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"Dad. I've got very, very, very bad news. Peter was killed tonight . . ."
With that middle-of-the-night phone call, life for the Mayer family plunged from «best-ever year» to months and years of dealing with the oppressive presence of Peter's unending absence.
A letter from his father to the freshly deceased Peter, intended for the memorial service, became the first in a torrent of letters from his dad to Peter, though which his dad poured out agonized and angry grief. In the letters, Peter's dad laments the way events otherwise beautiful for Peter's wife, five-year-old daughter, and the rest of the family are relentlessly punctuated with the pain of the loss. «Dammit, Peter, why didn't you . . .?»
Ultimately, slowly, the letters begin to reflect on the strange mystery of healing. How is it that in spite of the pain, in spite of the unending loss, comfort does come, opening the way once again for unbelievably deep joy?
"It was all so rich and beautiful that with a certain private touch, and exchange of glance, your mom and I signaled an agreement . . . slipped to our cave . . . with playful freedom and deep gratitude."
So for Peter's dad, the confirmation of the odd observation from Jesus: «How blessed are those who grieve!»

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Ephesians speaks to our deepest questions about God: the redemptive plan of God written from ages past now revealed; the work of Christ complete and effective now and for eternity; the power of the Holy Spirit to change lives and build a community. The clear message of God's unfathomable grace establishes the believer's hope and undergirds the call for faithful living. Down through the centuries, the clarion call to unity that permeates Ephesians has inspired and challenged the faithful to live out the promises found in Christ. This short letter speaks to the twenty-first century's longing for friendship and wholeness.

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In The World in the Shadow of God, Ephraim Radner argues for a vigorous Christian natural theology and insists that such a theology must, of necessity, be performed poetically. The peculiar character of such a theology is found in its disclosing of the natural limits that indicate indirectly the impinging and more fundamental reality of the divine life. Natural theology represents the encounter between created reality and the «shadow» of God's creative and revelatory grace. However, the encounter is a morally demanding task for the Christian church if it is to be held accountable to the truth on which its life is based. The first portion of the book offers an extended critical essay on the nature of this sort of natural theology, while the second provides a developed set of examples through poems that display the natural world in light of the truths articulated in the Apostles' Creed. Those interested in the intersection of theology, literature, history, and the natural world will be challenged by this attempt to renew a basic element of Christian knowledge and culture.

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When we stand in the presence of the natural world of creation, something very powerful occurs. Our heart senses a raw and vital connection between ourselves and the handiwork of God revealed in the trees and rivers. Our eye catches some small detail and we are opened up to union with the world around us and to the Creator of that world. It does not take a magnificent vista; it could be a snowdrop or the sound of the wind. Our lives are informed by the wonder, the awe, and the radical amazement hidden in the beauty of the wild. We somehow grow in step with all that is about us. Looking deeply into the real life scenes of simple nature poems can illuminate a rhythm to our days that we might miss without the pause afforded in the whisper of ice on a branch. Explore the unity that is our lives in this series of meditations-this retreat into God.

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In this wide-ranging collection of essays Ronald E. Osborn explores the politically subversive and nonviolent anarchist dimensions of Christian discipleship in response to dilemmas of power, suffering, and war. Essays engage texts and thinkers from Homer's Iliad, the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament to portraits of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Noam Chomsky, and Elie Wiesel. This book also analyzes the Allied bombing of civilians in World War II, the peculiar contribution of the Seventh-day Adventist apocalyptic imagination to Christian social ethics, and the role of deceptive language in the Vietnam War. From these and other diverse angles, Osborn builds the case for a more prophetic witness in the face of the violence of the «principalities and powers» in the modern world. This book will serve as an indispensible primer in the political theology of the Adventist tradition, as well as a significant contribution to radical Christian thought in biblical, historical, and literary perspectives.

