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Luminous presence: Derek Jarman's life-writing is the first book to analyse the prolific writing of queer icon Derek Jarman. Although he is well known for his avant-garde filmmaking, his garden, and his AIDS activism, he is also the author of over a dozen books, many of which are autobiographical. Much of Jarman's exploration of post-war queer identity and imaginative response to HIV/AIDS can be found in his books, such as the lyrical AIDS diaries Modern Nature and Smiling in Slow Motion. This book fully explores, for the first time, the remarkable range and depth of Jarman’s writing. Spanning his career, Alexandra Parsons argues that Jarman’s self-reflexive response to the HIV/AIDS crisis was critical in changing the cultural terms of queer representation from the 1980s onwards. Luminous presence is of great interest to students, scholars and readers of queer histories in literature, art and film.
The question of meaning is central to Analytical Psychology. Human suffering results from meaning disorders both at an individual and a cultural level if we fail to find meaning through religion or philosophy. How can analytical psychology help us to find individual meaning and social purpose? An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology is a highly original critique of fundamentalism in analytical theories. It encompasses the disciplines of cognitive psychology, developmental theory, ecology, inguistics, literature, politics and religion. By achieving a sense of individual meaning, it becomes possible for us to find our own creative purposes. Dale Mathers presents basic insights of analytical psychology as a set of useful tools that can help us answer fundamental questions of meaning, illustrated with a wide range of clinical examples. This book will be useful for those working in psychoanalysis, therapy, counselling and psychiatry as well as those involved with religious exploration and with concerns for society and social change.
When pastor David Beck went to Haiti with a ministry team he found himself deeply experiencing the power of being Christ's own hands and feet. Luminous explores what it means to live out the reality of the incarnation, emphasizing the purpose, presence, power and peace Christ offers us and we in turn extend to the world.
The most vital and significant moments in life are moments of encounter. Whether we encounter ourselves, others, or God, these moments let us know that life is meaningful. And presence is what makes encounter possible. When we are truly present, everything that has being becomes potentially present to us. In this unique resource, David Benner invites us to live with more presence so we can know the presence of God more deeply in our lives. Drawing on over thirty-five years of experience integrating psychology and spirituality, Benner examines the transformational possibilities of spiritual presence and encounter in fresh, exciting, and practical ways. He helps readers understand the personal and interpersonal dimensions of presence and encounter, revealing how they mediate Divine Presence and serve as sacraments of everyday life. His rich meditations are presented in a voice that is intelligent, compassionate, and engaging. The book includes end-of-chapter reflection exercises for individual or group use and a foreword by Richard Rohr.
Luminous presence: Derek Jarman's life-writing is the first book to analyse the prolific writing of queer icon Derek Jarman. Much of Jarman's powerful, imaginative response to HIV/AIDS can be found in his remarkable books, which Alexandra Parsons argues were critical in changing the cultural terms of queer representation in the 1980s and 1990s.
A resonant call to explore the darkness in life, in nature, and in consciousness—including difficult emotions like uncertainty, grief, fear, and xenophobia—through teachings, embodied meditations, and mindful inquiry that provide us with a powerful path to healing. Darkness is deeply misunderstood in today’s world; yet it offers powerful medicine, serenity, strength, healing, and regeneration. All insight, vision, creativity, and revelation arise from darkness. It is through learning to stay present and meet the dark with curiosity rather than judgment that we connect to an unwavering light within. Welcoming darkness with curiosity, rather than fear or judgment, enables us to access our innate capacity for compassion and collective healing. Dharma teacher, shamanic practitioner, and deep ecologist Deborah Eden Tull addresses the spiritual, ecological, psychological, and interpersonal ramifications of our bias towards light. Tull explores the medicine of darkness for personal and collective healing, through topics such as: Befriending the Night: The Radiant Teachings of Darkness Honoring Our Pain for Our World Seeing in the Dark: The Quiet Power of Receptivity Dreams, Possibility, and Moral Imagination Releasing Fear—Embracing Emergence Tull shows us how the labeling of darkness as “negative” becomes a collective excuse to justify avoiding everything that makes us uncomfortable: racism, spiritual bypass, environmental destruction. We can only find the radical path to wholeness by learning to embrace the interplay of both darkness and light.
