Bücher von Ellyn Sanna

This is a moving reflection on motherhood's spiritual lessons. Ellyn Sanna draws from personal anecdotes as well as from a wide range of male and female Christian saints and writers, making the book personal yet truly universal at the same time."¿¿Discover the continuous thread that connects a modern mother's ordinary life with Christianity's ancient fabric. Ellyn Sanna's personal transparency gives us all permission to be honest about our inner feelings and longings. This book is a valuable resource for all women who struggle with issues of identity, occupation, and faith."-Lois Barton, CSJ"Ellyn Sanna draws on the metaphor of sunshine and shadows to reflect on the paradoxes of motherhood: the moments of illumination and darkness, the wonder and grief, the growth and guilt, the delight and exhaustion. The kaleidoscope of experiences that make up motherhood can seem random and overwhelming without a spiritual focus to keep the patterns of light and dark in perspective. . . . Ellyn Sanna sees these challenges as a call to live in sacred wholeness, in the presence of God. A beautifully written contemplation of many aspects of motherhood."-Library Journal

God is in me, and God is in you,just as Life is in every seed. . . .Kabîr, an ordinary craftsman who lived in fifteenth-century India, could neither read nor write-and yet he left us spiritual wisdom that spans religions. Although both Hindus and Muslims today claim Kabîr as their saint, ultimately, his religion was simply love. Kabîr's passionate love affair with the Divine offers a resolution to the dualism so present in our modern thinking. We tend to perceive an impenetrable wall between the spiritual and physical worlds, as well as between humanity and the Divine and between life and death, but Kabîr saw past the illusion of separation. Everything and everyone, he taught, is an expression of the eternal Love that sustains us all.We carry God within us, woven through both our bodies and our souls, Kabîr believed, and so there's no need for us to strive after holiness, no need to agonize and search for the spiritual heights. We don't have to "become religious" or convert to a particular theology; Divine rest and fulfillment are ours simply for the taking. We don't have to go anywhere, because we're already home.

The Celts were activists for justice. They persuaded kings to change their policies; they stood up for women and others who were endangered by prejudice; and they worked with tireless love on behalf of all Earth''s creatures. They resisted the injustice of their day-and they persisted throughout their entire lifetimes, until their deaths. (And some would say that they are still hard at work fighting injustice from the Otherworld.) Following in their footsteps requires a mystical experience of the Divine that expresses itself in acts of tangible justice and compassion These essays build on Celtic stories, myths, and tradition to inspire and challenge us. They remind us that we cannot consider ourselves faithful to God if we are not faithful to our entire community (a community that not only includes humans, but also animals, plants, and the entire Earth). "It is in your hands to create a better world for all who live in it."-Nelson Mandela

Times of crisis test us, physically, emotionally, spiritually. But crises can also be opportunities for change, for renewed health, and new visions. Our response can make all the difference. Will we let crisis defeat us? Or will we rise to the challenge and one day emerge from these catastrophic events as better people building a better world? Change must come; it is inevitable. But the form that change takes is at least partly up to us.The prayers collected here, written in the Celtic tradition, offer us ways to spiritually meet the crises of our day. They call us to hope and to healing, to blessing others and to receiving strength and courage. They remind us that the Divine One is at work, even now, ever here.

"The Spirit showed me a tiny thing, the size of a hazelnut," wrote the fourteenth-century mystic, Julian of Norwich. In Julian''s vision, the fragile and insignificant hazelnut contains all of Creation-and yet it endures "because God loves it."Seven hundred years before Rob Bell wrote Love Wins, Julian had already offered the world a vision of God''s all-encompassing love. These prayer-poems, based on All Shall Be Well: A Modern-Language Version of the Revelation of Julian of Norwich, are an accessible introduction to Julian''s joyous theology of love. "Take this book from my heart to yours," she wrote. "If you forget all the rest, remember this: Love is everything. Love is God."

Here are prayers and blessings that sanctify the simplest of daily activities. They remind us to look for the holiness of the everyday and the real presence of God in Creation. They will illumine your life.