LITMIR.BIZ

"It is 4:00 a.m. the day after Rosa died. I am wide-awake from a brief and troubled sleep."
This book explores the loss of a dear friend and companion-a remarkable fifteen-year-old retriever named Rosa.
Many people form deep attachments to their pets. Yet we wonder how to celebrate our friendships with them and how to grieve their death. Dog-Kissed Tears is a meditative memoir woven from life with Rosa. In stories that are funny, sad, moving, and honest, Lambert Zuidervaart links his attachment to his beloved dog and his love for human friends. Familiar songs help him trace his personal journey through the adoption, life, and death of a canine companion. As Lambert works through grief and longing for Rosa, he connects memories of childhood with self-discoveries in middle age.
Dog-Kissed Tears weaves a lyrical narrative of friendship, loss, and healing. Its spiritual undercurrent is subtle but profound.

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Foretaste of Heaven is a witness to the enabling grace of God in a time of grave illness. It shows how the Christian hope of the Resurrection of the Dead and of Life Everlasting lifts the mind and heart above the sadness of imminent death and fills the soul with joyful anticipation of heaven. The Psalms in particular are seen as a well from which can be drawn assurances of God as truly «a very present help in time of need.»

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This book is a series of devotional and contemplative readings designed to cause one to be reflective. In a day of great despair and fear it is good for believers to ponder the unlocked treasures of ancient faith and belief. Many of the treasures found in this volume are centered on life in the Middle East. Unlocked Treasures addresses the Jewish roots of Christianity and historical Christian thought thus reminding the reader of the unshakable foundation of Christianity. This book is a powerful resource to use during times of prayer and pause, meditating on the Word of God.

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Startled by the unexpected diagnosis of a rare and often-terminal cancer, JoAnn A. Post chronicles the course of her treatment in Songs in My Head, a journal written both for her own sake, and for friends, family, and colleagues. Each of her twelve chemotherapy treatments is presented as a verse of the songs that hummed in her heart during and at the close of treatment. Inspiration and encouragement come through simple events like the return of a lost dog («Chasing Maggie») and complicated events like allergic reactions to chemotherapy («A False Summit»). The journal closes with an ancient Jewish ritual of thanksgiving, the Birkat HaGomel, which places the author's suffering in the context of the suffering and healing of God's people through the centuries.
While writing from the perspective of faith, the author neither offers easy solutions, nor glosses over the difficult questions posed by illness and disability. During a difficult time she writes with hope, humor, and honesty. This journal is written for those living with cancer, and for those who love and care for them.

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While serving as Interim Pastor in the 1993-1994 church year, Kenneth Vaux announced a year-long sermon series entitled «Intimations of the Sacred.» Building on the concepts of William Wordsworth that the simple items of nature–leaves, songs, snowflakes, and gestures of kindness–hint to us the mysteries of the divine, we assemble here a selection of these «Second Sermons,» which include themes such as Bach and Mozart, Calvin, Wesley and Ghandi, Healing and Resurrection, Reconciliation and Redemption. Here, one can reenact C. S. Lewis' The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, finding a magical world as one enters into the realm within the wardrobe. Lions and Unicorns, Princes, Queens, ships and storms all rest as an in-depth screen behind the door of your schoolhouse or your grandfather's attic. The sermons seek to transpose the reader from the realm of the mundane to the supernal and back again.

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Can faith be an idol? Can the state grant freedom? What about wealth? No King but God takes up the revolutionary cry found on the lips of Jesus and his contemporaries in the first century to argue that we need the same desire to see God as King in all areas of our lives. From the marginal and prophetic perspective of the Isle of Man, and informed by a decade of pioneering work among the homeless, five contemporary idols are unmasked. The church is given a provocative challenge to embody an alternative. The response to the idols of faith, freedom, the state, wealth, and the individual is not right belief or special prayers, but the humble path of walking as Jesus walked. Soaked in scripture and hope, this is a wooing invitation into true humanity, painting a vision of a kingdom of peace and justice founded on the self-giving love of Jesus. It is a call towards, and a glimpse of, lives and a world where there is no King but God.

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In an age of decreasing denominational loyalty, questions of identity have become important. Both church members and inquirers wonder what to make of a denomination's core values, mission, and common practices. Because the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was born as a movement of reform on the American frontier during the early nineteenth century, it is marked by the time and place of its birth. The message it offered at the time was one of Christian unity rooted in theological simplicity and freedom of belief and practice. This message influenced the way the tradition came to understand biblical interpretation, theology, the sacraments, ministry, and its eschatology. As the movement matured, many recognized that this message of freedom could lead to unfettered individualism and tended to undermine congregational life and cooperation beyond the congregation. In response, Disciples leaders turned to the biblical idea of covenant to balance the message of freedom and link congregations with other forms of church without creating hierarchical systems. If, as some have suggested, this is a movement whose time has come, then it is important to understand the movement's identity and core values, which have been formed within the fulcrum of the tension existing between freedom and covenant.

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We sometimes say that Muslims and Christians are part of Abraham's family, but while you can choose your friends, you cannot choose your family. In a world filled with conflict, can Christians be friends with Muslims? When it comes to medical ethics, the economy, the environment, media, the arts, the place of women in society, political engagement, do Christians and Muslims have any views in common? Utilizing the writings of respected Muslim reformer Tariq Ramadan, Tom Wilson asks questions about what kind of friendship Christians and Muslims might have. While we disagree as to who Jesus is or how we can be saved, can we agree in our concern for a fairer, more just society? Can we work together for the common good as friends who disagree but remain respectful?

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Prayer, the raising of the heart to God, is the heart of the Christian life. For the author of Luke's Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, prayer is the habit of being in the presence of God. One of the primary ways Jesus is characterized in Luke's Gospel is that of a pray-er. Likewise in the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles are portrayed being in God's presence.
Prayer is the topic of this book; it highlights the passages where Jesus is found praying in the Gospel and where the apostles are found praying in the Acts. From the example Jesus gives in Luke's Gospel, and from the example the apostles give in the Acts of the Apostles, the reader concludes that prayer should be a part of the life of any Christian. If Jesus himself prayed–spoke and listened to God–then how can his followers do any less?
This book can be used during the Advent-Christmas Season, the Lenten Season, the Easter Season, and at any time one wants to hone his or her praying skills. This book is especially useful during the period of post-baptismal catechesis for those in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults with its focus on spiritual growth through prayer.

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Revelation is a strange and puzzling book. Apart from the few who are endlessly fascinated by it, most of us are unsure what to do with it. And since it seems so different from the rest of the New Testament, perhaps the safest policy is to ignore it.
But what if that meant losing something really important? What if Revelation turned out to be a powerful and gripping presentation of the same momentous news we find throughout the New Testament? If so, bypassing it will mean that our devotion and discipleship will fail to be as deep and robust as they should be.
A gospel pageant? If that is what Revelation brings us, perhaps it is time to read it again!

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