Love Is Deeper Than Distance

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Poems of love, death, a little sex, ALS, dementia, and the widow’s life thereafter

Our love songs have no shadows. We dare not acknowledge the deep love that can coexist with loss. But in this timely and timeless collection, Peg Edera offers what we didn’t know we needed: a proposal in the dark, a squad car filled with lilacs, tears saved for the right time, toast and honey.

The world of illness and dying is demanding and complex. Peg documents the love of her life, her husband Fred: his diagnosis with frontal temporal lobe dementia and ALS, the loneliness of missing him before he was gone, worry for their daughter, and grieving in all its dimensions and untimeliness. Fred died at home, shortly after he turned sixty-seven.

In writing, Peg uncovered tender truths, unlikely humor, the faithful awareness of deep-hearted love in an unpredictable world. And hope for the future.


Love these poems for their magical discovery of love’s perennial voltage despite lost life. By wild honesty, here the good goes on in new forms. Our culture is filled with love songs, and equally filled with silence about loss. What’s often missing in both realms is present in these poems—detailed reporting on the enigmas of true connection: a proposal in the dark . . . a squad car filled with lilacs . . . tears saved for the right time . . . toast and honey . . . all we can do with the impossible . . . and the Temple of What Is Next. Peg Edera’s poems offer the tough tenderness it takes to live through hard times.
Kim Stafford, author of Wild Honey, Tough Salt

Tender, self-questioning, attentive, profound, heart opening, genuine. These poems touch on human universal issues in profound ways. They give us courage, demand belief, teach us about grief, life, love and the way forward.
Esther Elizabeth, author of When I Die Tell Them This: A collection of poems about where I stand

At the living core of this work is an openness to love, active & passionate, difficult to sustain yet worth the travail. In the midst of what could easily be called the daily nightmare of the dementia of her husband, Peg finds a way to remain open to Fred as a human being, open to herself, and open to life as its ragged nature and exquisite detail enfolds them both. These poems are the home-place where this openness—enhanced by Peg’s poetic gifts—finds a nuanced medium that proves to be at once harrowingly honest and generative ground. Ultimately, these poems are a place where one can begin to trust that beyond hope, there is a redemptive glance.
John Fox, author of Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making

Peg meets her life with poetry. In this truth-filled, heartbreaking, sometimes very funny collection, we are gifted with a poet’s wisdom and a wise woman’s knowing words.
Judith Tripp, psychotherapist, author, and leader of the Women’s Dream Quest

 

Available from Fernwood Press: http://www.fernwoodpress.com/2018/11/20/love-is-deeper-than-distance/

Available from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/Love-Is-Deeper-Than-Distance.html

Malone University: A Commemorative History, 1892-2017

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A tiny institution that drew a mere handful of students on its first day may have seemed too inauspicious to garner local media attention. Indeed, the unpretentious training school opened with little fanfare. And yet, a century and a quarter later, the school endures—in a new location, with a new name, and with an expanded mission.

This story begins with J. Walter and Emma Brown Malone amid the rise of industrial cities, the emergence of urban Bible institutes, among a small denomination of Christians known as Friends.

This commemorative book charts the journey of Malone University from its beginnings in a small rented house, through moves to two campus locations in Cleveland and finally, to its current home in Canton, Ohio. It traces Malone’s history from the six adventurous souls who first enrolled on that brisk March day in 1892 to the two thousand who presently attend Malone University.

Available from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/Malone-University.html

Available at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Malone-University-Commemorative-History-1892-2017/dp/1594980489/ref=sr_1_1

A Mess of Relatives

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Did you know that a group of boys is called a noise? Or that a group of girls is called a giggle? It makes perfect sense that a group of family members is called a mess! This collective noun book celebrates the anticipation of your birthday and the uniqueness of your family. Celebrate your next birthday with a Mess of Relatives!

A Mess of Relatives is designed to support early literacy skills development and a life-long love of reading. The front cover is more illustrated than the back, so it is obvious how to hold the book. Left to right movement of both text and illustrations reinforce directionality. Wonky text placement on page twenty-five supports one-to-one correspondence and develops print awareness. Engaging illustrations support the text while encouraging the reader to turn the page. The text and illustrations flip on pages sixteen to nineteen, encouraging interaction with the reader and further develop print awareness. A simple font with good spacing models the strokes we teach in school—no fancy a or g. Strong patterned text pulls the reader through the story. Word choices develop rich vocabulary skills. The story line opens opportunities to discuss and accept the messy nature of families. Readers are encouraged to read it again and again and again!

Available from Springbrook Books: http://www.springbrookbooks.com/2018/11/20/a-mess-of-relatives/

Available from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/A-Mess-of-Relatives.html

The Shalom of God

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The world hungers for peace. People are starved for peace. No doubt this points to a universal, timeless hope, but now it seems acute. We see peace rallies and vigils, blogs, workshops, internet activism, relief work in war-torn areas, mediators working with families and nations, and ordinary folks everywhere trying to reduce the effects of racism, discrimination, and economic injustice. What Howard R. Macy offers here is an exploration of important biblical ideas about peace. They center on the Hebrew word and concept of shalom. That vision of shalom can deepen our thinking and shape our living for peace because the Bible speaks to our despair. It gives us some goals for peace and a basis to hope that peace will be achieved. The hope we see in the Bible does not come from the idea that humans are terrific. Instead, peace will come because God is good, trustworthy, and free and faithful to act.

