Breaking The Earthenware Jar

The incidence of domestic violence in South Asia is among the highest in the world and gender-based violence is seen as a major public health problem as well as a development and human rights issue. The experiences, views and recommendations of South Asian activists form the core of this book along with related findings and international concerns. The first part of the book starts with some basic definitions, looks at key international treaties and declarations and goes on to examine the problems that women and girls face due to gender violence. The second part of the book looks at why gender violence occurs, where change is needed and how to achieve change.

In 1988, Lydia Cabrera (1899–1991) published La lengua sagrada de los Ñáñigos, an Abakuá phrasebook that is to this day the largest work available on any African diaspora community in the Americas. In the early 1800s in Cuba, enslaved Africans from the Cross River region of southeastern Nigeria and southwestern Cameroon created Abakuá societies for protection and mutual aid. Abakuá rites reenact mythic legends of the institution’s history in Africa, using dance, chants, drumming, symbolic writing, herbs, domestic animals, and masked performers to represent African ancestors. Criminalized and scorned in the colonial era, Abakuá members were at the same time contributing to the creation of a unique Cuban culture, including rumba music, now considered a national treasure. Translated for the first time into English, Cabrera’s lexicon documents phrases vital to the creation of a specific African-derived identity in Cuba and presents the first “insider’s” view of this African heritage. This text presents thoroughly researched commentaries that link hundreds of entries to the context of mythic rites, skilled ritual performance, and the influence of Abakuá in Cuban society and popular music. Generously illustrated with photographs and drawings, the volume includes a new introduction to Cabrera’s writing as well as appendices that situate this important work in Cuba’s history. With the help of living Abakuá specialists in Cuba and the US, Ivor L. Miller and P. González Gómes-Cásseres have translated Cabrera’s Spanish into English for the first time while keeping her meanings and cultivated style intact, opening this seminal work to new audiences and propelling its legacy in African diaspora studies.

Here is an invitation to embark on a journey of discovery that marshals our imagination and emotions, our intellect and will. God the Worker seeks to answer the ultimate questions: - What is God really like? - Can we know God intimately? - Where do we fit into the overall scheme of things? In his quest for answers, Robert Banks opens up the world of the Bible and everyday life as he explores dynamic images of God at work: as composer and performer, as metalworker and potter, as garmentmaker and dresser, as gardener and orchardist, as farmer and winemaker, as shepherd and pastoralist, as tentmaker and camper, as builder and architect. He shows how, through the language and idea of work, the divine hand is revealed. This book offers us the opportunity to encounter God in a way that is mind-expanding, life-changing, work-transforming--taking us to the very edges of human understanding. The author sees the Bible as a guidebook and source of insight that is completely fresh, but paradoxically as old as the book itself.

The author of The Singing Guru shares the journey of Bhai Lehna to becoming Guru Angad in a tale that’s part history, legend, and fiction. Into the Great Heart carries forward and concludes the stories of Guru Nanak and Bhai Mardana, his favorite minstrel, from the first volume of the Sikh Founder Series, The Singing Guru. History, legend, and fiction merge to populate this book with fascinating personalities from Sikh history. Pivotal to this narrative are forgotten female luminaries such as Guru Nanak’s wife, Mata Sulakhni, his sister, Bebe Nanaki, Bhai Lehna’s wife, Khivi, and daughter, Amro. Brought to the foreground, their wisdom and insights as they overcome obstacles to spiritual growth embody the basic tenets of Sikhism in everyday living. They enhance Guru Nanak and Bhai Lehna’s tale with their diverse approach to life. Filled with captivating characters that enrich the tapestry of this compelling narrative, Into the Great Heart is a must-read for anyone who loves a rich story about human nature in its search for spiritual awareness. “A poetic and moving evocation of the life and spirit of Guru Nanak.” —Alex Rutherford, author of Empire of the Moghul series

Here is a fascinating study that contributes much to our understanding of the Gospel tradition and, in addition, provides evidence that biblical theology is still alive and flourishing. Morna Hooker reviews the prophetic actions in the Old Testament and compares these with the way in which prophetic figures behaved in Jesus's day, in particular John the Baptist and the so-called sign prophets. She then turns to Jesus and considers those actions that can be described as prophetic signs or dramas. Hooker discusses the sign of Jonah, Jesus's refusal to perform signs, the miracles and other prophetic actions like the renaming of Simon, Jesus's eating with tax-collectors and sinners, and the prophetic signs associated with Jerusalem, reaching a climax in the Last Supper. A final chapter examines the different ways in which the four evangelists interpreted Jesus's prophetic actions.

In the Lord’s recovery during the past five hundred years the church’s knowledge of the Lord and His truth has been continually progressing. This monumental and classical work by Brother Witness Lee builds upon and is a further development of all that the Lord has revealed to His church in the past centuries. It is filled with the revelation concerning the processed Triune God, the living Christ, the life-giving Spirit, the experience of life, and the definition and practice of the church. In this set Brother Lee has kept three basic principles that should rule and govern every believer in their interpretation, development, and expounding of the truths contained in the Scriptures. The first principle is that of the Triune God dispensing Himself into His chosen and redeemed people; the second principle is that we should interpret, develop, and expound the truths contained in the Bible with Christ for the church; and the third governing principle is Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church. No other study or exposition of the New Testament conveys the life nourishment or ushers the reader into the divine revelation of God’s holy Word according to His New Testament economy as this one does.

Throughout the centuries, translations of the Bible have steadily improved. In general, each new translation inherits from previous ones and opens the way for later ones. While a new translation derives help from its predecessors, it should go further. The Recovery Version of the New Testament, following the precedent set by the major authoritative English versions and taking these versions as reference, not only incorporates lessons learned from an examination of others’ practices but also attempts to avoid biases and inaccurate judgments. This version, frequently guided by other versions, attempts to provide the best utterance for the revelation in the divine Word, that it may be expressed in the English language with the greatest accuracy.