ final prayer on the cross was, “It is finished.” And it is. Our God declared “Let there be light” and there was. He yelled out, “It is finished,” and it is. Our forgiveness and standing are secure because of the finished work of Jesus. We don’t have to live for victory. We can live from it.£14.99 -
Sacred Rhythms : Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation
Spiritual Exercises, The Inner JourneyDo you long for a deep, fundamental change in your life with God? Do you desire a greater intimacy with God? Do you wonder how you might truly live your life as God created you to live it? Spiritual disciplines are activities that open us to God's transforming love and the changes that only God can bring about in our lives. Picking up on the monastic tradition of creating a "rule of life" that allows for regular space for the practice of the spiritual disciplines, this book takes you more deeply into understanding seven key disciplines along with practical ideas for weaving them into everyday life. Each chapter includes exercises to help you begin the practices--individually and in a group context. The final chapter puts it all together in a way that will help you arrange your life for spiritual transformation. The choice to establish your own sacred rhythm is the most important choice you can make with your life.£15.99 -
Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s transforming presence
The Inner JourneyMuch of our faith and practice is about words―preaching, teaching, talking with others. Yet all of these words are not enough to take us into the real presence of God where we can hear his voice. This book is an invitation to you to meet God deeply and fully outside the demands and noise of daily life. It is an invitation to solitude and silence. The beauty of a true invitation is that we really do have a choice about embarking on this adventure. God extends the invitation, but he honours our freedom and will not push himself where he is not wanted. Instead, he waits for us to respond from the depths of our desire. Will you say yes?£11.99 -
An Ocean of Light : Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation
Scripture & Prayer, The Inner Journey, UncategorizedFor people drawn to a life of contemplation, the dawning of luminous awareness in a mind full of clutter is deeply liberating. In the third of his best-selling books on Christian contemplative life, Martin Laird turns his attention to those who are well settled in their contemplative practice. An Ocean of Light speaks both to those just entering the contemplative path and to those with a maturing practice of contemplation. Gradually, the practice of contemplation lifts the soul, freeing it from the blockages that introduce confusion into our identity and thus confusion about the mystery we call God. In the course of a lifetime of inner silencing, the flower of awareness emerges: a living realization that we have never been separate from God or from the rest of humanity while we each fully become what each of us is created to be. In contemplation we become so silent before God that the "before" drops away. Those whose lives have led them deeply into the silent land realize this, but not in the way that we realize that the square root of 144 is 12. Laird draws from a wide and diverse range of writers-from St. Augustine, Evagrius Ponticus, and St. Teresa of Avila to David Foster Wallace, Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, and Franz Wright-to ground his insight in an ancient practice and give it a voice in contemporary language. With his characteristic lyricism and gentleness, Laird guides readers through new challenges of contemplative life, such as making ourselves the focus of our own contemplative project; dealing with old pain; transforming the isolation of loneliness and depression into a liberating solidarity with all who suffer; and the danger of using a spiritual practice as a strategy to acquire and control.£12.99 -
The Dark Night of the Soul: A Psychiatrist Explores the Connection Between Darkness and Spiritual Growth
The Inner JourneyGerald G. May, MD, one of the great spiritual teachers and writers of our time, argues that the dark 'shadow' side of the true spiritual life has been trivialised and neglected to our serious detriment. Superficial and naively upbeat spirituality does not heal and enrich the soul. Nor does the other tendency to relegate deep spiritual growth to only mystics and saints. Only the honest, sometimes difficult encounters with what Christian spirituality has called and described in helpful detail as 'the dark night of the soul' can lead to true spiritual wholeness. May emphasises that the dark night is not necessarily a time of suffering and near despair, but a time of deep transition, a search for new orientation when things are clouded and full of mystery. The dark gives depth, dimension and fullness to the spiritual life.£16.99 -
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Reading the Bible with the Damned
