Wise Lives

Although it is found in every major extant Christian manuscript of the Old Testament, the later exclusion of the Wisdom of Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus) from the Protestant canon has made it one of the little-known gems of Holy Scripture. Composed in Hebrew and translated into Greek in the second century before Christ, it is among the last books of the Old Testament. Sirach represents the more primitive and conservative aspect of Israel's Wisdom tradition-the practical application of the fear of God to daily life-but he enhances that tradition by a singular attention to biography and historical literature in the shaping of the soul. In short, "Wise Lives." Sirach's social context-the struggle to preserve the Jewish religion and culture against the corrosive influence of Hellenic paganism-will resonate with Christians living in the secular world today. In this commentary, Fr. Patrick Reardon illustrates for contemporary readers the riches of this often-neglected jewel of the Bible. Other titles by the author: "Christ in the Psalms":978188821221 "Christ in His Saints":9781888212686 "The Trial of Job":9781888212723

Silicon Valley icon and bestselling author Guy Kawasaki shares the unlikely stories of his life and the lessons we can draw from them. Guy Kawasaki has been a fixture in the tech world since he was part of Apple's original Macintosh team in the 1980s. He's widely respected as a source of wisdom about entrepreneurship, venture capital, marketing, and business evangelism, which he's shared in bestselling books such as The Art of the Start and Enchantment. But before all that, he was just a middle-class kid in Hawaii, a grandson of Japanese immigrants, who loved football and got a C+ in 9th grade English. Wise Guy, his most personal book, is about his surprising journey. It's not a traditional memoir but a series of vignettes. He toyed with calling it Miso Soup for the Soul, because these stories (like those in the Chicken Soup series) reflect a wide range of experiences that have enlightened and inspired him. For instance, you'll follow Guy as he . . . • Gets his first real job in the jewelry business--which turned out to be surprisingly useful training for the tech world. • Disparages one of Apple's potential partners in front of that company's CEO, at the sneaky instigation of Steve Jobs. • Blows up his Apple career with a single sentence, after Jobs withholds a pre-release copy of the Think Different ad campaign: "That's okay, Steve, I don't trust you either." • Reevaluates his self-importance after being mistaken for Jackie Chan by four young women. • Takes up surfing at age 62--which teaches him that you can discover a new passion at any age, but younger is easier! Guy covers everything from moral values to business skills to parenting. As he writes, "I hope my stories help you live a more joyous, productive, and meaningful life. If Wise Guy succeeds at this, then that's the best story of all."

It's time to take our power back We can barely imagine our lives without technology. Tech gives us tools to connect with our friends, listen to our music, document our lives, share our opinions, and keep up with what's going on in the world. Yet it also tempts us to procrastinate, avoid honest conversations, compare ourselves with others, and filter our reality. Sometimes, it feels like our devices have a lot more control over us than we have over them. But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, we deserve so much more than what technology offers us. And when we're wise about how we use our devices, we can get more--more joy, more connection, more out of life. Tech shouldn't get in the way of a life worth living. Let's get tech-wise.

“The discourse of our common life inclines towards despair. In my field of journalism, where we presume to write the first draft of history, we summon our deepest critical capacities for investigating what is inadequate, corrupt, catastrophic, and failing. The ‘news’ is defined as the extraordinary events of the day, but it is most often translated as the extraordinarily terrible events of the day. And in an immersive 24/7 news cycle, we internalize the deluge of bad news as the norm—the real truth of who we are and what we’re up against as a species. But my work has shown me that spiritual geniuses of the everyday are everywhere. They are in the margins and do not have publicists. They are below the radar, which is broken.” Peabody Award-winning broadcaster and National Humanities Medalist Krista Tippett has interviewed the most extraordinary voices examining the great questions of meaning for our time. The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation. In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty. The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says – definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other. This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century – of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid. One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.

Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever. Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our capacity for a village-mindedness, or breaks it. Table of Contents The Ordeal of a Managed Death Stealing Meaning from Dying The Tyrant Hope The Quality of Life Yes, But Not Like This The Work So Who Are the Dying to You? Dying Facing Home What Dying Asks of Us All Kids Ah, My Friend the Enemy

"Wise Church is about rethinking church cultures so they become more of a wisdom culture. The topics vary as widely as church life itself: letter writing as pastoral care, the work life of congregants, evangelism, music, church economics, spiritual formation as the pursuit of wisdom, racial justice, marriage, learning how to teach like Jesus, gospeling like the apostles, and the wise use of social media. These studies are by pastors and scholars pondering wisdom, but more than that, they are pondering the life we all live in a wise way. We and our churches need wisdom, not simply because we live in an ever-changing world, but because the God we worship is himself wise. Wise church cultures reflect the wisdom of God back into the world, a world looking for wisdom." With contributions from: Jeff Bannman Jeremy Berg Brandon Evans Pete Goodman David Johnston Ernest F. Ledbetter III Julie Murdock Joshua Little John M. Phelps Ivan Ramirez Bill D. Shiell

Combining the simple wisdom of Epicurus and Eckhart Tolle, and written in the mind-bending style of Alan Watts, this visual thinking manual will help you transform your inner world. Discover how the shapes of empathy can help you think with care and live with purpose. Through awareness of motivations and multiple perspectives, you will learn to connect to the human spirit that lies beyond mere appearance. Begin your journey inward to sharpen your imagination and craft a life of meaning.