Augsburg Fortress

Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage

Native America knows something about cultivating resilience and resisting darkness. Choctaw elder and Episcopal priest Steven Charleston offers words of hard-won hope, rooted in daily conversations with the Spirit and steeped in Indigenous wisdom. For all who yearn for hope, Ladder to the Light is a book of comfort, truth, and challenge in a time of anguish and fear. Night will not last forever. Together we can climb toward the light.

9781506465739

The Peacemaker's Path: Multifaith Reflections to Deepen Your Spirituality

Now more than ever, people are painfully divided politically, religiously, and culturally. And yet, there is a commonality in our faith traditions that can help us create a greater sense of community in which our differences are honored. Through daily readings that explore the tenets, teachings, writings, and prayers of the world's major religions, The Peacemaker's Path shows us that we have much more in common than what divides us.

9781506469126

Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It (New and Revised)

New updated and expanded paperback reveals the universal yearning writer David Zahl identifies, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." Today, we look to various passions--from eating to parenting to voting--for the meaning once provided on Sunday morning. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism." Ultimately, Zahl brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.

9781506467641

Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred

Like many unfulfilled by traditional faith expressions, Victoria Loorz went in search of a spirituality strong enough to reckon with the unraveling of her vocation, identity, and planet, and found herself in the wilderness. Loorz invites us to reimagine our relationship with and commitment to a suffering planet by loving it--and calling it church.

9781506469645

Feed the Wolf: Befriending Our Fears in the Way of Saint Francis

Turn from fear and find peace. In Feed the Wolf, author and Saint Francis scholar Jon M. Sweeney explores fifteen spiritual practices from the essential wisdom of Saint Francis for us to apply to our twenty-first-century lives.

9781506470733

Breath Prayer: An Ancient Practice for the Everyday Sacred

Christine Valters Paintner, abbess of Abbey of the Arts, introduces us to the spiritual practice of breath prayer and offers beautiful poem-prayers for walking, working, dressing, cleaning, sitting in silence, doing the dishes, living in community--breathing the divine into our daily lives. Over time these recitations become as natural as breathing. We don't so much recite the prayers as the prayers recite us, guide us, and open our hearts to the everyday sacred.

9781506470672

Brave: Women of the Bible and Their Stories of Grief, Mercy, Folly, Joy, Sex, and Redemption

Following the success of Fierce, Alice Connor returns to introduce a new group of women from the Bible, some whose names we know, others who go unnamed. Connor invites us to see them not as players in a man's story, but as foremothers of the faith.

Skillfully drawn by the author, these women's stories are challenging and beautiful. When we read their stories, we see not only their particular, formidable lives but also our own.

9781506463964

Seeing Jesus: Visionary Encounters from the First Century to the Present

Jesus ascended to heaven. End of story. But then how do we explain the Christians, in nearly every century since, who claimed to have seen, heard, met, and touched Jesus in the flesh? In Seeing Jesus, Robert Hudson ponders characters throughout Christian history who have encountered the actual face of the resurrected Christ.

9781506465753

Steeped in Stories: Timeless Children's Novels to Refresh Our Tired Souls

Can you love a classic novel from childhood and also name its flaws? Mitali Perkins helps us do both as she explores seven timeless children's novels. Through works by Louisa May Alcott, C.S. Lewis, L.M. Montgomery, Francis Hodgson Burnett, and other literary "uncles" and "aunts," Perkins unpacks wisdom to help adults thrive in uncertain times.

9781506469102

Jesus for Farmers and Fishers: Justice for All Those Marginalized by Our Food System

Food producers in America are in the midst of one of the most severe farm crises of the last half-century. Yet we are largely unaware of the plight of those whose hands and hearts toil to sustain us. In Jesus for Farmers and Fishers, Gary Nabhan offers a fresh look at the parables of Jesus to bring us into a heart of compassion for those in the food economy hit by this crisis.

9781506465067

Subversive: Christ, Culture, and the Shocking Dorothy L. Sayers

Known for her bestselling detective novels, Dorothy L. Sayers lived a fascinating, groundbreaking life as a novelist, feminist, Oxford scholar, and important influence on the spiritual life of C.S. Lewis. Subversive shows how Sayers ignites new ways to think about Christianity, shocking people into seeing the truth of ancient doctrine; inspiring believers to evaluate how and why their language perpetuates divisive certitude rather than the hopeful faith; and showing us all a better way forward.

9781506462752

Van Gogh's Second Gift: A Spiritual Path to Deeper Creativity

Cliff Edwards, a well-known Vincent van Gogh author and scholar, explores Van Gogh's second gift--the surprising written works of Van Gogh in letters written to his brother, fellow artists, and friends. A perfect book for creatives and those who want to understand more about one of the world's most beloved artists, the genius creator of works like Starry Night.

9781506462356

Thy Queendom Come: Breaking Free from the Patriarchy to Save Your Soul

Telling the stories of some of the strongest women in all of Scripture, Thy Queendom Come offers Christian women a new path forward - a revolutionary new spirituality, and a revolutionary word to describe it: queendom. We can leave the narrow kingdom behind and embrace a more vibrant and just spiritual life.

9781506469140

Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do About It

We have a universal yearning, writes David Zahl, not to be happy or respected so much as enough--what religions call "righteous." Today, we look to all sorts of everyday activities--from eating and parenting to dating and voting--for the meaning once provided on Sunday morning. Seculosity takes a thoughtful yet entertaining tour of American "performancism." Ultimately, Zahl brings us to a fresh appreciation for the grace of God in all its countercultural wonder.

9781506449432

Innocent Until Proven Muslim: Islamophobia, the War on Terror, and the Muslim Experience Since 9/11

In this powerful book, Dr. Maha Hilal tells the story of two decades of the War on Terror, through both an overview of the policies created under its umbrella and the lived realities of Muslim Americans who have experienced hate and discrimination as a result.

9781506470467

The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life's In-Betweens to Remake the World

Women who don't fit in amid cultural expectations, because of life transitions or changes in their body, mind, or gender identity, are carving out new ways of being in and remaking the world. Drawing on the wisdom of women mystics, this book explores how transitional eras can be both spiritually challenging and excitingly freeing. Ultimately, we see how these in-between times lead us to reinvented ways of seeing ourselves and changing the world.

9781506467689

Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear

The height of the AIDS crisis in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s left many profound stories that remained untold. In Hidden Mercy, gay Catholic journalist Michael O'Loughlin uncovers the stories of Catholics who at great personal cost chose compassion. A compelling picture of those who responded to human suffering with mercy, offering insights for LGBTQ and other people of faith struggling to find a home in religious communities today.

9781506467702

Portraits of Peace: Searching for Hope in a Divided America

Frustrated with an increasingly polarized society, award-winning photographer John Noltner set out on a road trip across the US to rediscover the common humanity that connects us by asking people the simple question "What does peace mean to you?"

9781506471211

A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community 

America is at a spiritual and political crossroads. A new narrative is needed to counter the discord in her politics and culture, a new way forward rooted in Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of community. A More Perfect Union calls for a shared vision that transcends partisanship to live out America's best ideals and realize a more perfect union.

9781506464534

Wild Woman: A Footnote, the Desert, and My Quest for an Elusive Saint

In the dusty corner of a library, journalist Amy Frykholm discovers a footnote that leads her on a decades-long search for Mary of Egypt--runaway, prostitute, holy desert dweller, saint, and archetypal wild woman. As their storylines crisscross maps and centuries, the saint and the author meet at various thresholds, and both become more fully revealed as they enter the desert wild and wildly--in the embrace of the sacred.

9781506471853