A Life Together

Creating a Life Together is the only resource available that provides step-by-step practical information distilled from numerous firsthand sources on how to establish an intentional community. It deals in depth with structural, interpersonal and leadership issues, decision-making methods, vision statements, and the development of a legal structure, as well as profiling well-established model communities. This exhaustive guide includes excellent sample documents among its wealth of resources. Diana Leafe Christian is the editor of Communities magazine and has contributed to Body & Soul, Yoga Journal, and Shaman’s Drum, among others. She is a popular public speaker and workshop leader on forming intentional communities, and has been interviewed about the subject on NPR. She is a member of an intentional community in North Carolina.

An eminent historian's biography of one of Mexico's most prominent statesmen, thinkers, and writers Lucas Alamán (1792-1853) was the most prominent statesman, political economist, and historian in nineteenth-century Mexico. Alamán served as the central ministerial figure in the national government on three occasions, founded the Conservative Party in the wake of the Mexican-American War, and authored the greatest historical work on Mexico's struggle for independence. Though Mexican historiography has painted Alamán as a reactionary, Van Young's balanced portrait draws upon fifteen years of research to argue that Alamán was a conservative modernizer, whose north star was always economic development and political stability as the means of drawing Mexico into the North Atlantic world of advanced nation-states. Van Young illuminates Alamán's contribution to the course of industrialization, advocacy for scientific development, and unerring faith in private property and institutions such as church and army as anchors for social stability, as well as his less commendable views, such as his disdain for popular democracy.

Achieve your goals—no matter how big or small—with these 50 simple challenges that actually fit into your life, using this accessible and self-paced approach to self-improvement. Looking to improve your relationships? Be more confident at work? Eat less sugar? However you want to be better, Get Your Life Together (Ish) is here to help with fifty simple, actionable challenges to self-improvement. With reward-based challenges ranging from easy to hard, this book will be with you every step of the way in your journey to the person you want to be. Try an easy level challenge that can be completed in a single day—like waking up fifteen minutes early to give yourself a little morning “me-time.” Or work up to a harder challenge that you’ll tackle over the course of a month—like signing up for a weekly yoga class and making a commitment to attend every single one. Learn from easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions and track your goals and successes with interactive worksheets. And with manageable, realistic timelines for each challenge, you’ll find it easy to make changes in your daily life—without any added pressure! With this book in hand, you’ll discover everything from how to start saving money to how to develop a cleaning routine, to creating an emergency fund and avoiding burnout at work. Whatever changes you’re looking to make in your life and in yourself, there’s a plan for you here. Start to change your life…one challenge at a time!

Best Book of Spiritual Formation, from Byron Borger, Hearts and Minds Bookstore Have you joined a church or small group in hopes of experiencing real life change, only to be disappointed? Have you sat through inspiring sermons about what is possible when Christians gather together in mutually edifying relationships, only to recognize how cynical you have become after many failed attempts? Community may be one of the most over-promised, under-delivered aspects of the Christian life today. Individuals remain selfish and stuck in their ways. Communities become spiritually lifeless or even fall apart because we don't know how to experience transformation together. Transforming community does not come primarily from listening to inspiring preaching or adding another church program. It emerges as we embrace a shared commitment to the attitudes, practices and behaviors that open us to Christ in our midst. And that's where Life Together in Christ comes in. Reflecting on the story of the two disciples who meet Christ on the Emmaus Road, Ruth Haley Barton offers this interactive guide for small groups of spiritual companions who are ready to encounter Christ in transforming ways—right where they are on the road of real life.

Jesus died with a psalm on his lips. For millennia, humans have been shaped by the Psalms. And before the Nazis banned him from publishing, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer published this book on the Psalms. What comfort is found in the Psalter? What praise, and what challenge? What threat? In the pages of Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, discover the richness this book of Scripture held for Bonhoeffer, and learn to pray psalms along with Christ. First published in 1940, this classic reveals how the Psalms are essential to the life of the believer and offers Bonhoeffer's reflections on psalms of thanksgiving, suffering, guilt, praise, and lament. Now with an introduction by Walter Brueggemann and excerpts from the Psalms, Bonhoeffer's timeless work offers contemporary readers ancient wisdom and resources for the living of these days. Includes a biographical sketch of Bonhoeffer written by his friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge.

More than 40 years ago, Jean Vanier, author of the bestselling Becoming Human, invited two men with developmental disabilities to live in his home. This simple act of friendship and compassion has grown into a worldwide phenomenon. Vanier is the founder of the international movement of L’Arche communities and of Faith and Light, two organizations that bring together people with developmental disabilities and the friends who share their lives. A respected humanitarian, Vanier espouses the simple and inspiring philosophy that the marginalized, weak and lonely can teach us great things and that true spirituality can come from our relationships with the less fortunate. There are now more than 130 L’Arche communities on six continents and in 30 countries, welcoming people of all spiritual beliefs. Our Life Together gathers significant letters from four decades of Vanier’s correspondence, beginning in 1964, the year he founded the first L’Arche community. In a spare and meditative style, Vanier reflects on world events, his travels, his own journey through his faith and his deep desire for interfaith dialogue and peace. Read together, the letters reveal a man of tremendous insight and compassion, whose example can inspire us all to do great things

As her husband Donald Hall writes in the afterword to Otherwise, we share "her joy in the body and the creation, in flowers, music, and paintings, in hayfields and a dog."