Alterquest The Alternative Quest For Answers

It's the 21st century and what have we got to show for it? Does humanity really want to continue its downward spiral or are we ready to create a different reality? The purpose of this book is many-fold. 1. It shows you ways in which our civilization can progress. 2. It challenges all the old methods of doing things. 3. It offers workable methods, which have been tried and proven by individuals and communities all over the globe, with the sole purpose of making life better. 4. It is interactive. It offers its readers an invitation to join the AlterQuest Organization and be part of a practical Global Network for the advancement of our world. AlterQuest is the most exciting, inspirational book you will ever read. Its topics will give you unlimited hope for the present and the future. You'll find yourself grasping at every wonderful idea with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. Here at last we have the answers we've all been searching for.

In The Soul of Activism, author and activist Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, gives a unique re-examination of the power of interfaith spirituality to fuel the fires of progressive activism. 'Religion' in the public sphere has been claimed by far-right ideologues while progressives, turned off by the hypocrisy of the religious influence on contemporary policy, have lost out on the experience of religious community. As a result, progressives are losing control of political discourse because they neither grasp nor trust the universal and invigorating language and practice of religion when expressed productively for social justice. Progressive activists must find these missing spiritual tools, cultivate compassion, and lead affirmative change in their communities.

Kahlil Gibran American essayist, philosopher, poet and painter born in Lebanon in 1883. He blended elements of Eastern and Western mysticism and was greatly influenced by Blake and Neitzche. Although his sayings are neither crusades nor sermons, yet the thoughts conveyed are complete, clear and concise revealing Gibran as a Prophet of penetrating vision and objective understanding. Millions of followers today observe his writings with religious devotion and fervour, because his thoughts are ageless and realistic. This Omnibus edition, for the first time brings out 12 greatest works of Khalil Gibran comprising The Prophet, The Wanderer, Nymphs of the Valley, The Madman, The Broken Wings to name a few.

There are in the Middle East today two challenging ideas: old and new. The old ideas will vanish because they are weak and exhausted. There is in the Middle East an awakening that defies slumber. This awakening will conquer because the sun is its leader and the dawn is its army. In the fields of the Middle East, which have been a large burial ground, stand the youth of Spring calling the occupants of the sepulchers to rise and march toward the new frontiers. When the Spring sings its hymns the dead of the winter rise, shed their shrouds and march forward. There is on the horizon of the Middle East a new awakening; it is growing and expanding; it is reaching and engulfing all sensitive, intelligent souls; it is penetrating and gaining all the sympathy of noble hearts. The Middle East, today, has two masters. One is deciding, ordering, being obeyed; but he is at the point of death. But the other one is silent in his conformity to law and order, calmly awaiting justice; he is a powerful giant who knows his own strength, confident in his existence and a believer in his destiny. There are today, in the Middle East, two men: one of the past and one of the future. Which one are you? Come close, let me look at you and let me be assured by your appearance and your conduct if you are one of those coming into the light or going into the darkness.

Your Lebanon is an arena for men from the West and men from the East. My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadows and rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards. You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people. Yours are those whose souls were born in the hospitals of the West; they are as a ship without rudder or sail upon a raging sea . . . . They are strong and eloquent among themselves but weak and dumb among Europeans. They are brave, the liberators and the reformers, but only in their own area. But they are the cowards, always led backward by the Europeans. They are those who croak like frogs boasting that they have rid themselves of their ancient, tyrannical enemy, but the truth of the matter is that this tyrannical enemy still hides within their own souls. They are the slaves for whom time had exchanged rusty chains for shiny ones so that they thought themselves free. These are the children of your Lebanon. Is there anyone among them who represents the strength of the towering rocks of Lebanon, the purity of its water or the fragrance of its air? Who among them vouchsafes to say, "When I die I leave my country little better than when I was born?"

Marco Armiero is Senior Researcher at the Italian National Research Council and Marie Curie Fellow at the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technologies, Universitat Aut(noma de Barcelona. He has published extensively on-Italian environmental history and edited Views from the South: Environmental Stories from the Mediterranean World. --