Cleansing Rain

Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science—the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains—with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey’s mopes and Kurt Cobain’s grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume. Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.

This bestselling Weiser classic is a spiritual first aid manual filled with hundreds of recipes, rituals, and practical ways to rid your home, office, and self of negative energy. Spiritual Cleansing, now in a new paperback edition, featuring a new foreword by Judika Illes, author of The Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells, is a guide for anyone who wants to keep their lives and their environment spiritually clean and protected.

This daily devotional is about looking for God in our everyday lives. God gives us lessons in life to grow a stronger faith, but we need to watch for the blessings along our path. From the struggles of farm life, to the splendors of vacations. From the heartache of losing a loved one, to the joys of grand-parenting. From every day cleaning, to the blessings of unexpected precious moments. God is present in all that we do, if we simply slow down and look for the abundant life He offers. These devotions teach us that every lesson in life is from God as He molds us, shapes us, and helps us grow. All He asks in return is that you Bloom Where You're Planted and serve Him.

When a child who has special problems is born, Carrie Gruman-Trinkner insists that this little one is a wonderful gift from God-not in spite of those problems and differences, but because of them. She understands the struggles that parents of children with differences go through, but also says, "Rejoice. God has given you a precious and wondrous gift-one that will touch your heart forever." This book is written to express the needs of parents of older children as well as those who are just beginning their journey as the parent of a child that faces physical and development challenges.