Augsburg Fortress

Inkwell: Simple Writing Practices to Restore Your Soul

Tired. Uninspired. Emotionally exhausted. Overwhelmed. Burned out. In a world where the pace seems to get faster and the problems seem intractable, more and more people feel they just can't go on as they have been doing. The truth is, we're much better at caring for our bodies than caring for our spirits. In Inkwell, writing instructor and professor Anne Whitney shows how writing can be a powerful tool for your spiritual self-care.

9781506464794

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

Dimming the Day: Evening Meditations for Quiet Wonder

The moon is out, the air has cooled, you are ready for bed. You know that scrolling on your phone does not draw you toward sleep. Power down your phone, take a breath, and begin to dim the day. Author Jennifer Grant offers gentle meditations that help you direct your gaze away from screens and toward the natural world. Replace anxiety with awe, distraction with focus, and worry with true rest.

9781506471198

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

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

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

The Wild Land Within: Cultivating Wholeness through Spiritual Practice

Spiritual practices are wildly popular today--and for good reason. But they can lead to distressing encounters with wounds we didn't even know we had. In The Wild Land Within, spiritual companion Lisa Colón DeLay helps us consent to God's healing in wounded places so we are able to fully receive the fruits of our spiritual practices.

9781506465081

Coming to God in the Stillness: Discovering the Power of Contemplative Prayer

In a simple style with very practical emphasis, Dutch Catholic spiritual leader Jim Borst outlines twelve stages of contemplative prayer, offering readers an easy-to-follow guide. Through this classic primer, discover the power of meeting God in the silence and stillness of contemplation.

9781506459141

Eternal Heart: The Mystical Path to a Joyful Life

Eternal Heart brings mysticism as near as our beating hearts through a set of profound, practical spiritual exercises aimed at opening the heart. Through this everyday mysticism we begin to experience the center point of spirituality: Love. Carl McColman, author of The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, weaves together teachings from the biblical tradition, literature of the mystics, and insights from contemplative spirituality to reveal how ancient wisdom offers us deep transformation today.

9781506464619

A Journey of Sea and Stone: How Holy Places Guide and Renew Us

In A Journey of Sea and Stone, spiritual director Tracy Balzer takes us along as she journeys to the revered Isle of Iona in Scotland. She carries with her key questions of the spiritual life: Where is God? Who am I? What can I offer the world? With Balzer as our guide, and through the storied history of Iona, we see that all sacred spaces can offer us a unique path to God.

9781506464596

Sacred Balance: Aligning Body and Spirit through Yoga and the Benedictine Way

In Sacred Balance, certified yoga instructor and spirituality blogger Melinda Emily Thomas helps you align body and spirit through two timeless traditions: yoga and the Benedictine Way. Studded with illustrations of basic yoga poses and ideas for wellness, prayers, and meditations, Sacred Balance offers an abundance of wisdom for daily life that guides us toward peace and wholeness.

9781506463537

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

The Sacred Pulse: Holy Rhythms for Overwhelmed Souls

Contemporary life is leaving us frazzled, overwhelmed, and out of sorts.

In The Sacred Pulse, pastor and author April Fiet invites us to examine the frantic patterns of perfection and production and to reclaim the deeper, sacred pulses that pattern our days. Through stories, scripture, and practical guidance for daily living, she lays out twelve practices that are both sustainable and sustaining so we can tap into the joyful, holy rhythms of life.

9781506469089

Wild Belief: Poets and Prophets in the Wilderness

Wild Belief brings together a diverse and unique set of writers who span literary styles, genres, and time periods--but who are united in their search for spirit in the wild.

Through them we discover the tension between our understanding of the wilderness as both a fearful and a sacred space, which makes it particularly apt for capturing the unknown and surprising elements of belief.

9781506464633

In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World

From master storyteller and host of On Being's Poetry Unbound, Pádraig Ó Tuama, comes an unforgettable spiritual memoir of peace and reconciliation, Celtic spirituality, belonging, and sexual identity. From the heart of a poet comes a profound look at the landscapes we all try to inhabit even as we always search for shelter, a place we can call home.

9781506470528

The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton

In The Seeker and the Monk, Sophfronia Scott mines the extensive, private journals of Thomas Merton, one of the most influential contemplative thinkers of the past, for guidance on how to live in fraught times. Race, ambition, faith, activism, nature, prayer, friendship, love: with intimacy and a refusal to settle for cliché, Scott invites readers into the themes that occupied Merton and that still command our attention today.

9781506464961

In My Grandmother's House: Black Women, Faith, and the Stories We Inherit

A grandmother's theology carries wisdom strong enough for future generations. In the pages of In My Grandmother's House, public theologian Yolanda Pierce builds an everyday womanist theology rooted in liberating scriptures, stories from the Black church, and truths from Black women's lives. The Divine has been showing up at the kitchen tables of Black women for a long time. It's time to get to know that God.

9781506464718

3000 Miles to Jesus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life for Spiritual Seekers

3,000 Miles to Jesus applies wisdom and insights from the highpoint of spiritual pilgrimage in the Middle Ages to spiritual pilgrims today. Understanding the risks taken and the courage and conviction driving the spiritual pilgrim, Deam offers the bigger picture of a lifelong journey of faith. For those on a quest for the sacred, this book promises to be a guide on the pilgrim path to spiritual transformation--offering rewards that last a lifetime.

9781506461632

Awakened by Death: Life-Giving Lessons from the Mystics

Taking readers on a journey through history guided by the mystics, Awakened by Death shows us how our psychological and spiritual relationship to death has changed over time, and helps us to reclaim a healthy engagement with our own mortality. Ultimately, readers will gain a deeper understanding of how facing the fear of death, and embracing rather than eschewing its mysteries, can help us live richer, fuller lives.

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