Leadership, Scripture & Prayer, Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyExploring the challenges that both the churched and the unchurched have faced regarding giving and receiving the word of God, Bob Ekblad encourages us all to learn to read the Bible together as a whole. In this compelling book, he reflects on how Christians have often found it difficult to proclaim God's good news to every realm of society, while those who have needed it most have frequently deemed themselves unworthy due to social circumstances or sinfulness. In Reading the Bible with the Damned, Ekblad offers concrete advice on how to bridge this gap through a variety of insights ultimately leading to spiritual transformation. This book is full of examples of how Scripture changes lives for those who attend Bible studies and for those who lead them, offering practical suggestions on many passages from the Old and New Testaments.£16.99 -
Seven Sacred Spaces
Influences & Suggested Reading, The Inner Journey, Traditional MonasticismToo often people's understanding of and engagement with 'church' is reduced to corporate worship, when it is so much more. George Lings identifies seven characteristic elements in Christian communities through the ages, which when held in balance enable a richer expression of discipleship, mission and community. In the monastic tradition these elements have distinctive locations: cell (being alone with God), chapel (corporate public worship), chapter (making decisions), cloister (planned and surprising meetings), garden (the place of work), refectory (food and hospitality) and scriptorium (study and passing on knowledge). Through this lens George Lings explores how these seven elements relate to our individual and communal walk with God, hold good for church and family life, and appear in wider society.£10.99 -
A Sunlit : Silence, Awareness and Contemplation
Scripture & Prayer, The Inner Journey"The practice of contemplation is one of the great spiritual arts," writes Martin Laird in A Sunlit Absence. "Not a technique but a skill, it harnesses the winds of grace that lead us out into the liberating sea of silence." In this companion volume to his bestselling Into the Silent Land, Laird focuses on a quality often overlooked by books on Christian meditation: a vast and flowing spaciousness that embraces both silence and sound, and transcends all subject/object dualisms. Drawing on the wisdom of great contemplatives from St. Augustine and St. Teresa of Avila to St. Hesychios, Simone Weil, and many others, Laird shows how we can uncover the deeper levels of awareness that rest within us like buriedtreasure waiting to be found. The key insight of the book is that as our practice matures, so will our experience of life's ordeals, sorrows, and joys expand into generous, receptive maturity. We learn to see whatever difficulties we experience in meditation-boredom, lethargy, arrogance, depression, grief,anxiety-not as obstacles to be overcome but as opportunities to practice surrender to what is. With clarity and grace Laird shows how we can move away from identifying with our turbulent, ever-changing thoughts and emotions to the cultivation of a "sunlit absence"-the luminous awareness in which God's presence can most profoundly be felt. Addressed to both beginners and intermediates on the pathless path of still prayer, A Sunlit Absence offers wise guidance on the specifics of contemplative practice as well as an inspiring vision of the purpose of such practice and the central role it can play in our spiritual lives.£14.99 -
New Testament Wives
Creativity, Spiritual Growth, The Inner JourneyA new collection of poetry which gives an imagined female voice to events and stories in the New Testament.£6.00 -
Soulful Nature: A spiritual field guide
Everyday Life, The Inner JourneyIn our busy, pressured world, the natural world can be a powerful counter-balance, offers wisdom for the challenges, pain and dislocations of life as well as for beauty, wonder and healing. In Soulful Nature, Brian Draper and Howard Green encourage you to get outside and make deeper connections with creation and its creator. They chart walking journeys through rural landscapes and town streets over the course of a year, showing how the natural cycle of the changing seasons can awaken us to the rhythms of our own lives. Each chapter explores a different landscape, zooming in on the small details of the natural world as well as panning out to the wide-screen beauty of time and place. Simple and practical spiritual exercises are provided throughout.£14.99 -
Desert Dangers and Delights: Stories, Teachings, and Sources
Desert Monasticism, The Inner JourneyThe spirituality and lives of the desert fathers and mothers are often seen as the beginning and end of Christian monastic life. Their stories and messages inspire not only the most devout Christians but also the "nones" and the "dones." In Desert Dangers and Delights John Michael Talbot reflects on his experience as a spiritual father and a populariser of Catholic Christian spirituality through his music and teaching. He uses his own stories, Scripture, and the stories and sayings of the desert fathers and mothers to show a radically alternative way of living and thinking in Christ. With questions for reflection at the end of each chapter, this book will aid all readers, from experienced monastics to those just beginning a spiritual journey with Christ.£15.99
