Bücher veröffentlicht von Harding House Publishing, Inc./AnamcharaBooks

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.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,for through him God created everything. . . . He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.-Colossians 1:15-17Like a vast, ever-growing Tree of Life, Christ-the expression of Divine love-expands endlessly throughout the universe. This is the perspective of ancient Celtic spirituality, and it is this concept that Ray Simpson reveals in his poem-prayers. Inspired by the traditional Celtic style of prayer, he gives words to our individual relationships with God. He speaks of the wonder, beauty, and love revealed through the Universal Christ, the Tree of Life that includes all that is. Each and everything in creation is sacred, for everything is a word of God-and we too are called to be God''s words to our world.

Learn how the ancient Christian Celts read the Bible-and discover new ways to understand the sacred Scriptures today. The Celts'' perspectives on the Bible were far less literal than many modern viewpoints, and yet at the same time, they treasured even deeper layers of meaning than are familiar to most twenty-first century readers. For the Celts, Scripture was a wondrous treasure trove of metaphor and meaning, stories and symbols, all pointing to the loving Mystery that weaves through all Reality."At certain points while reading this book, I could just nod my head, seeing in print things that I have felt deeply but had never put into words. At other points I was stopped in my tracks, reading something that seemed so simple, yet so profound. There were times I had to stop and re-read the same paragraph several times, not because it was too difficult to understand, but because there was so much packed into just a few sentences."-Steve Robinson, Wolf Mountain Books"A very good introduction to how the Celtic followers of Jesus read and saw the Bible. I highly recommend it. Ken''s writing style is really easy to follow-which is saying a lot for such a vast and complex topic."-Jack Gillespie, Celtic priest in the Lindisfarne Community

Pray with the Sufis!The Sufi mystics'' experience of God was down-to-earth, sometimes even crude, and always both practical and jubilant. Their religion was love-and God was their Beloved. Their relationship with the Beloved gave each moment meaning and joy.As you pray with words inspired by Rumi and other Sufi mystics, you''ll experience a new understanding of the Divine One who is everything and nothing, all that we can perceive and all that we cannot. You may even, like the Sufis, find yourself falling head over heels in love with a God who is present everywhere, within you and without. Whatever your religion (or lack of religion), these spiritual poems, inspired by ancient Sufism, will bring you into a deeper relationship with both the Divine and your true Self.

Let us begin the work of Christmas!This book is a celebration of the twelve days of Christmas, offering us a chance to dwell on the meaning of the season in dialog with the wisdom of one of America''s greatest mystics and activists, Howard Thurman.Thurman knew that Christmas always begins in darkness-the darkness of the womb, the darkness of human violence and oppression, the darkness of hopelessness. In Christmas, Thurman reminds us, a light shines even in the darkness, and this light will never be defeated. God''s light streams into the most unexpected places-a stable, among foreign magi from another religious tradition, and in the varieties of human culture and ethnicity. Just a little light can transform the darkness and help us anxious pilgrims find our way.During the twelve days of Christmas, our goal is to experience God''s light, despite the temptation to close our hearts in a world too often characterized by racism, sexism, polarization, nationalism, and exclusion. This season asks us instead to open our hearts and our lives, so that throughout the year ahead, we may be light-bearers, carrying the message of Divine justice and hope, making it come alive even in the darkest corners of the world. ∩╗┐This is the year-round work of Christmas!

How can we recover the radical meaning of the Christmas season? Using the thoughts and words of Madeleine L''Engle, this books offers you a guide through the hectic Christmas season. With quiet times of prayer, Scripture, and meditation, you can begin to wonder-to imagine big possibilities and ask important questions-as you wander outside your typical comfort zones. In the twelve days of Christmas, bookended by Christmas Eve and the Feast of Epiphany, you will experience anew the awe and wonder of the Incarnation. As you both wonder and wander, the questions and images in this book will open your heart to the radical message of Christmas. Like the Magi, you too can follow a star, seeking wisdom in everyday life, while contemplating the cosmic forces within which we live and move and have our being.

Bruce Epperly invites you to share a Christmas adventure with him, voyaging through the twelve days of Christmas (plus Christmas Eve and Epiphany) with Brendan, Columba, Brigid, Patrick, and other Celtic saints. With these Celtic adventurers as your companions, you will discover "thin places"-moments of time when the Incarnation of Christ shines through ordinary people, places, and events. After the busyness of Advent, the days that follow Christmas can be a quieter time, when you can venture out on an inner vision quest for new ways of seeing and being. Loving God, give me vision. Help me hear the singing of angels and the crying of children. Let my prayers take shape in loving words and healing hands. Walk with me, and help me walk with the lost and lonely, the forgotten and marginalized. Let my life be an incarnation of that little Child who is our Savior. May your Christmas journey awaken you to thin places everywhere.

Ray Simpson has given his life, both professionally and personally, to Celtic Christianity, and now he helps us to celebrate a Celtic outlook on the season of Christmas. With their eloquent yet simple words, his prayers welcome the Holy One who comes to us in small, ordinary ways, who is present in the helpless and the vulnerable. As we join Ray in prayer, we stand on the threshold to paradox and mystery-and we "prepare the way" for God to enter our world anew.

If you don''t believe in Santa, you might want to reconsider. The familiar fellow dressed in red has been around a lot longer than the malls'' Santa, longer than Rudolph, longer even than "The Night Before Christmas." His earliest and most ancient forms brought hope and cheer to generation after generation of humankind-and he still has a message for us today. In the midst of the materialism of the modern holiday, Santa offers us a bridge between the physical, secular world and the spiritual, sacred realm. He calls us to remember the power of love to bring hope, even in the midst of cold and dark. Discover his history and evolution, from Ice Age shaman to medieval saint to modern-day icon. Get to know Santa-and believe all over again.

