The Return Of Innocence

In this comical and magical novel, a young swordswoman learns that, sometimes, going home is the most dangerous adventure of all!

On the verge of a new millennium, in an age of unprecedented affluence, personal freedom and scientific power, millions of us--young and not so young--find ourselves emotionally and morally adrift. Even as our mastery of the material world reaches new heights almost daily, mastery of the inner world--of our own actions, emotions, and deepest hopes--often tragically eludes our grasp. As families come apart, adults become bitter and emotionally detached. Children fall prey to a "culture" of sex and drugs, cynical materialism, and self-destructive nihilism. It increasingly seems that, in the piercing words of Jesus, we have "gained the whole world, and lost our own souls." In A Return to Innocence, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Jeffrey M. Schwartz--a Jewish student of both Buddhist meditation and Christian philosophy--combines 3,000 years of wisdom with cutting edge brain and behavioral research to guide us in recovering our souls, our safety, our integrity and our capacity to love. After a 35-year experiment in unbridled self-gratification that has left a burden of tremendous suffering in its wake, at last we are ready to understand that innocence--in its original meaning of "not harming"--is actually the highest and most difficult of human achievements. The lost art of self-command that empowers us not to harm ourselves or one another is the core teaching of humanity's greatest spiritual masters, including Moses, Jesus, and Buddha. If we value our children, our culture, even our very freedom, we must return to true innocence as our source of inner lightness, clarity and spiritual power. A practical path to this wellspring of inner purity was mapped out 2,500 years ago by Gotama Buddha--in Dr. Schwartz's view the greatest psychologist who ever lived--whose still-fresh insights into human nature can serve as a bridge joining the wisdom of the Bible to the discoveries of 21st century science. A deeply felt, thought-provoking exchange of letters between "spiritual coach" Dr. Schwartz and sixteen-year-old Patrick Buckley, the son of a single mother, frames this fascinating, powerful code for living that shows how the best in each of us can thrive. Spiritual and philosophical ideas become hands-on tools for dealing with real-life dilemmas as Dr. Schwartz addresses Patrick's urgent questions about morality, responsibility, and freedom of choice. This book offers an empowering combination of hope, inspiration, accurate information about the biology of human nature, as well as desperately-needed guidance for keeping that nature on a life-affirming path. To everyone--young and old--A Return to Innocence offers dynamic, concrete solutions for the pain in our hearts, the fear in our streets, and the cynicism that has corroded our ideals. It speaks directly to our longing for a decent, meaningful, and fulfilling life. The traditional values that made civilization possible were thought to be outrageously radical and daring when they were first introduced by revolutionaries like Moses, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed. . . . Yet those codes of behavior became "traditional"--that is, they got handed down from generation to generation--for one simple reason: they work. And they work because they're based on a highly sophisticated and deeply wise understanding of human nature. We often hear the phrase "Knowledge is power"--but nowhere is it truer than when it comes to knowledge of ourselves. Are we humans primarily driven, or "drivers"? Are we blameless puppets of our genes, our hormones, our childhoods, or do we have the power, and so the responsibility, to choose what we will do? In our day and age, everyone wants to be, or at least appear to be, streetwise, experienced, cool, and cynical. What people don't realize is that the source of the word "innocent" is a place of great power. It comes from the Latin words for "not" and "to harm." True innocence is the highest of human accomplishments. Not doing harm requires the utmost in awareness, effort, and courage. The state of the world begins right here--in the state of your mind.

Offers a feminist theory of ignorance that sheds light on the misunderstood or overlooked epistemic practices of women in literature. An Ethic of Innocence examines representations of women in American and British fin-de-siècle and modern literature who seem “not to know” things. These naïve fools, Pollyannaish dupes, obedient traditionalists, or regressive anti-feminists have been dismissed by critics as conservative, backward, and out of sync with, even threatening to, modern feminist goals. Grounded in the late nineteenth century’s changing political and generic representations of women, this book provides a novel interpretative framework for reconsidering the epistemic claims of these women. Kristen L. Renzi analyzes characters from works by Henry James, Frank Norris, Ann Petry, Rebecca West, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, and others, to argue that these feminine figures who choose not to know actually represent and model crucial pragmatic strategies by which modern and contemporary subjects navigate, survive, and even oppose gender oppression. Kristen L. Renzi is Associate Professor of English at Xavier University.

