Mystics And Misfits

“A lively memoir mixed with short biographies of appealing religious outcasts.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY With untested ideals and a thirst for adventure, Christiana Peterson and her family moved to an intentional Christian farming community in the rural Midwest. It sounded like a simple and faithful way to follow Jesus, not to mention a great place to raise kids. In Mystics and Misfits, Peterson discovers that community life is never really simple and that she needs resources beyond her own to weather the anxiety and exhaustion of trying to save a dying farm and a floundering congregation. She turns to Christian mystics like Francis of Assisi, Simone Weil, and Dorothy Day to find sustenance for the everyday struggles and unique hardships of community life. With a contemplative’s spirit and poet’s eye, Peterson leads readers into an encounter with the God of the wild mystics and the weird misfits.

The history of Christianity if filled with misfits. This collection of sermons intruces us to heretics and mystics from the very earliest church to the present day, including the Gnostics, Origen, Julian of Norwich, Michael Servitus, Emanuel Swedenborg, Soren Kierkegaard, Madame Blavatsky, Teilhard de Chardin and many, many more. With humor and compassion for these misunderstood characters, John Mabry explores their teachings and how they can speak to us today, helping us be better people of faith, regardless of one's denomination or even religion. Mabry holds a PhD in World Religions and serves as co-pastor of Grace North Church in Berkeley, CA.

Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits: Americans Against the Grain takes the reader on a journey across American history through the lives of exemplary men and women whose stories capture the spirit of their time and place and reveal the American character.

In this compelling book, G. Lee Ramsey Jr.mines the riches of southern fiction and discovers a colorful assortment of ministers who arise out of the religious South. At once mystical and mischievous, these ministers haunt the margins of southern life while preaching a gospel that startles and compels. But their oddness is also their appeal--and part of their gift. For through these colorful portraits of Christian ministry, today's readers are challenged to think about what matters in ministry and to re-imagine ministry in ways that bring new life to the church and community. Throughout, Ramsey shows how ministers such as Roger Hagan in Will Campbell's The Conventionand Hazel Motes in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Bloodcan help show us the stumbling blocks to faithful ministry and steer clergy and congregations forward in today's world.

Just before the turn of the century, a renegade Russian aristocrat named Madame Blavatsky came to America claiming that man was descended not from the ape but from spiritual beings. Thus began Theosophy, the very first "new age" religion. This thought-provoking and often hilarious study delineates the course of Theosophy and other sects which have come down through the years. Photos.

From beloved spiritual teacher Carl McColman comes a book about big possibility: the hope of achieving authentic, blissful, experiential union with God. He reveals the various ways Christian mysticism and contemplation have been in dynamic practice through the centuries, proving inspirational for today's seekers, regardless of faith tradition.

RUNNING FROM RELIGION is the story of a journalist's search into the lives and the lies of his forefathers. Don Lattin traces the two sides of his immigrant family back to the sixteenth century European wars of religion and the nineteenth century diaspora of Russian Jews.His paternal ancestor, Richard Lettin, arrived in New England just eighteen years after the Mayflower. Don's maternal clan, the Kubeys, descended from a family that included the notorious "Gangster Joe" Kubey. Their stories go beyond the comforting myths of the ancestral search to reveal what the actual lives of our ancestors tell us about faith and family in America. This is not just the Lattin/Kubey story. It's an American story.To deepen the historical context of his family's saga, Lattin pens profiles of Julian of Norwich, the first woman author of a surviving book written in English; Erasmus of Rotterdam, the great Christian humanist; Hendrik Niclaes, whose Family of Love was one of the most despised sects of the Protestant Reformation; Giordano Bruno, the Dominican mystic burned at the stake; Anne Hutchinson, the Puritan prophetess and convicted heretic; Baruch Spinoza, the Dutch philosopher and renegade Jew; and John Humphrey Noyes, an exiled prophet of free love. Lattin places these mystics and misfits within his newly imagined Sangha of Skeptical Universalists - a kind of "tradition of no tradition."This edition is Illustrated with fifteen black and white photographs inside and a full-color colonial New England map on the back cover.It's available exclusively through the author at [email protected]. Read the first six chapters online at lattinancestors.com .

The night is gathering the dreams, The darkness and its troubling schemes.My lips quiver, please understand my state;How long do I need to be awake, in your wait?Tonight's the night! Don't be late.The day is breaking with birds' wings;Even my loneliness poetically sings.Alone and worried, I wait for you, To just confess that I love you.- ""A Confession"", Page-30Misfits, Mystics, Love, and Life is a collection of poetic works that truly takes you on a journey. From the emotional repercussions of war and broken human systems to the bliss and tumult of falling in love, Raminder Bajwa's poetry is sure to speak to your soul on multiple levels. Often child-like and innocent but steeped in old soul wisdom, the 17,223 words within these 219 pages are an expression of the spirit and, like all poetry, will resonate with other souls and touch on ideas and emotions deep within. Mr. Bajwa touches on vital topics, explores the emotional landscape, and encourages love and understanding through his heartfelt word