Average customer rating:
|
At Home in the Muddy Water: A Guide to Finding Peace Within Everyday Chaos
Ezra Bayda Manufacturer: Shambhala ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 1590301684 Release Date: 2004-11-09 |
Book Description
May we exist like a lotus, / At home in the muddy water. / Thus we bow to life as it is. This verse is an important reminder, says Ezra Bayda, of what the spiritual life is truly about: the willingness to open ourselves to whatever life presents—no matter how messy or complicated. And through that willingness to be open, we can discover wisdom, compassion, and the genuine life we all want. In At Home in the Muddy Water , Bayda applies this simple Zen teaching to a range of everyday concerns—including relationships, trust, sexuality, and money—showing that everything we need to practice is right here before us, and that peace and fulfillment is available to everyone, right here, right now, no matter what their circumstances.Customer Reviews:
Practical Advice.......2005-09-16
Not too abstract, Not too nuanced - Just Right!.......2005-04-04
Ezra the Great.......2004-11-10
A great tool for anyone willing to use it.......2004-01-27
self-help.......2003-09-17
Average customer rating: |
Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace (Peter T. Flawn Series in Natural Resource Management and Conservation)
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items: ASIN: 029270495X |
Book Description
Finding "streams in the desert" has never been more urgent for the peoples of the Middle East. Rapid population growth and a rising standard of living are driving water demand inexorably upward, while the natural supply has not increased since Biblical times. Ensuring a fair and adequate distribution of water in the region is vitally important for building a lasting peace among the nations of the Middle East.
Addressing water needs from a geographical perspective, the contributors to this book analyze and assess the impact of scarce water resources in the Jordan River basin countries and territories (Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria) as these long-time antagonists work toward peace. After geographical and historical overviews, the authors envision the future-what the water issues may be when Israel and Syria begin negotiating, the "hydro-security" needs of each nation, and the difficulties of planning for uncertainty. Without proposing any one ideal scheme, they discuss the possibilities for cooperative sharing of water resources, while honestly acknowledging the political constraints that may limit such projects. The final essay speaks to the needs of the one party so rarely represented at the negotiating tablethe Jordan River itself.
Average customer rating:
|
He Leads Me Beside Still Waters
Jennifer Kennedy Dean Manufacturer: The Praying Life Foundation ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items:
ASIN: 0966712560 Release Date: 2005-01-01 |
Product Description
According to author Jennifer Kennedy Dean, sabbath is not just a day of the week, but a state of the soul. God intends for His people to live without anxiety. This 40-day interactive devotional experience takes the reader on a sojourn through the Scripture to discover Jesus' secret for living with His soul at rest. Using the Lord's Model Prayer as the launchpad, Jennifer Kennedy Dean leads the reader to uncover the key to soul-sabbath.Customer Reviews:
A truly insightful read!.......2003-03-19
Average customer rating: |
Fires of Love: Waters of Peace
Lee Siegel Manufacturer: Univ of Hawaii Pr ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 0824808282 |
Average customer rating: |
Opposition Beyond the Water's Edge: Liberal Internationalists, Pacifists and Containment, 1945-1953 (Contributions to the Study of World History)
E. Timothy Smith Manufacturer: Greenwood Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 0313307776 |
Book Description
Despite the development of a consensus foreign policy during the early years of the Cold War that supported containment of the Soviet Union, there were both internationalists and pacifists who opposed the efforts of the Truman administration. These groups felt that American actions, including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the North Atlantic Treaty, and even the Korean War weakened the UN, threatened the Soviet Union with war, hindered European economic recovery, and promoted colonialism. Often mislabeled as isolationists, both the pacifists, with their traditional opposition to war, and the liberal internationalists, who supported efforts to continue the wartime alliance with the Soviets through the development of a strong UN, felt that the United States should play an active role in world affairs. The "peace movement" forces have been marginalized or dismissed as insignificant by many historians, however, while their impact was minimal in the late 1940s and early 1950s, their ideas would later re-emerge to have a strong impact on American policy, particularly in the "ban the bomb" and the antiwar movements of the Vietnam era. They continued to support efforts to maintain the Soviet alliance through the UN, to assist in the reconstruction of the world economy, to promote disarmament, and to end colonialism. While a commitment to these ideas would probably not have prevented the Cold War, it might have lessened its severity or slowed the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Average customer rating: |
Navigating Perilous Waters: An Israeli Strategy for Peace and Security (Israeli History, Politics and Society)
Ephraim Sneh Manufacturer: Routledge ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 071465633X |
Book Description
Israel is a Jewish state in a Muslim Middle East. How can it survive in that region? This book answers this question by analyzing the dangers and threats that Israel faces today.