In the spirit of God''s call to creative transformation, Bruce Epperly invites you to join him on a holy adventure in spiritual growth, inspired by the evolving wisdom of Christianity and the world''s great spiritual traditions, innovative global spiritual practices, and emerging visions of reality. Epperly explores the many resources of Christian spirituality in dialogue with the spiritual practices of the world''s great wisdom traditions, describing the gifts other spiritual paths contribute to the pathway of Jesus; at the same time, he uses the lens of the spiritual practices Jesus has inspired throughout Christian history to examine these spiritual paths. Epperly write as a Christian committed to Jesus, whose teachings and way of life he believes lead to pathways of healing and creative personal and planetary transformation. We need an illuminating and multifaceted spirituality, Epperly affirms, to shed light and provide guidance as we confront the unique crises of our time. By embracing the diverse insights of spiritual wisdom givers, physicists, cosmologists, healing practitioners, and Earth keepers, we can meet the Earth''s current challenges with love, joy, and a united strength.

Perhaps the world is saved one act, one click, or one post at a time.When we do ordinary things with great love, as Therese of Lisieux counseled, we bring beauty and healing to our companions on the Internet and to the planetary mind. The omnipresent God is as near as the next key stroke, the next post or response to another''s online comment. We need a whole-person spirituality grounded in a sense of the holiness of all creation and reverence for life, despite the conflicts that characterize our world-and given the amount of time most of us spend online, we need to include these activities in our spiritual lives.Bruce Epperly guides his spiritual Internet manual with the wisdom of the Christian mystical tradition. These insights, both ancient and modern, help us to claim our vocation as God''s companions in healing the world-through the vehicle of social media and other online interactions. Each chapter''s dialogue with a mystic concludes with a spiritual practice that enables us to discover, in the spirit of the patriarch Jacob''s exclamation, that "God is online, and we did not know it."

This little book contains "green thoughts" from writers who gardened across the centuries, thoughts that speak about the beauty and meaning of gardens. These words are combined with the author''s personal prayers, based on the ancient Celtic words from the Carmina Gadelica. Whether you garden yourself or only enjoy looking at gardens, this collection of thoughts will remind you of the deep connection with the life force that sustains not only every green thing but also our own lives and the entire cosmos.Here in my garden, I bend my kneeto the beauty I see beneath me,to the beauty I see above me,to the beauty I see all around me.O Great Being, Spirit of Beauty,bestow on me eyes to see beauty in leaf, beauty in flower,beauty in love, beauty in power, beauty in stem, beauty in fruit,beauty in soil, beauty in root. Beauty on earth as it is in heaven,here in my garden, in shade and light, by day and night,I bend my knee to beauty.

Gardening is an instrument of grace.-May SartonIn these fifteen intimate essays, Melina Rudman explores the pain of loss and the joy of connection, all within the context of her garden. She writes of gardening as a spiritual practice, one that has the power to ground us in the seasons and cycles of Nature. Gardening, she says, plants us firmly in the circle of birth, life, and death, "smack dab in the middle of life''s gore and glory." While gardening focuses on the world of touch and sight and scent, it also opens doors to deeper realities. It teaches us resilience; it shows us how to let go; it comforts our aching hearts; it leads us to repentance-and it offers us a conduit to the Divine.Spirit, I give thanksthat I am held in a great web of Being,where the energy of earth and memory,tree and thought, flower and emotion,are all knit together into You. 

Grandparenting is truly a holy adventure. As we see and bring forth the inner divinity of our grandchildren, we have the opportunity to show them that they are not only our beloved grandchildren but God''s children as well, infinite in worth and possibility. Grandparenting also takes us beyond our relationships with our own grandchildren to care for children everywhere. What kind of world do we hope for them-and what will we do about it?This book is an invitation to consider grandparenting as a spiritual and ethical vocation. Authentic spirituality is earthly good as well as heavenly minded. As we commit ourselves to love and pray for our grandchildren, we can also work to create a just and healthy world for all grandchildren.Anamchara Books seeks to create a community of "soul friends" to encourage and inspire all of us who are on spiritual journeys. The Soul Seeds series is a unique new offering in that life-enhancing library, timely books that gently and accessibly address the challenges facing all of us in today''s world.

"Lewis presents an intimate view of his centering prayer journey. He helps us discover the contemplative life and who we are in the deepest sense, made in God's image." - Fr. Carl Arico, founding member of Contemplative Outreach Ltd., and author of A Taste of Silence"This work offers a friendly and accessible approach to centering prayer that will be of great benefit to those new to the practice. Rich has a lovely way of inviting the reader in through honest reflections on his own experience, both struggles and graces. These stories offer comfort and gentle encouragement on the way." - Christine Valters Paintner, author of The Soul of a Pilgrim"Rich Lewis's writing is unique in its simplicity and lack of pretense. And he is nothing if not honest, especially regarding his passion for centering prayer. In this book you will find down-to-earth spiritual practice that echoes throughout Rich's life as a husband, dad, and financial consultant. Highly recommended!" - Amos Smith, author of Be Still and Listen

I have a hidden meaning. I was portrayed in a thousand different ways in the past, and I keep sprouting again and again down through the centuries. Don't you want to know who I am?The Green Man is an ancient symbol that has gained new popularity, and yet his origins and meaning remain a mystery. Kenneth McIntosh, author of Water from an Ancient Well: Celtic Spirituality for Modern Life, offers a seldom-heard theory on the original significance of this leafy visage. With a wealth of photographs and drawings, the author traces the Green Man's family tree, revealing the deep spirituality embedded in this archetypal image, and concludes with the hope the Green Man offers us today in the twenty-first century.