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Reports of dreams, journeys into the heavens, and other alternate states of consciousness abound in the Old and New Testaments and in extrabiblical literature. While some scholars have considered such reports to be simple literary devices, John J. Pilch a leading expert in social scientific interpretation of the Bible believes otherwise. As Pilch points out, anthropological research on over 400 representative cultures in the world shows that more than ninety percent of these cultures have reported such experiences routinely. Factual or not, he says, biblical accounts of alternate consciousness are both plausible and significant because they constitute a very common, real, human experience in their respective cultures. Drawing on insights from from anthropology, cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and the social sciences, Pilch investigates and interprets Old and New Testament accounts of dreams, visions, journeys into the heavens, and other alternate states of consciousness within their cultural contexts. The result is a fresh and intriguing take on familiar biblical events. Flights of the Soul sheds new light on such things as these: * Ezekiel s prophetic visions * Enoch s sky journeys * Jesus transfiguration and ascension * Resurrection appearances in the Gospels * Paul s ecstatic vision on the road to Damascus * John s heavenly journeys described in Revelation
A Holocaust memoir about surviving the notorious Dachau concentration camp. For everyone because these stories need to be remembered.
Metaphysical poetry
Winner of the 2020 Paraclete Poetry Prize, Litany of Flights is a luminous examination of the journey of the soul, from moments of loss to moments of incandescent transformation. These poems remind us to behold the extraordinary in the ordinary, and that the secret workings of the divine occur even through the difficult: "the painful paring of your hollow bones has made you light." Drawing on the beauty of the natural world, the devastating effects of drought and wildfires, tender moments of daily experience, and lessons of the saints, the poet creates a landscape of light and darkness, with unexpected turns into divine presence and absence. Through a spiral of red-tailed hawks, the nest of a mourning dove, the parting of waters, and the ripeness of a persimmon, this shimmering collection invites the reader to singular and transfiguring flight. Litany of Flights (from the forthcoming collection) First, the winged movement, steady, forward. Scrub jays in flitting progress, hawks in predator glide, a ringing up, a knife-sharp slope down. Second, the effortless type, wind-splayed, motionless pinions in thermal recline, as the Psalmist says, blessings breeze his love even in sleep. Third, the hungry, against the gale, the destination singular and the sun dipping crimson. Fourth, the metallic, business or pleasure. Fifth, the whirring kind, all hummingbird. A picnic, apples and chocolate in the garden with roses, both flower and child. You miss it when it's gone. Sixth, a baffling flight of stairs, winding upward, passage and yet vehicle, spiraling to unseen landings--hope courses in the kaleidoscopic lights. Seventh, soar to the sun. Eighth, melt in bitter hubris. You know the story. Ninth, escape. A flight out of Egypt, a path through the sea cleared by divine hand. The times you ran, the times you were left behind in lament. Tenth, only rotting in the belly of a whale tames your stubborn turn from Nineveh. Eleventh, flights of despair and of yearning, two sides of one letting go, hard-earned release back into the wild, unbound by expectation, featherlike. Twelfth, in a moment, caught up high by the Beloved, the one making all things work together, wings, body, arch, air--caught up, like the Shulamite bride, to regions beyond aeronautical wisdom, transported in joy. See, he says, the painful paring of your hollow bones has made you light.
My story, tells of the fear of the fifth child in a family of eleven children. As a small child; reared in a strict, church-going family, I became afraid of God. The ministers taught of hell, fire, and damnation. I thought I would actually, go to hell. I'm sure they also preached, something that was good; but good is not what my eager, young, tender heart received. I had nightmares of sliding down a dark tunnel into a burning hell. I never felt comfortable to confide in anyone about my fears. Later in life, I began to earnestly study the Bible. I searched the scriptures and found that God is a loving Father that cares for His children. His words were life not death and comfort not torment. I began to write poems of love, not fear, as I gradually came out of bondage.
The New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk explores the human relationship to the natural world in this “dazzling” essay collection (Wall Street Journal). In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.
A unique look at how classical notions of ascent and flight preoccupied early modern British writers and artists Between the late sixteenth century and early nineteenth century, the British imagination—poetic, political, intellectual, spiritual and religious—displayed a pronounced fascination with images of ascent and flight to the heavens. Celestial Aspirations explores how British literature and art during that period exploited classical representations of these soaring themes—through philosophical, scientific and poetic flights of the mind; the ascension of the disembodied soul; and the celestial glorification of the ruler. From textual reachings for the heavens in Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Donne and Cowley, to the ceiling paintings of Rubens, Verrio and Thornhill, Philip Hardie focuses on the ways that the history, ideologies and aesthetics of the postclassical world received and transformed the ideas of antiquity. In England, narratives of ascent appear on the grandest scale in Milton’s Paradise Lost, an epic built around a Christian plot of falling and rising, and one of the most intensely classicizing works of English poetry. Examining the reception of flight up to the Romanticism of Wordsworth and Tennyson, Hardie considers the Whig sublime, as well as the works of Alexander Pope and Edward Young. Throughout, he looks at motivations both public and private for aspiring to the heavens—as a reward for political and military achievement on the one hand, and as a goal of individual intellectual and spiritual exertion on the other. Celestial Aspirations offers an intriguing look at how creative minds reworked ancient visions of time and space in the early modern era.
Plunged into the icy waters of the Hudson...God spared Frederick Berretta's life in an instant -- and changed his heart forever. Frederick Berretta was an amateur pilot himself, so when U.S. Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of geese and lost both engines, minutes after takeoff from Laguardia Airport on that fateful afternoon of January 15, 2009, he knew before most of his fellow passengers that something was seriously wrong. As the roar of the jets quieted and the aircraft ceased to climb, as the pilot guided the powerless plane towards a desperate crash landing and announced, "Brace for impact," Berretta fingered the prayer book in his pocket and tried to prepare himself for death. A multitude of thoughts flooded his mind all at once. He reminded himself that the odds of surviving a water landing were slim to none. He thought of his wife and his four children, and how they would miss him. He remembered he had just been to confession and to Mass, and he wondered if his soul would be ready to meet the Lord. And he knew he had to pray. "God, please be merciful to us, for the sake of your Son," he whispered. "Please spare us. I trust in you. Jesus, I trust in you. Mother of God, please pray for us." At that very instant, Berretta felt a "push" or "nudge" on his conscience; a state of awareness he'd never before experienced; and a keen realization that he had to do something. But what? Then God's voice sounded strong and clear in the depths of his soul: Are you going to accept My will for your life? For Frederick Berretta, the events of that fateful January day were the crystallizing moment of a lifetime of conversion. This story tells how he lost his childhood faith and as a young adult embraced a selfish, worldly life, how he suffered through family turmoil and the death of a child, and how by God's grace he slowly returned to the Church, humbled and grateful. God used the "Miracle on the Hudson" to confirm him in his faith and set him on fire to share it with others. Flight of Faith is the inspiring true story of how God works in our lives in simple and extraordinary ways. Read more at the Flight of Faith website.
Enchanting images by popular fantasy artist Josephine Wall are combined with an uplifting feast for eye and soul. ''Fantasy gives me the opportunity to portray the world as I would like it to be,'' says Jo, who has a wish ''to inspire in her audience a personal journey into the magical world of their own imagination.'' This little book of beauty and inspiring wisdom will help readers—especially those with a fondness for fairies and fantasy—fly as far as their wings will take them.