Living In A Dangerous World

Everyone is afraid of something. Fear is part of the human experience of living in a broken, fallen world. We try to manage our fears, but our coping mechanisms impact our faith. We hoard and stop praying for provision. We stockpile information and forget to seek godly wisdom. Yet we continue to live anxious lives. William P. Smith ...

The former Chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission tells American families how to protect themselves from everyday accidents and international terrorism. Illustrations.

Everyone is afraid of something. Fear is part of the human experience of living in a broken, fallen world. We try to manage our fears, but our coping mechanisms impact our faith. We hoard resources and stop praying for provision. We stockpile information and forget to seek godly wisdom. Yet we continue to live anxious lives. William P. Smith explains that our faith should, instead, change our strategies for dealing with fear. He offers practical guidance on how to exchange fear for faith by learning to find security in our relationship with an all-sufficient, unchanging God.

When philosophy rescued him from an emotional crisis, Jules Evans became fascinated by how ideas invented over two thousand years ago can help us today. He interviewed soldiers, psychologists, gangsters, astronauts, and anarchists and discovered the ways that people are using philosophy now to build better lives. Ancient philosophy has inspired modern communities — Socratic cafés, Stoic armies, Epicurean communes — and even whole nations in the quest for the good life. This book is an invitation to a dream school with a rowdy faculty that includes twelve of the greatest philosophers from the ancient world, sharing their lessons on happiness, resilience, and much more. Lively and inspiring, this is philosophy for the street, for the workplace, for the battlefield, for love, for life.

In 2013, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey stated that the world is “more dangerous than it has ever been.” Is this accurate? Do we live in a world that is uniquely dangerous? Is it possible that the many threats and dangers promoted by policymakers and the media are exaggerated or overblown? In this timely edited volume, experts on international security assess – and put into context – the supposed dangers to American security. The authors examine the most frequently referenced threats, including wars between nations and civil wars within nations, and discuss the impact of rising nations, weapons proliferation, general unrest, terrorism, transnational crime, and state failures.

“Phenomenal.... A memoir that opens into the world, with brilliance, courage, and elegant prose.... This is a book to read, read again, and remember.”—Imani Perry, New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award winner South to America Poet and journalist Shayla Lawson follows their National Book Critics Circle finalist This Is Major with these daring and exquisitely crafted essays, where Lawson journeys across the globe, finds beauty in tumultuous times, and powerfully disrupts the constraints of race, gender, and disability. In their new book, Shayla Lawson reveals how traveling can itself be a political act, when it can be a dangerous world to be Black, femme, nonbinary, and disabled. With their signature prose, at turns bold, muscular, and luminous, Shayla Lawson travels the world to explore deeper meanings held within love, time, and the self. Through encounters with a gorgeous gondolier in Venice, an ex-husband in the Netherlands, and a lost love on New Year’s Eve in Mexico City, Lawson’s travels bring unexpected wisdom about life in and out of love. They learn the strength of friendships and the dangers of beauty during a narrow escape in Egypt. They examine Blackness in post-dictatorship Zimbabwe, then take us on a secretive tour of Black freedom movements in Portugal. Through a deeply insightful journey, Lawson leads readers from a castle in France to a hula hoop competition in Jamaica to a traditional theater in Tokyo to a Prince concert in Minnesota and, finally, to finding liberation on a beach in Bermuda, exploring each location—and their deepest emotions—to the fullest. In the end, they discover how the trials of marriage, grief, and missed connections can lead to self-transformation and unimagined new freedoms.

In this faith-bolstering book, best-selling author Edward T. Welch investigates the roots of fear in the human heart and the ramifications of living in the grips of anxiety, worry, and dread. Running Scared explores how fear inescapably takes root in all of our lives—and how our race for the good life finds us all too often “running scared.” Welch encourages readers to discover for themselves how the Bible is full of beautiful words of comfort and peace for fearful people. Everyone is afraid of something, and Welch guides readers to see how Jesus enters in to fear. Within thirty topical meditations, Welch offers sound biblical theology, gospel answers, and moment-by-moment, thoughtful encouragement for those in a heart and mind battlefield of rampant, panic-stricken fear. This comprehensive primer on the topic of fear, worry, and the rest of God will have readers retreating to Scripture for invariable constancy, stalwart care, and robust comfort rather than human independence, control, and self-protectiveness. Running Scared affirms that, through Scripture, God speaks directly to our fears, including: Money and possessions People and their judgments Death, pain, suffering, and punishment Welch's lively text provides convincing evidences that humanity's struggle against active and dormant fears are countless. He presents the good news that God provides both the remedy and the cure for this malady in the person of Jesus Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit, and through powerful, life-altering promises in Scripture. Far more than merely another psychology "self-help" guide, Running Scared serves as a biblical road map to a life of serenity and security.

At a family meeting, Ror declares her purpose: She is an artist. But she doesn’t really know what that means. Raised on a commune, she’s never attended a day of school, and has seen little of the outside world. What she knows best is drawing. To her, it’s like breathing; it’s how she makes sense of the world. When her father torches the commune—and himself—Ror’s life changes. She, her mother and sister end up in a homeless residence in Manhattan, where she runs into trouble—and love—with Trey, the leader of Noise Ink, a graffiti crew. On the city’s streets, and in its museums and galleries, Ror finds herself pulled in different directions. Her father wanted her to make classic art. Noise Ink insists she stay within their lines. Her art teacher urges her to go to college. What does she want? Ror’s journey is a seamless blend of words and pictures, cinematic in its scope--a sharp-edged, indelible work of art that will live inside your head.