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If piety, faith, and conviction constitute one side of the religious coin, then imperfection, uncertainty, and ambivalence constitute the other. Yet, scholars tend to separate these two domains and place experiences of inadequacy in everyday religious life – such as a wavering commitment, religious negligence or weakness in faith – outside the domain of religion ‘proper.’ Straying from the Straight Path breaks with this tendency by examining how self-perceived failure is, in many cases, part and parcel of religious practice and experience. Responding to the need for comparative approaches in the face of the largely separated fields of the anthropology of Islam and Christianity, this volume gives full attention to moral failure as a constitutive and potentially energizing force in the religious lives of both Muslims and Christians in different parts of the world.
The inspiring story of one man's exploration of indigenous healing in a culture fighting to preserve its spiritual health. • A firsthand account of a little-known healing tradition. • A dramatic story of self-transformation by a well-respected Harvard-educated anthropologist. In the late 1970s Richard Katz, a clinical psychologist trained in anthropology, spent two years living in a remote island community in Fiji, hoping to record the practices of its healers. At the foundation of their healing, he discovered, was the concept of the straight path, a journey through life whose truth is revealed only to the extent that it is searched for with honesty and faith. It is a way of healing that in its very essence is a way of living, a path that emphasizes the spiritual dimensions of health and the relevance of these to the community. But while interviewing healers at work, Katz was drawn into an increasingly suspenseful drama. Unexplained deaths, rumors and suspicions, and the intrusion of a zealous evangelist rocked the village and soon revealed to the author the dangerous alternative to the straight path: the misuse of power that some call witchcraft. The Straight Path of the Spirit is an engrossing story of indigenous healers and a dramatic account of cultures in collision. Through the story of his own self-transformation, Katz reveals not only those aspects of life essential for the Fijians as they struggle to hold onto their identity, but also what is of importance to all of us who seek to retain our humanity.
Best known for her New York Times bestselling urban fantasy novels, Carrie Vaughn has also written dozens of short stories for Talebones, Realms of Fantasy, and many other magazines and anthologies. Collected here for the first time are ten of her favorite hard-to-classify stories covering the full range of speculative fiction - science fiction, fantasy, horror - sometimes all in the same story. Read about Emily Dickinson's dog, women pilots in WWII, future Hollywood, a haunted Europa, and more! Acclaimed author and editor Jay Lake contributes an introduction to this unique collection. Straying from the Path was published by WSFA Press in 2011, and released at WSFA's annual Capclave convention (October 14-16, 2011 in Gaithersburg Maryland) as a special 500-copy limited and signed hardcover edition. Initially this volume was only available to members of Capclave 2011, but is now available to the general public.
Literal translations of the Qur'an may often sound irrelevant and fail to correspond to the original meaning. Therefore, many scholars recommend studying the Qur'an through interpretations with commentaries that deal with the reasons for revelation (asbab an-nuzul) and notes for specific references. This book is a comprehensive source that combines interpretation and commentary with extensive notes of explanation.
“This book should be your next read! I give The Path of Life my highest recommendation.”--Lysa TerKeurst, #1 New York Times bestselling author Uncover joy on your path of life. God has a path for each of our lives--a path full of adventure, challenges, and joy. Biblical paths are not all that different from the paths we encounter in our world today. Finding God’s path is not a mystery. Throughout the Bible, God makes it clear that He will teach us, show us, speak to us, and guide us on this path. Lisa Robertson is passionate about walking alongside women to uncover the mysteries, symbolism, and truths about the path of life. Perfect for fans of Lysa TerKeurst and Priscilla Shirer -- this book blends sound, Biblical teaching with heartfelt wisdom.
The Guarded Heights is the story of George Morton as he struggles to make it big and rise from his humble background. The Straight Path narrates the story of Freddy as he struggles to accommodate the demands of his visiting but overbearing mother. Excerpt: "George Morton never could be certain when he first conceived the preposterous idea that Sylvia Planter ought to belong to him. The full realization, at any rate, came all at once, unexpectedly, destroying his dreary outlook, urging him to fantastic heights, and, for that matter, to rather curious depths. It was, altogether, a year of violent change. After a precarious survival of a rural education he had done his best to save his father's livery business which cheap automobiles had persistently undermined. He liked that, for he had spent his vacations, all his spare hours, indeed, at the stable or on the road, so that by the time the crash came he knew more of horses and rode better than any hunting, polo-playing gentleman he had ever seen about that rich countryside." (The Guarded Heights)
Ancient and medieval labyrinths embody paradox, according to Penelope Reed Doob. Their structure allows a double perspective—the baffling, fragmented prospect confronting the maze-treader within, and the comprehensive vision available to those without. Mazes simultaneously assert order and chaos, artistry and confusion, articulated clarity and bewildering complexity, perfected pattern and hesitant process. In this handsomely illustrated book, Doob reconstructs from a variety of literary and visual sources the idea of the labyrinth from the classical period through the Middle Ages. Doob first examines several complementary traditions of the maze topos, showing how ancient historical and geographical writings generate metaphors in which the labyrinth signifies admirable complexity, while poetic texts tend to suggest that the labyrinth is a sign of moral duplicity. She then describes two common models of the labyrinth and explores their formal implications: the unicursal model, with no false turnings, found almost universally in the visual arts; and the multicursal model, with blind alleys and dead ends, characteristic of literary texts. This paradigmatic clash between the labyrinths of art and of literature becomes a key to the metaphorical potential of the maze, as Doob's examination of a vast array of materials from the classical period through the Middle Ages suggests. She concludes with linked readings of four "labyrinths of words": Virgil's Aeneid, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Chaucer's House of Fame, each of which plays with and transforms received ideas of the labyrinth as well as reflecting and responding to aspects of the texts that influenced it. Doob not only provides fresh theoretical and historical perspectives on the labyrinth tradition, but also portrays a complex medieval aesthetic that helps us to approach structurally elaborate early works. Readers in such fields as Classical literature, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, comparative literature, literary theory, art history, and intellectual history will welcome this wide-ranging and illuminating book.