Unfinished Journeys

Selected artists and their families were asked to travel to destinations of their choice and to create new artworks as a result of their experiences.

How does Dostoevsky’s fiction illuminate questions that are important to us today? What does the author have to say about memory and invention, the nature of evidence, and why we read? How did his readings of such writers as Rousseau, Maturin, and Dickens filter into his own novelistic consciousness? And what happens to a novel like Crime and Punishment when it is the subject of a classroom discussion or a conversation? In this original and wide-ranging book, Dostoevsky scholar Robin Feuer Miller approaches the author’s major works from a variety of angles and offers a new set of keys to understanding Dostoevsky’s world. Taking Dostoevsky’s own conversion as her point of departure, Miller explores themes of conversion and healing in his fiction, where spiritual and artistic transfigurations abound. She also addresses questions of literary influence, intertextuality, and the potency of what the author termed "ideas in the air.” For readers new to Dostoevsky’s writings as well as those deeply familiar with them, Miller offers lucid insights into his works and into their continuing power to engage readers in our own times.

The autobiography of a renowned violinist who was a child prodigy at the age of seven.

Unfinished Journey: A Rabbi's Bout With Doubt represents a collection of personal observations of the diverse groups affiliated with his congregation where he served as rabbi in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The author also delves into the thorny issues of religious faith that trouble the laity, but also members of the clergy of all faiths who are reluctant to ask themselves whether they honestly believe what they publicly preach. Since his retirement from the active rabbinate, the author began to re-examine the provocative views of his mentors who taught at the Jewish Theological Seminary in his student years. Rabbis, educators and laymen looked to the intellectual "giants" for clarity and religious guidance. Two of these great teachers, Rabbis Mordecai M. Kaplan and Abraham Joshua Heschel, were both eloquent and courageous interpreters of Jewish thought although they represented sharply divergent views on questions such as the meaning of God, the efficacy of prayer, or the concept of the Chosen People. As he reviewed many of the sacred texts, the author began to question and even to doubt what he was taught to accept as irrevocable truths. In recent years, however, he has begun to define what he can comfortably believe in while still maintaining his personally integrity as a teacher of religious values and traditions. . He maintains that his "bout with doubt" has helped him find a more mature understanding of what faith can and cannot achieve for the modern generation.

Eco-Justice—The Unfinished Journey links ecological sustainability and social justice from an ethical and often theological perspective. Eco-justice, defined as the well-being of all humankind on a thriving earth, began as a movement during the 1970s, responding to massive, sobering evidence that nature imposes limits—limits to production and consumption, with profound implications for distributive justice, and limits to the human numbers sustainable by habitat earth. This collection includes contributions from the leading interpreters of the eco-justice movement as it recounts the evolution of the Eco-Justice Project, initiated by campus ministries in Rochester and Ithaca, New York. Most of these essays were originally published in the organization's journal, and they address many themes, including environmental justice, hunger, economics, and lifestyle.

Without clear direction, without understanding of one's past, without heroes (including women) and positive role models, without family, without connections to neighbors and a viable community, without social tranquility or firm rootedness, without at least one parent who can be at home to parent, without community control, power, and influence, without a reference group with whom to identify, without stability of one's personal world, without clearly designated leaders, without hope and a clear vision of life's expectancies and survival prospects, without a spiritual and moral centeredness, there is chaos. Where there is chaos and lack of vision, the people perish. Without economic opportunity and outlets to release despair and anger, without a feeling of safety and security, without an unlimited future, without controls on the use of drugs, violence (including gun violence), and sexual promiscuity, without responsibility and consequences for inappropriate behavior, without responsibility as well as rights, without commonly agreed upon expectations for structure and discipline, without religious, family, and personal values to help connect people, without concern for the collective as well as the individual, without nurture, without a circle of support from a responsible, caring parent, coach, teacher, grandparent, minister, neighbor, or community member, without someone who will take the time to reach out to make one feel special and valued, the children suffer and the people are dysfunctional. Where there is dysfunction, the people are a threat to themselves and the institution of family and society. How do you promote ways to shape success out of circumstances, so as, to empower future generations to come? The expression of music, especially in African American spiritual and gospel tradition provides insight into how trials, threats, and traditions have sustained us over the generations. Whether we are talking about our personal storms, or our family, societal, or global threats, the first stanza of an old gospel hymn, written fifty years ago by Ruth Caye Jones, entitled, "In Times Like These" rings true, inspires, and calls out to each generation still today: "In times like these, we need a Savior, We need an anchor; In times like these We need a friend; Be very sure, be very sure, Your anchor holds and grips a Solid Rock."

The Second Vatican Council, which ended thirty-five years ago, promised so much: a new vision of a reformed Church aware of its social, theological and ecumenical responsibilities; a truly conciliar Church with collegial structures. However, this vision seems to have evaporated and many of the promised reforms have been truncated or have not happened at all. The Vatican remains intensely bureaucratic. Theologians are silenced and the effect of clerical scandal seems to have led Church leaders to dig in and see the deposit of faith as something static. Once again the Church believes it has a monopoly on the truth and millions of people feel marginalized and excluded. Britain's long-established Catholic weekly, The Tablet , has fought for the spirit and values of Vatican II in a way that no other journal has done. It has criticised the Church (Humanae Vitae) and has condemned corruption, but has also supported the Church where it has been right to do so.These essays come from a truly international cast of contributors who cover the Church of Vatican II but above all give us prophesy of where this vision may still lead the Church and the people of God. This is a Church semper reformanda.

"Eco-Justice--The Unfinished Journey links ecological sustainability and social justice from an ethical and often theological perspective. Eco-justice, defined as the well-being of all humankind on a thriving earth, began as a movement during the 1970s, responding to massive, sobering evidence that nature imposes limits-limits to production and consumption, with profound implications for distributive justice, and limits to the human numbers sustainable by habitat earth. This collection includes contributions from the leading interpreters of the eco-justice movement as it recounts the evolution of the Eco-JusticeProject, initiated by campus ministries in Rochester and Ithaca, New York. Most of these essays were originally published in the organization's journal, and they address many themes, including environmental justice, hunger, economics, and lifestyle.