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In Hebrew scripture men always get the exiting roles: leader, prophet, war hero. Convinced that women, too, need powerful stories that can inform them about who they are in relation to God, Nancy Werking Poling has imagined biblical men as women. A female Samson tells of the elders trying to take away her power; Nochat (Noah), who is trying to raise God-honoring children in violent times, rebukes God for destroying creation; Mosiah leads abused sisters to freedom; a female Jacob struggles with her capacity for deceit and destruction. Readers are sure to find inspiration in a creative approach to scripture that incorporates women's wisdom, suffering, and courage.

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Revelation is a book that many Christians find confusing due to the foreign nature of its apocalyptic imagery. It is a book that has prompted endless discussions about the «end times» with theological divisions forming around epicenters such as the rapture and the millennium. In this book, award winning author Gordon Fee attempts to excavate the layers of symbolic imagery and provide an exposition of Revelation that is clear, easy to follow, convincing, and engaging. Fee shows us how John's message confronts the world with the Revelation of Jesus Christ so that Christians might see themselves as caught up in the drama of God's triumph over sin, evil, and death. Fee draws us into the world of John and invites us to see the world through John's eyes as the morbid realities of this world have the joyous realities of heaven cast over them. In this latest installment in the New Covenant Commentary Series we see one of North America's best evangelical exegetes at his very best.

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The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is constantly in the news, but what about the people who live through it? Their lives are often overlooked, their stories ignored. This is especially true of Israelis and Palestinians who follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and seek to meet with each other and reconcile in the context of brotherly and sisterly love. But they do exist, and they do have a story to tell. They have chosen to seek reconciliation by participating in activities organized by Musalaha, an organization which facilitates Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, and this book, skillfully written by Jonathan McRay, is an attempt to allow their voices and their stories to be heard.
This collection of stories is an excellent introduction to some of the many issues faced by these followers of Christ on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, and chronicles the journey toward reconciliation they have chosen to take. The road to reconciliation is long and difficult, and the struggle is vividly portrayed in these narratives. Reading these stories, and the reflection pieces that follow them, leaves one with a picture of real human interaction which goes beyond the stereotypes and caricatures, and offers an authentic glimpse at the lives of Israeli and Palestinian believers, the lives they live, they challenges they face, their fears and their hopes. The stories told in this book are at times difficult to read, as they indicate how much distance still needs to be covered. But they also inspire hope; the brave example of those few who are working toward reconciliation proves that coexistence is possible, and can serve as a model for the future.

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"Marriage is intimate. Marriage is hard": sober thoughts for a time when movies and television tell us that love is supposed to be romantic and fun.
In this eclectic blend of playful and earnest storytelling, social commentary, and fierce argument, Kurt Armstrong offers an up-close look at real-life marriage and the countless ways it differs from what the advertisers tell us it should be. With wisdom, wit, and profound honesty, he explores the aching beauty of love, the ongoing struggle to maintain vows, and the reality of death as the finishing line of covenant. «Even if love one day fills my heart full of grief,» says Armstrong, «it is still the only thing worth living for.»
This moving, honest, heartfelt look at real-life marriage will strike a chord with single men and women, young couples, and seasoned veterans of married life.

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Cairns have decorated the landscapes of cultures throughout time. Piles of stone-one stone placed on top of another-are set in place all over the earth to recall battles, identify burial sites, mark trails, and spur hearts and minds to remember sacred, noble, and critical events. They are landmarks. They are sacramental presences in space and time. Our lives are littered with markers of meaning. They all reveal who we are, where we have been, and offer us a jumping off point for the future. In the true mystic tradition, everything straddles meaning and is potentially available to reveal the inner life, God Himself, and all that Is. My hope is that we will begin to look at the markers of meaning in our lives and notice how we store that meaning in our heart. My hope is that we will reconstruct our prayer life and the shape of our interior world, that we will recognize the impact things have on us and discriminate toward health. Our journey in this book will be more like an amble or a wandering. We will hop from pillar to post looking for meaning and attempting to infuse things with meaning. We will look at our practices and the practices of those from our shared human past. We will begin to notice that there is a hidden depth to how we live-one that reveals we live in layers or dimensions, not simple and flat lines.

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