Finding A Place To Stand

The Pushcart Prize–winning poet’s memoir of his criminal youth and years in prison: a “brave and heartbreaking” tale of triumph over brutal adversity (The Nation). Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “astonishing narrative” of his life before, during, and immediately after the years he spent in the maximum-security prison garnered tremendous critical acclaim. An important chronicle that “affirms the triumph of the human spirit,” it went on to win the prestigious 2001 International Prize (Arizona Daily Star). Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one when he was sentenced to five years in Florence State Prison for selling drugs in Arizona. This raw, unflinching memoir is the remarkable tale of how he emerged after his years in the penitentiary—much of it spent in isolation—with the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry. “Proof there is always hope in even the most desperate lives.” —Fort Worth Star-Telegram “A hell of a book, quite literally. You won’t soon forget it.” —The San Diego U-T “This book will have a permanent place in American letters.” —Jim Harrison, New York Times–bestselling author of A Good Day to Die

What stands between us and authoritarianism seems increasingly fragile. Democratic practices are under attack by foreign intrusion into elections; voter suppression restricts citizen participation. Nations are turning to autocratic leaders in the face of rapid social change. Democratic values and open society can only be preserved if citizens can discover and claim their voices. We access society through our organisations, yet the collective voices and irrationalities of these organisations do not currently offer clear pathways for individuals to locate themselves. How can we move through the mounting chaos of our social systems, through our multiple roles in groups and institutions, to find a voice that matters? What kind of perspective will allow institutional leaders to facilitate the discovery of active citizenship and support engagement? This book draws on psychodynamic systems thinking to offer a new understanding of the journey from being an individual to joining society as a citizen. With detailed stories, the steps – and the conscious and unconscious linkages – from being a family member, to entering outside groups, to taking up and making sense of institutional roles, illuminate the process of claiming the citizen role. With the help of leaders who recognise and utilise the dynamics of social systems, there may be hope for us as citizens to use our institutional experiences to discover a place to stand.

What stands between us and authoritarianism seems increasingly fragile. Democratic practices are under attack by foreign intrusion into elections; voter suppression restricts citizen participation. Nations are turning to autocratic leaders in the face of rapid social change. Democratic values and open society can only be preserved if citizens can discover and claim their voices. We access society through our organisations, yet the collective voices and irrationalities of these organisations do not currently offer clear pathways for individuals to locate themselves. How can we move through the mounting chaos of our social systems, through our multiple roles in groups and institutions, to find a voice that matters? What kind of perspective will allow institutional leaders to facilitate the discovery of active citizenship and support engagement? This book draws on psychodynamic systems thinking to offer a new understanding of the journey from being an individual to joining society as a citizen. With detailed stories, the steps - and the conscious and unconscious linkages - from being a family member, to entering outside groups, to taking up and making sense of institutional roles, illuminate the process of claiming the citizen role. With the help of leaders who recognise and utilise the dynamics of social systems, there may be hope for us as citizens to use our institutional experiences to discover a place to stand.

Two centuries before Christ, the Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes experimented with the lever. He declared that he could “move the earth” if he had a place to stand somewhere in the cosmos. People need a certain place to stand, a point of reference beyond the self. In this bold critique of the emergent church of postevangelicals, Dr. Grant Richison, well-known Bible expositor (versebyversecommentary.com), draws a line in the sand to prevent further erosion of the certainty that we can stand on the absolute truth of the Bible. In his rejection of relativism, he lights the way for those who would present the gospel with certainty and clarity.

Linguists have become increasingly interested in examining how class culture is socially constructed and maintained through spoken language. Julie Lindquist's examination of the linguistic ethnography of a working-class bar in Chicago is an important and original contribution to the field. She examines how regular patrons argue about political issues in order to create a group identity centered around political ideology. She also shows how their political arguments are actually a rhetorical genre, one which creates a delicate balance between group solidarity and individual identity, as well as a tenuous and ambivalent sense of class identity.

Lord, I do need You each day in every uncertain way. As women in twenty-first century America, we have to face distractions and temptations each and every day. And as the once-solid values of our culture crumble daily beneath us, we grow anxious and begin searching for a safe foundation, and our spirits cry out for familiar footing on secure ground with the only One who can save. In A Place to Stand, Molly A. Berwinkle offers a portrait of women in the Bible, those who also found their feet had suddenly moved to eroding ground. From these standards, we can locate the way to place our lives on the unyielding principles of a tested and tried surface—the Lord Almighty. Find comfort and encouragement in the women who have gone before, and open your eyes to find a place to stand.

A Place to Stand is addressed to those who recognize the need for a strong stand from which to operate in the confusion of contemporary thought. Ours has become an age, says Trueblood, in which people simply do not know what to think. Trueblood is convinced that there is an objective truth about everything. Here, Trueblood explains what Christians believe and why, exploring through each chapter rational Christianity, a center of certitude, the living God, the reality of prayer, and the life everlasting. He is convinced that part of the weakness of the Christian movement in this age has been the relative lack of emphasis upon belief. However good and important service to humanity is, it loses its motivating power when the sustaining beliefs are allowed to wither. A Place to Stand is a classic text that shows it is possible, without contradiction or confusion, to hold a Christian position which is both evangelical and rational.