Prayers For A Thousand Years

Brilliant and original, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers introduces a remarkable new writer whose breathtaking stories are set in China and among Chinese Americans in the United States. In this rich, astonishing collection, Yiyun Li illuminates how mythology, politics, history, and culture intersect with personality to create fate. From the bustling heart of Beijing, to a fast-food restaurant in Chicago, to the barren expanse of Inner Mongolia, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers reveals worlds both foreign and familiar, with heartbreaking honesty and in beautiful prose. “Immortality,” winner of The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for new writers, tells the story of a young man who bears a striking resemblance to a dictator and so finds a calling to immortality. In “The Princess of Nebraska,” a man and a woman who were both in love with a young actor in China meet again in America and try to reconcile the lost love with their new lives. “After a Life” illuminates the vagaries of marriage, parenthood, and gender, unfolding the story of a couple who keep a daughter hidden from the world. And in “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” in which a man visits America for the first time to see his recently divorced daughter, only to discover that all is not as it seems, Li boldly explores the effects of communism on language, faith, and an entire people, underlining transformation in its many meanings and incarnations. These and other daring stories form a mesmerizing tapestry of revelatory fiction by an unforgettable writer.

In Prayers for a Thousand Years, Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon have collected hundreds of wishes, blessings, stories, and challenges-almost all written especially for this volume-from a diverse group of distinguished international contributors. Spiritual teachers, poets and activists, political leaders, youth, artists and visionaries-all are joined together here for the first time, sharing their personal appeals for peace and understanding. Organized around eternal themes-such as creating communities of peace, reflections on politics, economics, and morality, and our holy earth-this book is a profound and lively collection of empowering visions for our common future and a celebration of the infinite variations of universal hope.

450+ Poems, Prayers, Hymns and Blessings This treasury of beautiful and powerful pieces is the perfect companion for marking holidays, milestones, and the seasons. You'll discover prayers to Janus from Horace and Ovid, a traditional Scottish blessing for Imbolc, an invocation to Pan by Aleister Crowley, an ode to Proserpine by Mary Shelley, a pharaoh's hymn to Isis, a song for Lammas by Gwydion Pendderwen, and many, many more. A tribute to the beauty and resiliency of Paganism, this sourcebook will enhance any special day throughout the year. Enjoy prayers for weddings and funerals, blessings for the sabbats, and hymns to the gods and goddesses of various pantheons. Barbara Nolan includes brief historical or biographical details to contextualize each piece as well as descriptions of different celebrations and festivals to help you integrate these readings into your practice. A Year of Pagan Prayer demonstrates that the literary worship of Pagan deities was never fully lost in the West. This bounteous collection draws from the spiritual legacy of Italian Renaissance poets, ancient Sumerian priestesses, twentieth-century Pagans, French Romantics, Greek playwrights, nineteenth-century British occultists, and Egyptian hymnists, making it a must-have resource for anyone who yearns to embody the eloquent expressions of our Pagan past.

'Rock's own poems... show a winning empathy with children.' The Tablet Here is a timeless collection of prayers, dealing with every aspect of a child's life, faith, and delight in the world. Here you will find prayers from the Bible as well as from traditional and more modern anthologies. A great many have been specially written for this book. One section is devoted to prayers for babies and very young children. The others are more suitable for use with older children, whether for reading alone, at family prayers, in churches, or at school assemblies. The prayers are organized by theme and carefully indexed to make the book easy to use and a joy to browse. Since its first edition in 2003, this book has established itself as a trusted resource among all those who say prayers with children.

"Prayer is God's gift to us, a banquet of good things to feed our inner life, as we respond to the invitation to his feast of peace, forgiveness, challenge and love." If our lives are an open book to God, prayer is the dialogue we share with him over its pages. The Book of a Thousand Prayers is a collection of wise and honest prayers to God about his concerns and ours: who he is to us and who we are to him, and how we experience life, death, relationships, the church, and the world. Ideal for private prayer and public worship, and containing practical advice on how to pray, this book offers a spiritual feast that will nourish you for the rest of your life. "A moving and inspiring medley of prayers--an invaluable aid for individuals, home groups, and those people who lead worship." --Joyce Huggett

Profound reflections on the cross that help you to meditate on and marvel at the sacrificial love of Jesus. This book can be used as a devotional, especially during Lent and Easter. These profound reflections on the cross from David Mathis, author of The Christmas We Didn’t Expect, will help you to meditate on and marvel at Jesus’ life, sacrificial death, and spectacular resurrection-enabling you to treasure anew who Jesus is and what he has done. Many of us are so familiar with the Easter story that it becomes easy to miss subtle details and difficult to really enjoy its meaning. This book will help you to pause and marvel at Jesus, whose now-glorified wounds are a sign of his unfailing love and the decisive victory that he has won: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) This book can be used as a devotional. The chapters on Holy Week make it especially helpful during the Lent season and at Easter.

When asked by his barber and good friend, Peter Beskendorf, for some practical guidance on how to prepare oneself for prayer, Luther responded by writing this brief treatise, first published in the spring of 1535. After 500 years, his instruction continues to offer words of spiritual nurture for us today.

Five Minutes with Jesus provides bursts of inspiration for every reader’s relationship with Jesus. Brief but profound, these daily readings from Sheila Walsh will help busy people draw close to Him and walk with Him throughout the day. It will become clear that, even in the midst of a busy lifestyle, every minute we spend in the powerful presence of Jesus makes a difference in our lives!