Walking Gratefully

A sequel to his The Shape of My Heart: A Pilgrimage Remembrance, Richard Ray’s Walking Gratefully: A Camino Story takes readers on a pilgrimage journey of gratitude to the shrine of St. James along the ancient Camino de Santiago. Join him as he discovers—step by painful step—the many ways this sacred journey to a sacred place takes on a sacred purpose.

Messages of of Love Light and Wisdom are loving and caring messages received daily for three years from the Christ Consciousness known as Lord Maitreya. He is a member of the Council of Light, here to guide, direct, instruct and prepare us for the changes of the earth. These are given with love and caring. Our work is to be done in the energy of love while cleansing those ideas, thoughts, actions, words that separate us. It is time to dream the new dream for all to live in joy, peace, harmony and abundance. The simple gift from our hearts of gratitude helps us to elevate into the new energies to create a new world, first within each of us and then to radiate the loving energy out into our surroundings. Applying the loving directives daily eases our journey among the changes.

Find purpose in your years to come. Heather Creekmore offers humorous encouragement for seasoned women in 30 devotional readings that include prayer prompts and action steps for gratefulness in your current life stage. With chapter titles like “Zippers, Snaps, and Other Annoyances” and “Why Did I Pick Up My Phone?,” you will find reasons to laugh out loud, reminders to live abundantly, and a mindset that it’s not a midlife crisis—it’s a midlife celebration.

Danger reigns supreme as Nazi Germany braces for a final showdown in this WWII thriller from the author of the Billy Boyle mysteries. On Desperate Ground is the story of men and women caught up in the death throes of Nazi Germany, struggling to maintain those things precious to them—life, an end to killing, and even sanity itself. Colonel Johann Faust has lost everyone he ever loved and feels he is going inexorably insane. He hears the haunting voice of his dead fiancée and the demons that roar through his mind as he perfects a plan to save Nazi Germany from defeat and insure a greater and deadlier new world war. Captain Dieter Neukirk, once a protégé of Faust’s, is more concerned with saving the lives of his remaining men than sacrificing them in a fanatical last stand. Meanwhile, Elsa Klein, Dieter’s lover and the chief social worker at a Berlin hospital, is engaged in her own dangerous work, providing medical care and identity papers to hidden Jews in the city. American Captain Mack Mackenzie, pulled from a military hospital before his wounds are healed, is assigned to investigate reports of a secret Nazi operation. Wanting only to make it home alive, Mack finds himself in a life and death struggle with unlikely allies and a ferociously determined opponent. Americans and Germans alike are drawn to a hilltop in the remote German countryside, where they find themselves between powerful armies and forced into a terrible decision that could end one war or begin a new one.

Walter Glover's fall on Mount Rainier led to the discovery of three aneurysms in three separate body systems, a medical rarity. That persuaded the senior-citizen adventure author to abandon his worldwide quest to climb on all Seven Summit mountains. Repurposed by open-heart surgery, he reimagined his dream. Forget climbing famous mountains--hike long distances. Walter's first challenge, chronicled in this thrilling book, was 500 miles long (well, 492), trekking El Camino, The Way of Saint James, across Spain. Called The Way, it is named for Jesus' apostle, whose remains rest in a cathedral at the end of the journey. The most compelling story Walter tells is his own meeting with St. James at his cathedral, concerning his deceased brother. Glover fits into mobile Camino communities, befriending people from around the world, as he did on mountaineering expeditions he's written about. The final of four books of the retired hospital chaplain's popular Seven Mountain Story series, Camino recounts adventures of 40 days of 14-mile distances hiked from village to village with nights in hostels. He was among an estimated quarter-million pilgrims on Camino in 2014. The book's centerpieces are spirituality and adventure. Walter's altruistic reason to hike--raise money for children's wellness initiatives, almost $150,000. His writing and activism inspired kids to seniors. The ugly irony, the superhealthy adventurer now has a chronic disease--Parkinson's. Exercising now has significant limitations for Walter. His outlook, "My life continues vibrant, hopeful, and full of gratitude and light. I believe my best work is in front of me."