The Road Of Life And Death

In this transcription of the Medicine Rite, the most sacred ritual of the Winnebago Indians, anthropologist Paul Radin captured a poetic source of profound importance to the understanding of mystical experience. Performed by medicine men upon the initiation of a member to their cult, this secret rite recapitulated the mythic origins and heroes of the Winnebago while integrating those present with the ancestral forces.

According to Hebrews, the Son of God appeared to "break the power of him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." What does it mean to be enslaved, all our lives, to the fear of death? And why is this fear described as "the power of the devil"? And most importantly, how are we--as individuals and as faith communities--to be set free from this slavery to death?In another creative interdisciplinary fusion, Richard Beck blends Eastern Orthodox perspectives, biblical text, existential psychology, and contemporary theology to describe our slavery to the fear of death, a slavery rooted in the basic anxieties of self-preservation and the neurotic anxieties at the root of our self-esteem. Driven by anxiety--enslaved to the fear of death--we are revealed to be morally and spiritually vulnerable as "the sting of death is sin." Beck argues that in the face of this predicament, resurrection is experienced as liberation from the slavery of death in the martyrological, eccentric, cruciform, and communal capacity to overcome fear in living fully and sacrificially for others.

A spellbinding novel about transience and mortality, by one of the most original voices in American literature The Silk Road begins on a mat in yoga class, deep within a labyrinth on a settlement somewhere in the icy north, under the canny guidance of Jee Moon. When someone fails to arise from corpse pose, the Astronomer, the Archivist, the Botanist, the Keeper, the Topologist, the Geographer, the Iceman, and the Cook remember the paths that brought them there—paths on which they still seem to be traveling. The Silk Road also begins in rivalrous skirmishing for favor, in the protected Eden of childhood, and it ends in the harrowing democracy of mortality, in sickness and loss and death. Kathryn Davis’s sleight of hand brings the past, present, and future forward into brilliant coexistence; in an endlessly shifting landscape, her characters make their way through ruptures, grief, and apocalypse, from existence to nonexistence, from embodiment to pure spirit. Since the beginning of her extraordinary career, Davis has been fascinated by journeys. Her books have been shaped around road trips, walking tours, hegiras, exiles: and now, in this triumphant novel, a pilgrimage. The Silk Road is her most explicitly allegorical novel and also her most profound vehicle; supple and mesmerizing, the journey here is not undertaken by a single protagonist but by a community of separate souls—a family, a yoga class, a generation. Its revelations are ravishing and desolating.

Explores how we can approach our lives as a pilgrimage without ever leaving the comfort of our homes, by moving beyond what is safe in our world, by disconnecting from the technology that keeps us multi-tasking into the night, and by rediscovering awe in the world around us. Original.

Honest story of personal devastation, healing and spiritual search. Wonderful blending: personal narrative, life lessons, poetry and philosophy, river and ocean as one; river of life flowing into the ocean. Brother Satyananda Self-Realization Fellowship This book is one of the noblest works that I have ever read. Its theme reveals the magic and inner beauty of the soul of a queen of beauty. Ghada Samman, a writer, a poetess, and a novelist. Her work has been translated to many languages. I was enticed to read the book with an avid desire and taste its overwhelming grief, as though grief dwelt not in my life nor has it shrouded my hearts throbbing. It is a unique love story, pregnant with a cloud that pours down tears instead of water. Jumanah Taha, a well-known creative writer and poetess This book is also an autobiography of the soul that triumphs over the alternating lifes events and affairs; for the soul is but gods rays. Dr. Issa Boullata, McGill University, Canada This is a concise autobiography, crafted in a charming style reminiscent of a novel, and full of poetic insights.This is the sotry of a woman of strong will and faith, able to pull herself out from the depths of a life of sorrow, anguish and the agony that haunted her following the loss of her beloved son and mother in a tragic accident. She made a conscious decision to continue to lead her peaceful life, fi nding meaning in raising her daughter with the same values she was raised by her own parents. Her own keen instincts guided her to seek the works of the great spiritualists, and there she indulged herself in reading and learning much. I found it a joy to read Dr. Sylvies book and to learn of the wisdom derived from her own unique personal experiences.Dr. Bassam Frangieh, Yale University

Bruce Blair was born into a South Dakota farming family experiencing the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, locust plagues, and storms that stole the harvests on which the family depended. After marriage and the loss of a newborn son, another son, Larry, was found to have a life-threatening heart defect. Out of this dark time came a searching for lifes meaning and spiritual rebirth. From then till now, miracles followed Bruce and his family. God spared Larrys life from drowning and later provided a bumper harvest to pay for an expensive operation. God protected him financially when his loaned, uninsured farm truck collided with a car. Bruce himself was buried alive when a pipe ditch collapsed. God directed the rescue of a friend from financial ruin leading him to a life of ministry. His story of a barren cow and a foreign mission is an amazing proof that God exists. In his eighties a serious fall down a flight of stairs brought an unexpected and miraculous outcome. In Lifein DeathHe Leads reveals the unsearchable riches of Christ that are available on ones journey through life. Biblical references, mostly from the King James Version of the Bible, and Christian living principles are cited.

Present-day travelers visiting Borneo to see the marvelous buildings pictured in books are liable to wonder if they somehow ended up in the wrong place. Much of the architecture of Borneo and other areas of the humid tropics was never intended to last and, built as it is of wood and other organic materials, last it has not. Among Borneo's spectacular indigenous buildings, the longhouses, mortuary monuments, and other architectural forms of the interior are some of the most outstanding, and much of the renewed interest in indigenous architecture has focused on the rapidly vanishing or now extinct traditional forms of a small number of surviving examples or recreations. Drawing on the author's extensive research and travel in Borneo, this impressive and original study offers a more comprehensive account of this architecture than any previous work. Organized into two sections, the book first documents and explains traditional built forms in terms of tools and materials, the environmental context, village organization and social arrangements. This section includes a full discussion of architecture designs and symbolism, especially those dealing with life and death. The author next look

There is a God--we are created by God, the universe is created by God, and "all things work together for those who love God." As Christians, we believe that our faith is not just a set of rules but a journey. On this journey there is a "with the flow" way to go, and an "against the flow" way to go. But how do we know which is which? What is the road of blessing? Penelope Wilcock believes that, deep inside us, we can come to recognize what is really, truly of God. Using the markers of Scripture, conscience, nature, observation, the faith community, and the faith tradition, Penelope helps the reader find God's road of blessing in regard to money, relationships, the home, and the acceptance of responsibility. The outcome may not bring prosperity, but it will probably include joy! "Every now and then, I see something move, and I feel the reality of it, and I start to live it in the everyday; touch the live pulse of something that is more than a theory or a doctrine. A defining truth that gives structure and meaning to the relative chaos of my life. "Then, when I've been on that trail for a while, and I know it works; know the truth of it down to the soles of my feet, know I can trust it--I want to share it. I don't mean just a bright idea: I mean the sort of truth you can trust so completely that you can rely on it for your income; the sort of truth you can trust your children to; truth that you can lean on when you have to decide who to marry and how to live."