Death And Transfiguration

The fourth book in the series featuring the irascible but loveable amateur sleuth Daniel Jacobus Vaclav Herza, the last of a dying breed of great but tyrannical conductors, has been music director of Harmonium for forty years. The world famous touring orchestra was created for him when he fled Czechoslovakia for America during the political turmoil in Eastern Europe in 1956. It is the eve of the opening of a dramatic new concert hall designed by Herza himself. It is also the eleventh hour of intense contract negotiations with the musicians that have strained relations within the organization. When the acting concertmaster, Scheherazade O'Brien, is summarily dismissed by the despotic Herza for the permanent concertmaster position, an audition she was poised to win, O'Brien slits her wrists and the orchestra becomes convulsed. Now, blind, cantankerous violin teacher Daniel Jacobus, who had shunned O'Brien's earlier plea for help against Herza's relentless harassment, investigates Herza's dark past not only in Prague, but in Tokyo and New York. With the help of his old friends Nathaniel Williams, Max Furukawa, and Martin Lilburn, he seeks not only revenge but redemption from the guilt of his own past.

The open access publication of this book has been published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. Death, the ultimate change, is an unexpected Leitmotiv of Ovid’s career and reception. The eighteen contributions collected in this volume explore the theme of death and transfiguration in Ovid’s own career and his posthumous reception, revealing a unity in diversity that has not been appreciated in these terms before now.

At the age of forty-six, the author, summoned by a compelling inner voice to leave everything, embarked on an intense spiritual quest to find God. This account of her journey inwards reflects her spiritual development over the period of her father’s illness and death, as well as her mother’s deteriorating mental condition. Rooted in scripture, this little volume offers an illuminating, even dazzling, portrayal of one woman’s capacity to deal, entirely alone, with the deepest grief and pain without losing perspective. Her great gift to us is her ability to see everything in the light of eternity and as the will of God. From this spiritual vantage point, she was given eyes to see far. This book reflects the intensity of her consciousness of God and the tension under which she lived and wrote. The more mystical passages, often lyrical in expression, reveal a depth and an immediacy, which makes the message compellingly direct. Anyone caring for an elderly parent, grieving the loss of a loved one, or struggling to make sense of pain and suffering, will find encouragement and hope in these pages.

The biblical story of Jesus' Transfiguration "on a high mountain" bristles with meanings germane to present-day concerns and spiritual longings. Together with its later artistic representations, this episode from the synoptic gospels seizes the imagination as an icon of mystical hope, beauty, and possibility. What might such an iconic episode, long honored liturgically in the Eastern church, disclose not only about Jesus, but also about the prospect of seeing our human nature transformed? And as interpreted by Christian tradition since the patristic era, what might it tell us about the worth of envisioning not just a conservation or preservation of natural resources but a transfiguration of all creation, and about how this "feast of beauty" could re-energize current discussions of Christianity's relation to environmental attitudes and policy? Such questions are addressed in this book through an original blend of personal reflection with commentary on relevant theological and scriptural texts, literary works, music, and art.

In this, her latest, deeply moving collection, Kelly Cherry confronts the basic questions of love and death, faith and suffering. From her search for “a new poetry”—one that can face up to the worst barbarities of the twentieth century—Cherry wrests a passionate, authoritative, powerful vision that is itself transfiguring. Death and Transfiguration focuses on the wisdom one gains from pain rather than on the pain itself. Cherry, betraying no fear, grasps her anguish to see how much she can stand. Dedication, tenacity, and spiritual poise are needed to make precise observations of this kind in the most trying times. In Death and Transfiguration, Cherry demonstrates how such displacements of the mind carry with them their own analeptic. “Requiem,” the collection’s long closing poem, gathers all of these deaths in a single embrace. This spectacular piece, emotionally akin to Anna Akhmatova’s poem of the same title but as closely and brilliantly reasoned as philosophy, transforms everything that has gone before, creating a strong, unified work.

When an aspiring concertmaster commits suicide after being summarily dismissed by the tyrannical conductor of a world-famous touring orchestra, blind violin teacher Daniel, who shunned the victim's earlier plea for help, investigates allegations about the conductor's harassment.

"Meeting the Needs of Our Clients Creatively: The Impact of Art and Culture on Caregiving" is an important new work which integrates traditional understandings of care of the dying and bereaved with the use of arts and other forms of cultural creativity in therapy and funeralization. Twenty-one authors give us cutting-edge insights into the practical aspects of caring for the dying and bereaved as well as new understandings of creativity.