Taiwan aboriginal song has received extensive media coverage since the launch and settlement of a copyright lawsuit following pop group Enigma's allegedly unauthorized use of Amis voices in the 1996 Olympics hit, Return To Innocence. Taking as her starting point the ripple effects of this case, Shzr Ee Tan explores the relationship of this song culture to contemporary Amis society. She presents Amis song in its multiple manifestations as an ecosystem, symbiotic components of which interact and feed back upon one another in cross-cutting platforms of village life, festival celebration, cultural performance, popular song, art music and Christian hymnody. Tan's investigation hinges upon drawing a conceptual line between ladhiw, the Amis term for 'song' - a word vested with connotations of life-force, tradition, ritual and taboo - and the foreign term of yinyue ('music' - borrowed from Mandarin). This difference forms the basis of how Amis song is (re)constructed through processes of modernization, Christianization and politico-economic change. A single Amis melody, for example, can exist in several guises that are contextually exclusive but functionally mutually-supportive. Thus, a weeding song (ladhiw), which may have lost its traditional context of existence following advancements in farming technology, becomes sustained within a larger ecosystem, finding new life on the interacting platforms of Amis Catholic hymnody, karaoke and tourist shows. The latter genres (collectively, yinyue) may not rely on traditional livelihoods for survival, but thrive on a traditional melody's deeper associations to local memory and idealized Amis identities. While these new and old genres are stylistically separate, they feed into each other and back into themselves - through transforming contexts and cross-referenced memes - in organic and developing cycles of song activity. Drawing from fieldwork conducted from 2000-2010 as well as a background in ethnomusicology and journalism, Ta

The seventeenth-century poet and divine Thomas Traherne finds innocence in every stage of existence. He finds it in the chaos at the origins of creation as well as in the blessed order of Eden. He finds it in the activities of grace and the hope of glory, but also in the trials of misery and even in the abyss of the Fall. Boundless Innocence in Thomas Traherne’s Poetic Theology traces innocence through Traherne’s works as it transgresses the boundaries of the estates of the soul. Using grammatical and literary categories it explores various aspects of his poetic theology of innocence, uncovering the boundless desire which is embodied in the yearning cry: ’Were all Men Wise and Innocent...’ Recovering and reinterpreting a key but increasingly neglected theme in Traherne’s poetic theology, this book addresses fundamental misconceptions of the meaning of innocence in his work. Through a contextual and theological approach, it indicates the unexplored richness, complexity and diversity of this theme in the history of literature and theology.

You can't stay young and innocent forever. Journey with Mary, the violet-haired girl, as she comes of age, exploring forbidden desires and searching for the love and beauty which eludes her. With wide-eyed innocence, she gazes at all the world has to offer and discovers a bizarre world of poetry and perversity. Three others are along on a journey of discovery, and find their destinies intertwined. There is Lotus, the long-haired pretty boy, a troubled young man with strange abilities; Jasmine, his twin sister, a raven-haired seductress; and the large-breasted Tina, Mary's best friend. Shall they remain innocent or shall they seek the corruption that beckons them? Now sprouts the tender violet, Now strains the heaving bust, Before the cruel corruption, The onset of lust, And the rose's dewy petals open, Yearning, tempting just Before that sweet corruption, The onslaught of lust.

As "the English Athens," Oxford has long been seen as central to England's intellectual life. For over six centuries the city has been lauded, slighted, and cited in the pages of English literature. While it has been hailed as the embodiment of excellence, beauty, and truth on the one hand, it has also been attacked for its elitism, insularity, and traditionalism on the other. Oxford in English Literature provides for the first time an overview of these literary representations, ranging from Chaucer's account of medieval students to modern-day detective stories set in the city. The book begins with the early university, possibly founded by an eighth-century princess named Frideswide. The volume moves on through the Middle Ages with Chaucer's clerks and Foxe's martyrs. Oxford in English Literature touches on more recent centuries with Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, Matthew Arnold, Max Beerbohm and Evelyn Waugh, and the "Infamous St. Oscar." Following the rise of the colleges, the literature becomes characterized by a sense of insulation, for the closed collegiate structure led to elitism and eccentricity. The notion of the university as a paradise of youth, beauty, and intelligence led to the so-called Oxford myth and the backlash against it after World War II. The underlying argument of John Dougill's work is that the defining symbol of Oxford is not so much the dreaming spire as the college wall. In Oxford literature the college is depicted as a world of its own--secluded, conservative, and eccentric, driven by its own rituals. Idealized, it becomes a cloistered utopia, an Athenian city-state, a fantasy wonderland, or an Arcadian idyll. Exclusivity led to resentment from those on the outside, as is evident in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. With the advent of democratic and egalitarian values in the twentieth century, the privilege and elitism of the university has come under increasing attack, as has the whole notion of the "English Athens." Oxford in English Literature is aimed at the general reader interested in the literature and history of a very unusual town. Its familiar subject and the inclusion of numerous rare and specially commissioned illustrations and photographs make this a compelling book. John Dougill is Associate Professor of English Literature, Ryukoku University, Kyoto, Japan. He is an Oxford graduate and author of The Writers of English Literature.