Contemplative Crochet

With Hook in Hand, Enrich Your Spiritual Practice and Renew Your Awareness of the Connections of Creativity to Spirit What can you learn about yourself through your crocheting? What deeper symbolism lies behind the loops and patterns that you create? How can this simple activity help you make your way down a spiritual path? Delve into these questions and more in this imaginative book that will become your spiritual friend, your teacher and your sanctuary. Follow the crochet journeys of the author and other crocheters to discover how they have used their crocheting to explore and strengthen their spiritual selves, and how you can do the same. In this joyful and engaging look at a time-honored craft, you will discover ways to: Find a Sense of Fullness and Gratitude Have More within a Structure of Less Combine the Spiritual Practices of Meditation and Prayer Create Tools for Intensifying Spiritual Practice Find Your Spiritual Path with Crochet Connect with Community through Crochet Make Crochet Uniquely Yours and much more

The rhythm of the hook, the touch of wool, the miraculous creation of beautiful fabric from yarn?any crocheter knows the satisfaction to be found in the simple act of crocheting. But is there a way to develop this sense of the spiritual into a deeper, more mindful practice?This joyful and engaging craft book will take you on a path deeper into your crocheting and your spiritual awareness. Follow the stories, musings and discoveries of the author and other crocheters as they illuminate the spiritual lessons you can learn through crocheting. Explore your own crocheting practice through original patterns, meditations, creative exercises, prayers and rituals. You will find yourself reaching for your hook and yarn as you read, inspired to take up your projects with a whole new state of mind.Projects include:Roots and Wings PaperweightsMeditation Prayer ShawlPocket MandalaPrayers on a String Prayer BeadsWay Opens ScarfFriends and Tea CozyScrumbled Tea SteeperCrochet Wristers?and much, much more!

With Hook in Hand, Enrich Your Spiritual Practice and Renew Your Awareness of the Connections of Creativity to Spirit What can you learn about yourself through your crocheting? What deeper symbolism lies behind the loops and patterns that you create? How can this simple activity help you make your way down a spiritual path? Delve into these questions and more in this imaginative book that will become your spiritual friend, your teacher and your sanctuary. Follow the crochet journeys of the author and other crocheters to discover how they have used their crocheting to explore and strengthen their spiritual selves, and how you can do the same. In this joyful and engaging look at a time - honored craft, you will discover ways to: Find a Sense of Fullness and Gratitude Have More within a Structure of Less Combine the Spiritual Practices of Meditation and Prayer Create Tools for Intensifying Spiritual Practice Find Your Spiritual Path with Crochet Connect with Community through Crochet Make Crochet Uniquely Yours and much more

Interfaith as a Faith—A Way to Move Past Preaching about Love and Compassion to Actually Practicing Them “A commitment to Interfaith is no small commitment. Nor is it an easy commitment. But I do believe it can be a rewarding and healing one. Interfaith widens our world. And, if we let it, Interfaith frees us from the imprisoning shackles of one of the most debilitating of all human emotions—fear of the ‘other.’” —from Chapter 6 The interfaith movement is taking root. More and more of us are exploring it. At the same time interfaith finds itself at a crossroads. Where do we go now? Rev. Steven Greenebaum not only suggests the faith of Interfaith as a positive way forward but also offers a practical, down-to-earth approach to a more spiritually fulfilling life. In this accessible how-to guide, Greenebaum addresses: What it means to practice Interfaith as a faith and why you might want to embrace it.Why you can choose Interfaith as a faith and still keep your own spiritual tradition.How to establish the necessary foundations to start an Interfaith spiritual community.How to choose the right minister for your Interfaith community.What you can expect as your community forms and grows.And much, much more. Along with offering resources such as Interfaith liturgy and guides to Interfaith church governance, he includes the voices of members of the Living Interfaith Church, the community he founded, to share their whys and hows of participating in an Interfaith church.

A thoughtful, down-to-earth look at helpful ways to lessen human suffering. This book takes you on a lively, sometimes light-hearted, journey through nine Buddhist practices that can bring "blessed relief" to a wide range of human sufferingand teaches you skills to reduce suffering in the long term for yourself and others. The practices help you: [[ Loosen the grip of suffering [[ Engage and question limiting views, thoughts and opinions [[ Deconstruct ten common assumptions [[ Be present in each moment [[ Survive emotional storms [[ Develop peaceful communication skills [[ Deepen communication with your partner [[ Appreciate mortality and the preciousness of life [[ Cultivate compassion As you read the chapters and engage in each practice, you will work with your own stories of sufferingstories in which you have felt abandoned, deprived, subjugated, defective, excluded or vulnerableand you will learn how to release yourself from suffering by investigating it with curiosity and kindness.

This practical guide to the key methods and resources of the interfaith movement will help you effectively engage people of other faith traditions in order to increase understanding and acceptance in your community and beyond.

Awaken to the wonders of your dreamself, and energize your spiritual potential for self-understanding and self-healing. “Without a doubt, people of all times and places have had the capacity to dream the sacred. I write this book in a sincere effort to create space for us to share these dreams and to provide a practical guide to nurturing sacred dreaming as an art.” —from the Introduction Sacred dreams—those in which the dreamer experiences the immediate presence of or communication with the Divine——have shaped the spiritual history of humankind. Jacob’s ladder dream, Joseph’s dream verifying Mary’s virgin pregnancy and Herod’s plans to destroy the child, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha’s auspicious dreams on his journey to enlightenment, Muhammad’s night journey dream—the pervasive power of the sacred dream is part of the scripture and lore of virtually all the world’s religions. This fascinating introduction to sacred dreaming celebrates the dream experience as a way to deepen spiritual awareness and as a source of self-healing for people of all faith traditions—or none. Includes practical, step-by-step exercises in every chapter.

By breaking free from our misperceptions about what it means to be an adult, we can reshape our world and become harbingers of grace. “In our desire to grow up, mature, become adults, we become enamored with who we are supposed to be. When we have finally ‘grown up’ we realize much of who we really are has been left behind or buried under various masks and roles we play. But the knowledge of who we truly are never leaves us. To reclaim our selfhood, we must grow up again and consciously embrace all that it means to be childlike.” —from Chapter 12, “It Takes a Long Time to Become Young” By restoring the childlike ways of humility, trust, awe, wonder, playfulness and more, we can recover a fuller picture of what it means to be human. This unique spiritual resource explores what Jesus may have meant when he said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” It addresses our modern misperceptions regarding the nature of maturity and the common coping mechanisms—distrust, guardedness, insecurity, judgmental thinking—we acquire, and feel we require, in adulthood. Along with the wisdom of ancient and modern spiritual luminaries, this book provides over twenty-five spiritual practices to help us cultivate the childlike ways of attention, self-awareness, joy and resilience in our inner lives as well as in our relationships with others.