All The Way To Heaven

"With honesty, humor, and insight, Elizabeth traces her journey from an agnostic upbringing, through clinical depression, to a stunning encounter with God. Written with a rare literary finesse, this spiritual journey will touch you as no other book has and will give you an inspiring vision of our eternal future in heaven"--Back cover.

A Loving Tribute To A Unique Upbringing When Stephen Alter Is Asked The Simple Question Where Are You From, Originally? He Hesitates. Although He Is In Almost Every Way An American-Granted With A Trace Of British Accent-He Has An Unexpected Reply: My Real Home Was In India, A Hill Station Called Mussoorie, Seven And A Half Thousand Feet Up The Himalayas. That Was Where I Was Born And Raised, In A Section Known As Landour... It Is A Landscape, And A Time, That Haunts Him Still: I Miss The Place Itself; The Mountains, The View Of The High Himalayas Beyond Mussoorie, Stretching All The Way To Heaven. The Son And Grandson Of Presbytarian Missionaries Living In India For More Than Half A Century, Every Day Alter Straddled The Profound Boundary Between Utterly Different Peoples, Cultures, Languages And Religions. He And His Brothers Spoke A Pidgin Dialect Of Hindustani And English As Young Boys, Fished In The Rivers Song, Ganga And The Jumna, And Later Hunted For Barking Deer And Ghoral In The Steep Foothills Of The Mountains Always Looming Behind Them. They Studied American History But Knew More About India'S Recent Independence From England. In All The Way To Heaven, Alter Writes Affectionately Of His Family, His Indian Friends And His Memories Exotic And Mundane.

“The publication of the letters of Dorothy Day is a significant event in the history of Christian spirituality.” —Jim Martin, SJ, author of My Life with the Saints Dorothy Day, cofounder of the Catholic Worker movement, has been called the most significant, interesting, and influential person in the history of American Catholicism. Now the publication of her letters, previously sealed for 25 years after her death and meticulously selected by Robert Ellsberg, reveals an extraordinary look at her daily struggles, her hopes, and her unwavering faith. This volume, which extends from the early 1920s until the time of her death in 1980, offers a fascinating chronicle of her response to the vast changes in America, the Church, and the wider world. Set against the backdrop of the Depression, World War II, the Cold War, Vatican II, Vietnam, and the protests of the 1960s and ’70s, she corresponded with a wide range of friends, colleagues, family members, and well-known figures such as Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, César Chávez, Allen Ginsberg, Katherine Anne Porter, and Francis Cardinal Spellman, shedding light on the deepest yearnings of her heart. At the same time, the first publication of her early love letters to Forster Batterham highlight her humanity and poignantly dramatize the sacrifices that underlay her vocation. “These letters are life-, work-, and faith-affirming.” —National Catholic Reporter

From the Author: What I've aimed for... in this book is neither academic analysis nor a history of the Worker movement per se. Rather, my interest has been a theological exploration of the Catholic Worker vision in all its rich and resonating breadth. The goal has been to present and ... to promote that vision as what I am convinced the movement's founders, Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, understood it to be: not, finally, a matter of political theory or philosophy ... but rather of profound religious conviction and insight. ____________ Indeed, what is most striking about the now more than sixty years of Catholic Worker reflection, writing and living is the movement's audacity of conviction and action: the unflinching consistency of its call to discipleship; the comprehensiveness of its attempt to bring together all aspects of life into a divinely-ordered, balanced whole; the diversity of philosophical and theological sources it seeks to meld into a unified model for truly human living; the unembarrassed simplicity of its hope.

Every one of us has a life-affirming story to tell... The inspiring true stories of the interesting people who inhabit the pages of Sudha Murty’s books leave an indelible impression on us. But the books are able to chronicle the stories only of the men and women Mrs Murty has come across personally in the course of her social work. There must be so many more wonderful stories that scores of others have to share. Something Happened on the Way to Heaven is a collection of twenty such memorable true-life stories. Handpicked by Sudha Murty from entries submitted in an open competition run by Penguin, they capture the hope, faith, kindness and joy that life is full of even as we make our way through the daily grind. Moving and uplifting, this is an anthology that will engross and delight every reader who believes in the goodness of the human heart.

Almost 60 percent of those in American evangelical churches believe that many religions can lead to eternal life. But if Jesus is to be trusted when he says that no one comes to the Father except through him, the church is failing in its mission. And it's not hard to guess why. An exclusive Jesus just isn't popular in our inclusive world. Dr. Robert Jeffress calls on Christians to recover the exclusive claims of the one they claim as Lord and Savior, not as a way to keep people out of heaven but as the only way to invite them in. He tackles questions like - Can people be saved who have never heard of Christ? - What about those who worship God by another name? - Do children automatically go to Heaven when they die? True compassion for non-Christians doesn't lie in letting them go their way while we go ours, but in sharing the only true way with them.