The author analyses the unstable character of the Middle East, and the agents of this instability. Looking at the relationship of Israel with each one of its neighbors: the Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, the potential risks and opportunities which each neighbor poses to Israel are discussed. The author suggests how Israel should prepare itself, militarily and politically, to maintain a balance of power with its adversaries, and to maintain its strategic deterrence.
The book also highlights an important component of Israel's strength: the endurance and the cohesion of its social fabric, which the author sees as the key to his country's survival in the Middle East.
The author's final recommendation is a combined one: Israel has to preserve its military superiority in the region, to retain defensible borders, but to relentlessly pursue a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinian people, an agreement which he considers the key to a change for Arab-Israeli relations.
Written by Israel's former deputy minister of defense, Navigating Perilous Waters will be essential reading for all those interested in contemporary politics in the Middle East.
Average customer rating: |
Through Fire With Water: The Roots of Division and the Potential for Reconciliation in Africa
Manufacturer: Africa World Press ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback ASIN: 1592210848 |
Book Description
This collection of essays presents fifteen case studies of African countries whose recent past has been shaped by conflict. Its exploration of the historical roots of violence and of the potential for reconciliation and justice reveals the experiences of communities and nations that are struggling to build a peaceful, prosperous future. It is essential reading for students of development, politics, and history, and for the general reader who wants to know more about current affairs in Africa. The case-study countries include: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.The contributors are all researchers and analysts of the African countries under consideration and include Tyrone Savage, S'fiso Ngesi, Joseph Rahall, Adewale Segun Banjo, Ricky Khaukha, Manelisi Genge, Susanna Streleau, Edmond Tiku, Mokete Lawrence Pherudi, Gape Kaboyakgosi, Irae Baptista Lundin, Antonio da Cost Gaspar, Shupikayi Blessing Chimhini, Yeki Mosomothane, and both editors, Erik Doxtader and Charles Villa-Vicencio. The preface was written by Justice Richard Goldstone.
Average customer rating:
|
Finding Peace in Troubled Waters
Art E. Berg Manufacturer: Deseret Book Company ProductGroup: Book Binding: Paperback Similar Items: ASIN: 1573453102 |
Book Description
Do you feel you have lost your ability to cope? Are you dealing with something that makes you feel hopeless? In Finding Peace in Troubled Waters, ten concepts that can be life preservers are offered for those who find themselves struggling to keep from drowning on sorrow or self-pity while being battered by waves of adversity. Whether your struggle is with a life-threatening health problem, a difficult personal relationship, or some other challenge, Art Berg's insights and perspective will help you survive and overcome.Customer Reviews:
Deeply Moving Book.......2004-07-23
Life is Good!.......2002-08-08
Average customer rating:
|
Dancing In The Water Of Life Volume 5:1963-1965: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage (Merton, Thomas//Journal of Thomas Merton)
Thomas Merton Manufacturer: HarperSanFrancisco ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover Similar Items:
ASIN: 0060654821 |
Book Description
The '60s were a time of restlessness, inner turmoil and exuberance for Merton, a time during which he closely followed the careening development of political and social activism -- Martin Luther King Jr., and the March on Selma; the Catholic Worker Movement; the Vietnam War and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Volume 5 chronicles the approach of Merton's fiftieth birthday and marks his move to Mount Olivet, his hermitage at the Abbey of Gethsemani, where he was finally able to embrace fully the joys and challenges of solitary life: "In the hermitage, one must pray or go to seed. The pretense of prayer will not suffice. Just sitting will not suffice... Solitude puts you with your back to the wall (or your face to it!), and this is good" (October 13, 1964).Making his struggles and his happiness practically tangible on these pages, Merton was never a better writer than in his journals. His gifts are as abundantly clear in this volume as in its predecessors."'Publishers Weekly
