Renewal

Want to read a truly different book on religion and spirituality? This is it. ?Where Two or More are Gathered? is really two books in one. The first half is autobiographical, a real page turner. I can?t wait for the movie! Any reader would enjoy this part. The second half is a rich examination of mainly the Christian church, why it works and why it doesn?t. The author goes on to map the progression of church evolution leading to her idea of a New Church. If you?re a spiritual seeker, especially one searching for a church that fits your needs, this book is a helpful read. You may gain a better understanding of why your church doesn?t work for you and what to do about it. Her frank, no holes barred approach is refreshing compared to a dry, scholarly study of Christianity. Harold does a fine job of expressing her idea of what Jesus meant for his followers to do. I wish every religious leader would read this book.

First Mathew Fox, now Ellie Harold. What a beautiful book Ellie Harold has written. From her deep truth and experience as a minister and a woman with a gutsy pioneering spirit, Ellie gives us a map on how to grow up spiritually. We don't have to be alone or to continue the religion we find stifles our creativity and life force. "Where Two or More Are Gathered" is a fascinating challenge to all of us who are looking for a better way to be with ourselves and with God. Whether you are a minister, a congragant, a scholar, or are searching for a new way to live, this book is exciting and satisfying reading. I appreciate the authors revealing of her own life, struggles, and victories. She rightly does not give us the answers, she asks the questions that get us to think and feel and to breathe more deeply. Ellie Harold also uses her congragants to speak in their own voices, telling their experience in doing their work and finding their truest and best way to evolve as human beings on a spiritual journey.

As the author, I found it to be a blessing not only to write this book but also to share it with others. And I continue to read it, as if it were written by another since the Jewish wisdom that it contains continues to inspire me.

This book really does show you an immense range of practical ways in which you can help a needy world, and make the love of God apparent amid the people of this planet. It shows you how to build bridges with youths, the poor, the oppressed, the prisoners, and how to look after the environment in a way that influences others to do the same, and which gives testimony to the place that God has in your life and lifestyle. It is an excellent reference book of ideas for youth leaders who can get their young people into praxis - living and doing the Christian life, experiencing the difference God can make to life through their actions. Read it, use it, live it.

Before Organic farming and gardening, a product of the 1960's revival of awareness of the importance of healthy food and environmental awareness there were already healthy roots in Western Mysticism. (Read also Blavatsky, Besant and Leadbeater) In 1926 Rudolph Steiner delivered a series of lectures to a loyal group of Anthroposophists in Koberwitz, Austria. Reading the text of the lectures is a rare, deep draught of the river of arcane knowledge. In order to absorb it, you must float yourself in it and sink down into it, perhaps to drown. This is not a how-to book. There are some very successful applications of the principles and processes described in the lectures in Australia and North America, which includes the Biodynamic Association in Kimberton, Pennsylvania. Organic gardening is only the first step in reclaiming sustainable and healthy agriculture, and the application of the principles outlined in this book may be an important next step.

Despite being quite a hefty tome, this is one of the best social theory books I've read in a long time. Lack of time prevents me from a quick discussion of the main themes of the book but if you're after a study that clearly sets out the ideas of Althusser and his followers, while critically defending them against postmodern and 'Marxist' polemics, and making the case for Althusser's continued relevance to revolutionary working class politics then this book is for you.

I got this book in the mail this afternoon, and decided to just take a glance at it. Grabbing this book was like grabbing lightning. I could just not let go. I was charged by it. I was changed by it. This book is a powerful cry by Leonard Ravenhill for a life of holiness, a demonstration of the power of God, and faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I made the "mistake" of reading this book on the eve of taking three finals tomorrow at Bible school. I used time I could have devoted to studying for these tests to read this book instead. I do not regret it for one second.

The Archetype Of Renewal: Psychological Reflections On The Aging, Death And Rebirth Of The King by D. Stephenson Bond, (Faculty Member, C.G. Jung Institute, Boston, Massachusetts) is a learned treatise on the eternal theme of "the King is dead, long live the King", and all that such transitions metaphorically symbolize, including exorcizing old processes and systems of understanding for new views and perspectives that are more accurate and effective. From ceremonial renewals of the King practiced in ancient Babylon, to the ever-changing challenges of the modern day, The Archetype Of Renewal embraces both Jungian psychology and the evolving human spirit. The Archetype Of Renewal is a welcome and very highly recommended addition to Jungian Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

"Renew Your wonders in this day, as by a new Pentecost." was the prayer of Pope John XXIII one year prior to the start of Vatican II. Many people believe this prayer, and the Holy Spirit's response, were the beginnings of charismatic renewal in the Catholic Church.

"On Friday, February 17, 1967, approximately twenty- five (Duquesne University) students left for retreat along with the campus chaplain, a Holy Ghost priest, the two facultymoderators, and one of their wives."

Their destination was the Ark and Dove, fifteen miles north of Pittsburgh. Photos show a large but simple three-story frame building and smaller cottage placed in a snowy setting - peaceful and serene in contrast to the life-changing power displayed inside during the weekend.

Two days later, following a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church was set on a course that few perhaps could have imagined. For example, the author describes the reaction when she spoke to a charismatic prayer group of teenagers in New Orleans in 1991.

"My teenaged friends seemed surprised to learn that prior to 1967, spiritual gifts such as prayer in tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing and prophecy were unheard of in the average Catholic parish. Now, just twenty-five years later, there are few places that have not at least heard of this work of the Holy Spirit."

