Before The Beginning To Beyond The End

Life is full of big questions. Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Where do the universe, earth, and humans come from? Do humans have free will? What is the meaning of life and death? Do humans and animals have souls and spirits? Where do good and evil come from? Who is Satan? What was his original offense? Why does the devil tempt humans? Why is there pain and suffering? Can the nefarious attitudes in human spirits change for the better? Before the Beginning to Beyond the End clearly presents answers to the above questions based in Scripture. The book seeks to unpack the creation of the world and its implications for mankind through the lens of the Bible. Furthermore, it expounds on the cause for human’s fall, God’s redemption plan, Jesus’s fulfillment of Messianic prophecies, future events in the world, and what will happen to us beyond the end of time.

The world speaks what the mind thinks. Grace reveals and transforms. When the light shines, everything else disappears. The earth and heaven declare his glory. Only man can block him from his sight. What distinguishes man from all creation can be his downfall. The treasure is in everyone. Few choose to uncover, dissolve, and live it. God is love incarnated in the Christ. We are his incarnated flesh and blood to be shared with the hungry, thirsty, and weary. Who are we otherwise? What else are we here for? To be "him" is not a question. Not to be is not really an option. Death is not a choice. Every moment in your life is a constant reminder. Insights like these, quick, concise, and to the point, make up the bulk of this book. In the age of Facebook and text messaging, who has the time or stamina to wade through long scholarly treatises? They are shared to lead to the Spirit that dwells within everyone. Once the reader is there, it does the rest. One taste would lead to the road of no return. More questions than answers are provided, intended to wake readers up from ordinary thinking, and then lure them to go deeper into their souls. No systematic thesis is presented or intended nor a consistent approach followed, just glimmerings shining through the clouds of the mind. The words that may touch the soul are not mine. Mine are those that stand in the way. The rational mind perceives infinite versions of reality. Only through the spirit of God does love reveal itself. Words are just words. It is the Spirit through them that saves and transforms to the likeness of the Christ. Man has failed to work out his salvation. That is why he came. Salvation through his blood is done, completed, and at hand. Just let his hand lead. Too simple for the mind to believe? You need to trust like a child and follow like a lamb. This is the recurring theme of this book, explored from many directions. There is no other love worth living for.

In Tears, the author explores theoretical issues raised by the intersection of philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and theology. The critical accounts of thinkers like Derrida, Blanchot, Jabès, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Heidegger, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Austin, Ayre, Rorty, Tillich, Barth, and Altizer developed in this book effectively reshape and refocus the terms of current debate.

Life is a continuous poem. As the poems continue, so does the journey. One day, the journey led him to a fork in the roadone sign pointing to the world and the other sign to the way, the truth, and the life. He is still on the road he took leading to the way, the truth and the life. However, a strange thing happened on this journey. The road he took led him through the world. But he was not afraid. Having seen the world through his eyes, he was now seeing it through the eyes of God. Having seen today, he could see tomorrow. Oh sure, he stumbled and he fell, but there was always a hand reaching out to pick him up and brush him off. There was always a smile that told him he was loved. These pages are the poems of his journey, one that continues still. Maybe its yours.

This book cuts through rampant misinformation circulating about 2012 to present a coherent understanding of the Mayan calendar and the significance of the date. As an anthropologist and journalist, Will Black has conducted research into 2012 millenarianism for several years. He consequently offers a much broader and clearer picture than other books on the subject. In their haste to jump onto the 2012 bandwagon, most authors seem to have forgotten that the Maya are a real people, often living in as violently precarious circumstances as their ancestors. Will Black demolishes fantasies about crumbling calendar stones before examining the brutal cocaine wars blighting Central America. The hedonistic world of many westerners who have become interested in 2012 is contrasted sharply with the lives of ancient and modern Maya. The extraordinary world of shamans is contrasted with that of New Age seekers. Information about key visionary substances is offered.

Join Kathleen and Michael Pitt as they leave the comfort and temperate climate of suburban Vancouver to spend an isolated winter north of the Arctic Circle. With neither power nor running water, over 40 kilometres from the nearest community of 75 people, this middle-aged couple learns to embrace temperatures that regularly fall below minus 40 degrees. From their home base in a small, one-room cabin, they seek the challenge of winter camping and the adventure of expeditions across the ice. In January 1999, the Pitts flew by Twin Otter to Colville Lake to pursue Michael's life-long dream of living beyond the reach of roads and concrete. By the time the ice went out of the lakes and rivers in mid-June, their lives had been changed forever. Michael and Kathleen Pitt had been paddling the rivers of Northern Canada for ten years. Yet their experience seemed incomplete. Summer is for visitors. Michael needed to spend a winter in the North, where rivers, lakes and muskeg remain frozen for 7 to 8 months of the year. Only by following the winter trail did Michael believe that he could truly know the character and soul of Canada's vast, seemingly limitless Northern landscape. "A mesmerizing account of the North's beauty and the winter Michael and his wife Kathleen lived in a tiny cabin above the Arctic Circle. Well-written and insightful, this book will delight anyone who has explored the northern latitudes or dreams of doing so." -- Julie Angus, author of Rowboat in a Hurricane: My Amazing Journey Across a Changing Atlantic Ocean "Personal, humorous and witty, Pitt has crafted an Ode to Winter, sharing with us practical tips of wintercraft, philosophical musings and personal observations on life, the North and the majesty of Winter." -- Alan Fehr, 21-year resident of Arctic Canada and Superintendent of Prince Albert and Elk Island National Parks About the author, Michael D. Pitt Born and raised in California, Michael D. Pitt emigrated to Canada in 1975 to accept a position at the University of British Columbia as a professor of grassland ecology in the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, where he eventually served as associate dean for eight years. In 1981 he married Kathleen, who worked at the university as an administrator in Information Technology Services. The lure of a rural lifestyle, however, with golden sun reflecting on winter snow, inevitably proved irresistible. Kathleen said goodbye to commute traffic, deadlines, memos and office walls in 2000. Michael escaped 18 months later. They now live on 565 acres in the Aspen Parkland near Preeceville, Saskatchewan, where sled dogs Brownie, Grey, Sailor and Slick help them operate Meadow's Edge Bed & Breakfast. Kathleen and Michael Pitt are authors of Three Seasons in the Wind: 950 km by Canoe Down Northern Canada's Thelon River, published in 1999.

In this analysis of Japan's policy-making, David Williams places his argument within the debates about Japanese political economy in the United States and Britain, debates previously polarised between `market' and `ministry' views. He presents Japanese-style nationalist development as a serious challenge to Western values and theory.