"Merton at his best: sophisticated, honest, humorous, and mystical."'Kirkus Reviews
"When all the journals are published, it is likely that they will take their place with the famous journals of Henry David Thoreau, G. M. Hopkins, Edmund Wilson, and perhaps be seen as an American version of St. Augustine's `Confessions.'"'Catholic News Service
Customer Reviews:
Turning toward the world:the pivotal years,Vol 4.......2001-02-22
Brilliant Merton. Again........2000-10-19
Perfect Merton!.......2000-09-02
Merton finest journal........1998-09-25
Some parts of this journal will already be familiar to readers as it contains journal entries that were prepared for publication by Merton in the journal A Vow of Conversation, as well as his account of his visit to meet the Zen scholar Suzuki and an early version of Day of a Stranger. Having said that, over half of the material in this journal is previously unpublished and even those parts previously published can read quite differently in their unedited form. Vow leaves the reader with the impression that Merton had effortlessly made the transition to life as a full-time hermit whereas, in Dancing, this transition appears far from easy and a visit from his former novice Ernesto Cardenal brings to the surface the instability Merton experienced with the move.
Dancing in the Waters of Life begins with a masterful introduction by Robert Daggy which highlights the central movements in this volume - Merton's move to the hermitage, his movement into his middle years with increasing health difficulties, and his continuing efforts to work out the paradoxes in his life. At times in this journal we see Merton at his most free and yet, almost in the next sentence he can be highly introspective and obsessed with certain aspects of his life. This tension runs throughout this volume and, as Daggy points out, accounts "for the highs and lows, the joy and the despair, the enthusiasm and the carping." (xii-xiii.) Merton's own sense of this continuing movement in his life, of the dance, comes over clearly in a passage he wrote in January 1964: "The need for constant self-revision, growth, leaving behind, renunciation of yesterday, yet in continuity with all yesterdays...my ideas are always changing, always moving around one center, always seeing the center from somewhere else. I will always be accused of inconsistencies - and will no longer be there to hear the accusation." (67.)
Dancing allows us the most direct contact with Merton of any of the journals yet published. The difficulties of this period which Merton writes about, the tensions, his continuing ill health and his coming to terms with middle age and the absurd world of the sixties can make this volume sound like the ravings of a man obsessed with himself. Yet there is a fine balance here between the madman and the prophet, as was frequently the case with the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. When one considers Merton's other writings of this time - Emblems of a Season of Fury, Seeds of Destruction, The Way of Chuang Tzu, Gandhi on Non-Violence, along with such classics essays as "Rain and the Rhinoceros," and his "Message to Poets" - it is the stature of the prophet which becomes evident and this journal gives us an intimate insight into the dynamics of the prophet.
In this journal we can see the sources to which Merton was turning for his own spiritual and intellectual nourishment. Of particular interest to Merton in this period are Rilke, Barth, Bultmann, and Sartre. The Church Fathers, scripture and the religious writings of other traditions are all evident along with a growing awareness of his natural surroundings, brought about partly through a growing closeness to nature and its rhythms in his life at the hermitage: "Came up to the hermitage at 4 a.m. The moon poured down silence over the woods, and the frosty grass sparkled faintly. More than two hours of prayer in firelight...Sweet pungent smell of hickory smoke, and silence, silence." (93.)