James Greenaway offers a philosophical guide to understanding, affirming, and valuing the significance of belonging across personal, political, and historical dimensions of existence. A sense of belonging is one of the most meaningful experiences of anyone’s life. Inversely, the discovery that one does not belong can be one of the most upsetting experiences. In A Philosophy of Belonging, Greenaway treats the notion of belonging as an intrinsically philosophical one. After all, belonging raises intense questions of personal self-understanding, identity, mortality, and longing; it confronts interpersonal, sociopolitical, and historical problems; and it probes our relationship with both the knowable world and transcendent mystery. Experiences of alienation, exclusion, and despair become conspicuous only because we are already moved by a primordial desire to belong. Greenaway presents a hermeneutical framework that brings the intelligibility of belonging into focus and discusses the works of various representative thinkers in light of this hermeneutic. The study is divided into two main parts, “Presence” and “Communion.” In the first, Greenaway considers the abiding presence of the cosmos as the context of personhood and the world, followed by the presence of persons to themselves and others by way of consciousness and embodiment, culminating in a discussion of the unrestricted horizon of meaning that love makes present in persons. In the second part, belonging in community is explored as a crucial type of communion that is both politically and historically structured. Moreover, communion has direction and a quality of sacredness that offers itself for consideration. Greenaway concludes with a discussion of the consequences of refusing presence and communion, and what is involved in the repudiation of belonging.
This systematic introduction to Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms demonstrates how his approach transforms the project of modernity in accord with the limitations of the modern conception of rationality. At the same time, this book functions as an introduction to Cassirer's thought.
There is perhaps no greater constant in religious intuition and experience than the presence of light. In spiritual traditions East and West, light is not only ubiquitous but something that assumes strikingly similar forms in altogether different historical and cultural settings. This study examines light as an aspect of religiously valued experiences and its entailments for mystical theology, philosophy, politics, and religious art. The essays in this volume make an important contribution to religious studies by proposing that it is misleading to conceive of religious experience in terms of an irreconcilable dichotomy between universality and cultural construction. An esteemed group of contributors, representing the study of Asian and Western religious traditions from a range of disciplinary perspectives, suggests that attention to various forms of divine radiance shows that there is indeed a range of principles that, if not universal, are nevertheless very widely occurring and amenable to fruitful comparative inquiry. What results is a work of enormous scope, demonstrating compelling cross-connections that will be of value to scholars of comparative religions, mysticism, and the relationship between art and the sacred. Contributors: * Catherine B. Asher * Raoul Birnbaum * Sarah Iles Johnston * Matthew T. Kapstein * Andrew Louth * Paul E. Muller-Ortega * Elliot R. Wolfson * Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan * Hossein Ziai
The biblical story of the Prodigal Son is one of redemption, forgiveness, and compassion. In it, a young man leaves home and squanders his inheritance on sinful desires. He later returns-embarrassed and penniless-expecting to be thrown out by a hostile patriarch. Instead, his father is happy to find his son safe and longing to return. He welcomes him back with open arms and prepares a feast in celebration. Although the biblical tale is poignant in view of a son's relationship to his father, the journey is much more than a picture window into humanity. At its deepest, the story of the Prodigal Son is a metaphor for the story of man's relationship with a welcoming God-or higher power-that longs to reach out and embrace humankind. But first, humankind must realize its own limitations. Author Gary Layman, upon hitting his own emotional wall, cried out to the skies for inspiration. He found it, and he shares it in I Am Light: The Journey on the Prodigal Path. Seemingly ordinary events of our daily lives can lead to transcendent awareness. Through channeled writings, poetry, and bits of autobiography, Layman illuminates the way back to a higher power. Our return home will not lead to punishment but instead, personal liberation.