Furthermore, it is estimated that there are now well over seventy-five million Catholic charismatics.

As By A New Pentecost describes the events leading up to this remarkable retreat and then proceeds to tell, through the personal witness of twelve men and women who were there, a compelling drama of spiritual hunger, surrender, and empowerment.

This book is distinguished by the ability of the contributors to vividly recall the events of that weekend and the remarkable story they have to tell - a story in which God's power and grace are abundantly evident. And yet a story that is all too human, for not everyone who was there was transformed.

Most of the participants tell of an experience similar to that of the author.

"As we knelt [in the chapel], a number of things were happening. Some people were weeping. Later they said that they felt God's love for them so intensely, they couldn't do anything but weep. Others began to giggle and laugh for sheer joy. Some people, like myself, felt a tremendous burning going through their hands or arms like fire. Others felt a clicking in their throats or a tingling in their tongues. We didn't know anything explicitly about charismatic gifts. I suppose we could have spoken in tongues right away if we had understood how to yield to this gift."

For others the weekend served more as an affirmation.

"I was moved deeply by the experience I had when I returned to the chapel that night. But for me it wasn't a totally new experience of the Lord. Rather, it was a re-affirmation of my relationship with Jesus which began in the sixth grade. It was a quiet and deep re-dedication of my life to God, not a first time encounter as it was for some of the other students....What I saw in the others who were praying in the chapel that night was a very deep devotion and reverence for God. When people become aware of the Lord's presence, it shows in their faces. You can see they are experiencing Him. Something important was happening for everybody. I knew it was a significant event."

Yet others were affected in a completely different way.

"Someone asked me recently if I would say that the Duquesne Weekend had no impact on my spiritual life since I did not become active in the Charismatic Renewal afterwards. I would have to say that the Duquesne Weekend was a landmark for me, because up until that time I had always seen myself as being very committed to my beliefs. After the Weekend, I felt as though my faith commitment was limited, because I wasn't willing to take that further step like [the] other[s]...."

As one reads this account of the movement of the Holy Spirit, it is important to remember that the people who participated in the retreat were intelligent college students from traditional Catholic backgrounds who had no idea of what speaking in tongues was all about. And that's what makes their stories so powerful - God did a new thing, a quite unexpected thing.

In the words of another participant.

"When I got to the chapel, about 8:00 p.m., there were already many others praying. I knelt there with them thinking, 'I don't understand all of this, but whatever You have for me, Lord, I want it. I believe, Lord, help my unbelief.' After a while, we were holding hands as we knelt around the altar. Paul Gray was on one side of me. Suddenly it felt like an electric current was flowing from his hand into mine and surging through my whole body. I was crying again in sheer joy as I realized for the first time in my life the overpowering reality of God. Somehow I found myself prostrate before the altar, with only one joyful thought in my mind, 'Praise, God! Praise, God! Praise, God!' I had no sense of time or of other people around me. I was enraptured in the presence of God.

A well-written account of a modern-day Pentecost.

1. This book is written to foster the aliveness and responsibleness of the local church, and through it I want to celebrate the possibilities of the local church as a living sacrament of the gospel. (p. 3). 2. The significant sacramentality of the community's wider life is less easily overlooked when shown to be a condition of the sacramentality of bread and wine and of the Lord's presence in worship. (p. 4). 3. Whenever and wherever theology loses its moorings in actual local communities of practice and ceases to be attentive to what people are actually living, it drifts off into an intellectual void. (p. 7). 4. Can ritual in certain situations function as a kind of camouflage keeping hidden and out of sight the radical questions a ritual should contain? Can the "worship event" camouflage a radical attempt to avoid the encounter with God? (p. 9). 5. The simulated character of much contemporary life poses a special challenge able to be met by religious groups, whose sacred texts and traditions face their adherents with forceful questions about the nature of reality and the nature of falseness. (p. 43). 6. When what we say in our ritual prayer does not engage our imagination and deeper convictions, those ritual words are inert. But when these words have implications vital to us in our approach to the world, they have their proper active, even turbulent, character. (p. 46). 7. In this book, I am seeking neither the "perfect church" nor fully realized, "finished" discipleship. As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing. Discipleship is not a static reality; it exists only in its never-ending struggle for fidelity. (p. 53). 8. In the early 1960s, when I tried for several years to teach ecclesiology to skeptical teens, I found their unavoidable stumbling block to be, not the claims of the church, but the lack of coherence between those claims and actual concrete life practice of the local parish. The way did not square with the say. (p. 55). 9. When practices, for example, those of consumerist greed, are ignored, they tend to generate their own false theory of Christian living, a theory that supposed gospel fidelity to be unconnected to the use of money. (p. 57). 10. How does it happen that adults who can master the speech necessary for dealing competently with the fairly complex matters of nutrition, household and person finance, child rearing, basic health, cuisine, and so forth--and can give intelligible accounts of these areas to their children--come to be unable to speak of their faith to their own children? (p. 76).

This book was vary helpful in a project I was working related whith town devastation and it rebuilt. I liked the way the authors presents the history of Beirut, how the city was developed and destroyed and how was the process of it reconstruction. The book is full illustrated with the correct amount of colorfull pictures and project drawings of the highest quality. Excuse my english, but it isn't my language.