Although not as intensely involved in the peace movement as he was earlier in the sixties Merton's awareness of the issues confronting it is clearly still evident as is his grasp of a wide range of national and international issues - race relations and civil rights, the space race, American politics, Viet Nam and the effects of the Vatican Council.
In all the journals of Thomas Merton references can be found to the various anniversaries that were important to him. In this journal the dominant such date is his fiftieth birthday. Throughout this journal Merton makes references to a variety of health problems and his fiftieth birthday provides the occasion for an extended reflection on his life connecting his present self with various moments in his life from Oakham, through Cambridge and Columbia to Gethsemani concluding "Why go on? Deo gratias for all of them." (199.) As he approaches middle age Merton is more able to see the unity of his life and discovers, in the midst of his vulnerability, a new sense of happiness which he had not experienced previously writing "Lay in bed realizing that what I was, was happy. Said the strange word `happiness' and realized that it was there...And I was that." (177.)
This is a journal full of movement, from Merton's daily journeys between the hermitage and the monastery, through his frequent visits to Louisville, to his first ever return visit to New York since entering Gethsamani. There is also the movement of his restless spirit, of his continuing debates with the abbot, the church and the wider society. The rhythm of this movement gives it at times the feeling of a dance, one in which Merton dances very lightly, touching on spiritual masters down through the ages and calling his reader to undertake the same dance in their own life and to join in the general dance of creation.
Execllent day-by-day summary of the hermitage experience.......1998-08-05
Average customer rating:
|
Rivers of Eden: The Struggle for Water and the Quest for Peace in the Middle East
Daniel Hillel Manufacturer: Replica Books ProductGroup: Book Binding: Hardcover ASIN: 073510476X |
Book Description
After years of discord, peace in the Middle East now seems close at hand. But the hope of a settlement stands on much shakier ground than the participants suspect, says scientist Daniel Hillel. What they don't see, and what most observers overlook, is that the severely wounded environment of the region threatens to undercut any long-lasting accord. The widespread destruction of vegetation and natural habitats, the erosion of uplands, the desertification of semiarid areas, waterlogging and salinization of valleys, and, most of all, the depletion and pollution of precious water resources--no political formula will promote lasting peace in the Middle East, argues Hillel, unless it addresses these ills. In Rivers of Eden, Hillel examines this natural crisis and explores its crucial role in the political and economic future of this troubled region. He shows how environmental degradation, exacerbated by an uncontrolled explosion of population, is itself a cause of strife in the area, dislocating and disorienting countless people and fomenting despair and extremism. And yet, he adds, since no one country in the region can solve its water problem alone, the very cause of conflict is also an inducement for promoting peace. This hope illuminates Rivers of Eden as it traces the vital issue of water in the Middle East, ranging from its first appearance in folklore and religion to the present. As Hillel shows, the history of civilization in the Middle East is in many ways the story of how societies in this arid environment managed or mismanaged their land and water resources. Here we see how this history plays out from intertribal rivalty (for instance, the legendary "War of Basoos," begun over the errant trespass of a thirsty camel), to the choking of the mighty Nile at Aswan and the slow, salt-poisoned death of Mesopotamia. From the historical and scientific circumstances of the region's water resources, Hillel turns to conflicts brewing even now over the waters of the Euphrates-Tigris, the Nile, the Jordan, and several groundwater aquifers. The future welfare of the Middle East, as of many economies around the world, depends on timely action to resolve these issues. This book offers hope for such a resolution. A world renowned environmental scientist, Hillel has worked throughout the Middle East, as consultant to the governments of Israel, Pakistan, the Sudan, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and elsewhere, and as an advisor to the World Bank. He brings first-hand insight to his account and an urgent concern for the degraded Fertile Crescent, which he believes can and must be rehabilitated. Comprehensive, penetrating, and clear, his book compels the attention of anyone interested in the future of the Middle East and of the environment at large.Customer Reviews:
Much more than meets the eye.......2000-04-09
Books:
Recommended Books