Graced By The Seasons

Every season in the Northwoods is a wonder of plants and animals. This book features detailed and fascinating descriptions of the natural cycles during fall and winter. Youíll know whatís blooming, crawling, singing or migrating in any month.

"'I am trapped,' she screamed silently, no one in the room hearing her inner pleas. 'I am trapped in a cage of poverty and mediocrity and If I don't get out I will die.' Only the sound of her typewriter could be heard that night echoing throughout the shack that she had called home. Grace Metalious wrote the stories that no one dared to write before that time. A midcentury tale of small-town life in New England to the hustle and bustle of New York City and to the unforgiving film studios of Hollywood, her story unfolds. Her infamous novel Peyton Place catapulted her from obscurity to the top of the literary world. This is a classic scenario where art imitates life and so does this novel. The young author coping with literary and financial success, without realizing it creates her own Peyton Place where she herself had to reside. The seasons of Grace is a fictional account based on the author's life; sometimes dark, sometimes shocking, but always authentic"--Back cover.

Young readers follow Ki-Ki, Owen, Lily, and Kevin through the year as they explore the four seasons, with text which includes season-related questions and answers about weather, the natural world, and the effect of the seasons on the human body.

"Within the struggle, joy, pain, and delight that attend our life, there is an invisible circle of grace that enfolds and encompasses us in every moment. Blessings help us to perceive this circle of grace, to find our place of belonging within it, and to receive the strength the circle holds for us." -from the Introduction Beginning in Advent and moving through the sacred seasons of the Christian year, Circle of Grace offers Jan's distinctive and poetic blessings that illuminate the treasures each season offers to us.

The loving hand of God is at work in even the most unsettling circumstances... In the seemingly ordinary Amish home of Grace Byler, secrets abound. Why does her mother weep and wander deep in the night? And why does her father refuse to admit something is dreadfully wrong? Then, in one startling moment, the quiet life Grace has known is irrevocably altered, leaving her to question all she has been taught about love, family, and commitment. "No one does Amish-based inspirationals better than Lewis." Booklist

This wonderful book contains fifty scripturally-based reflections developed from the "chapter talks" delivered to the Trappistine Sisters and their guests at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Mississippi.

There is enormous tension between entering fully into the Church Year and the pressures of society. We sometimes find ourselves walking a tight rope between what we think is the ideal of a holy life and the demands of our post-modern world.The beauty of the Church seasons is that they teach us how to balance our life. The Christian life is a whole life, an expansive life, a life in Christ, who gives Himself for the life of the world.This collection is author Donna Farley's own view from the tightrope. These short yet thoughtful reflections, written in an insightful and sometimes humorous style, will help weave together the great feasts into the fabric of our lives.

This rich seasonal devotional reads like a sampler of the everyday spirituality of Catherine Doherty--a spiritual giant of the 20th-century who counted Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day among her friends, founded the Madonna House Apostolate, and left extensive writings to her spiritual sons and daughters.