To Tell The Sacred Tale

Stories are the connective tissue that sews the world together. In storytelling, the soul quickens and comes alive. In To Tell the Sacred Tale, Janet Ruffing describes the narrative process of spiritual direction in relationship to our contemporary contexts. She discusses the significance of narrative across cultures, and encourages spiritual directors to pay close attention to the actual stories directees tell and suggests helpful responses directors can make to these sacred tales based on theory and illustrated with rich case material. Book jacket.

This book shows the singular importance of narrative in the process of spiritual direction and reflects on this interactive process of sharing our sacred stories in pastoral contexts in order to hear and respond more deeply to the story God is telling in our lives.

This comprehensive collection of timeless and powerful stories puts the wisdom of world religions in the hands of young readers. When attempting to find a simple, engaging, and unbiased approach to world religions for her own family, Marilyn McFarlane discovered such a book did not exist. Understanding how important it is for children to build both respect for and knowledge of a variety of religions, regardless of their own faith, McFarlane created Sacred Stories: Wisdom from World Religions. Each captivating story and accompanying sidebar facts and spot illustrations brings to life the key tenets of a particular belief system, while the comprehensive glossary and resource list enable readers to expand their explorations. Including easy-to-understand descriptions and essential stories from Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Native American, and Sacred Earth, Sacred Stories is perfect for parents and teachers who want to expand young readers’ understanding of world traditions. The simple, informative, unbiased language of Sacred Stories, combined with its comprehensive resource list and glossary, makes it an ideal learning tool for teachers, librarians, and other educators.

Sacred Stories brings together the work of leading scholars writing on the history of religion and religiosity in late imperial Russia during the critical decades preceding the 1917 revolutions. Embodying new research and new methodologies, this book reshapes our understanding of the place of religion in modern Russian history. Topics examined include miraculous icons and healing, pilgrim narratives, confessions, women and Orthodox domesticity, marriage and divorce, conversion and tolerance, Jewish folk beliefs, mysticism in Russian art, and philosophical aspects of Orthodox religious thought. Sacred Stories demonstrates that belief, spirituality, and the sacred were powerful and complex cultural expressions central to Russian political, social, economic, and cultural life. Contributors are Nicholas B. Breyfogle, Heather J. Coleman, Gregory L. Freeze, Nadieszda Kizenko, Alexei A. Kurbanovsky, Roy R. Robson, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Gabriella Safran, Vera Shevzov, Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Mark Steinberg, Paul Valliere, William G. Wagner, Paul W. Werth, and Christine D. Worobec.

Nancy Tatom Ammerman examines the stories Americans tell of their everyday lives, from dinner table to office and shopping mall to doctor's office, about the things that matter most to them and the routines they take for granted, and the times and places where the everyday and ordinary meet the spiritual. In addition to interviews and observation, Ammerman bases her findings on a photo elicitation exercise and oral diaries, offering a window into the presence and absence of religion and spirituality in ordinary lives and in ordinary physical and social spaces. The stories come from a diverse array of ninety-five Americans -- both conservative and liberal white Protestants, African American Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Mormons, Wiccans, and people who claim no religious or spiritual proclivities -- across a range that stretches from committed religious believers to the spiritually neutral. Ammerman surveys how these people talk about what spirituality is, how they seek and find experiences they deem spiritual, and whether and how religious traditions and institutions are part of their spiritual lives.

Winner of the 2003 Trillium Book Award "Stories are wondrous things," award-winning author and scholar Thomas King declares in his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures. "And they are dangerous." Beginning with a traditional Native oral story, King weaves his way through literature and history, religion and politics, popular culture and social protest, gracefully elucidating North America's relationship with its Native peoples. Native culture has deep ties to storytelling, and yet no other North American culture has been the subject of more erroneous stories. The Indian of fact, as King says, bears little resemblance to the literary Indian, the dying Indian, the construct so powerfully and often destructively projected by White North America. With keen perception and wit, King illustrates that stories are the key to, and only hope for, human understanding. He compels us to listen well.

How and why did St. Ignatius Loyola develop the Examen prayer? What is it supposed to accomplish for those who practice it? Why do people choose to forgo this discipline that has proved to be invaluable and essential to spiritual growth and the discernment of spirits over the centuries? What are the contemporary cultural crises confronting today's would-be Examen practitioners provoking distrust, fear, or dismissive attitudes towards it? How can an Examen faithful to Ignatius original method be modernized to address the mindset of today's Christians? This book in its three parts takes a new approach to answer these questions. It provides a new analysis on how Ignatius' spiritual Examen disciplines were developed, the challenges inherent in practicing them, and a dynamic new reading of the Examen called Sacred Story. This book will give you the spiritual tools you need for a practical, daily prayer discipline that incorporates principles of spiritual discernment.

This is an eclectic assortment of stories by popular authors, storytellers, psychologists and spiritual teachers.