Available as a booklet from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/The-Shalom-of-God.html

Available as an ebook for Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Shalom-God-Howard-Macy-ebook/dp/B07B3LZL9D/ref=sr_1_1

Presence and Process

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The North American Christian church of the early twenty-first century finds itself in a period of decline. A growing percentage of young adults are not entering the front doors of churches while at the same time older and previously dedicated Christians are leaving. Coinciding with the deflation of the Western church is the explosion in popular culture of the mindfulness movement, which emphasizes meditation practices derived from Buddhism. These concurrent phenomena—the decline of Christendom in North America and the rise of a Westernized form of Buddhism and various secularized applications of Buddhist meditative practice—form an interesting juxtaposition that warrants exploration.

In Presence and Process, Daniel Coleman has created a unique and useful synthesis—showing how a convergence of perennialism, process theology, and mysticism (Christian, Buddhist, and Quaker) could have a profound role in fostering spiritual formation in this postmodern, post-Christendom age. This is a pioneering work of practical theology.
Richard Rohr
author of Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

After three decades in Quaker ministry, I’ve noticed how religious traditions I once believed to be separate pursuits now merge as one. Truth, as it turns out, is happy to share the road with others. Daniel Coleman’s helpful book, Presence and Process, marries Christianity and Buddhism for contemporary seekers. Both traditions are honored, both enriched, and both made better by Coleman’s thoughtful union.
Philip Gulley
author of Living the Quaker Way: Discover the Hidden Happiness in the Simple Life

In our time when people are leaving church but are as spiritual as ever, inclusive and incisive resources such as Presence and Process are deeply needed. As interest grows in mystical traditions, bridges of recognition are built in surprising places. This wise, well-researched book creatively weaves Buddhism, mystical Christianity, Quakerism, and process theology. It is just this type of sensitive boundary-crossing that will help lay groundwork for the meaning-seekers of the future.
Mark Longhurst
editor of Ordinary Mystic

Presence and Process is an amazing book. It provides the best, most compact introduction I’ve come across to key concepts like mysticism, contemplation, and process theology. It explores the productive ferment that is taking place at the intersection of Christianity and Buddhism. And it invites practitioners to imagine a new kind of church for the journey before us. I highly recommend Presence and Process.
Brian D. McLaren
author of The Great Spiritual Migration

Daniel Coleman’s book points the way to a global spirituality, joining East and West, and theology and philosophy. Intellectually solid and spiritually insightful, Coleman’s text captures the heart of the Buddhist and Christian mystical traditions in ways that respond to the needs of spiritual seekers of our time. Presence and Process is an excellent invitation to the growing global mysticism of our time in which spiritual pilgrims creatively integrate practices from diverse religious traditions and in so doing not only experience spiritual insight but transform these traditions themselves. In a time when religious institutions are struggling to survive, Coleman provides a pathway to institutional and spiritual transformation through lively global and earth-affirming spirituality.
Bruce Epperly
author of Becoming Fire: Spiritual Practices for Global Christians
and The Gospel According to Winnie the Pooh

While some long for fruitful dialogue between Christianity and Buddhism, Daniel is bringing in the first fruits of the harvest! In Presence and Process, you get a clear and insightful invitation to a place where the boundaries we have inherited between the East and West, contemplation and justice, and theory and practice are dissolved. I loved so much of this book, but can’t wait for church leaders to take the ecclesiological vision to heart.
Tripp Fuller
host of Homebrewed Christianity

Coleman works from a fertile field of thinkers in order to unpack—as much as such a thing is possible—the experiential core of Christian and Buddhist practices. His account of contemplation is a much-needed corrective to the empty moralism afflicting many religious communities. The resulting synthesis of Vipassana and apophasis has as much to offer the lay practitioner as the professional theologian.
J. R. Hustwit
author of Interreligious Hermeneutics and the Pursuit of Truth

If Karl Rahner predicted that the survival of Christianity will depend on Christians becoming mystics, Daniel Coleman shows why that is the case and how Rahner’s hopes might be realized. His review and comparison of Christian and Buddhist contemplative practices will speak to both those who are struggling with, as well as those who are looking beyond, organized religion. The book’s brevity belies its engaging richness.
Paul F. Knitter
author of Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian

Available from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/Presence-and-Process.html

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Presence-Process-Transformative-Inclusive-Community/dp/1594980411/ref=sr_1_1

Rhythms of Grace

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There is no greater privilege in the Christian life than to serve as a spiritual leader within the body of Christ. Unfortunately, we are in the midst of a genuine crisis in the church today. Pastors and other spiritual leaders are leaving vocational ministry faster than we can replace them. This is due primarily to the crippling effects of burnout, a pastoral pathology resulting from a lethal combination of extraordinary job-related stress and woefully inadequate self-care. Most of us know someone experiencing burnout. They might be serving in your church right now, or more than likely, they may have recently left. They may be your friends; they may be part of your own family. So what is the cure? We find clues in the life of the prophet Elijah, in his practices of physical refreshment, spiritual renewal, and vocational realignment. And as you will see, when practiced on a regular basis these renewing rituals or rhythms of grace prove to be life-saving disciplines for spiritual leaders.

Rhythms of Grace speaks to the exhaustion and burn-out that many (if not most) spiritual leaders experience sooner or later. Williams cites his own story of trying so hard and ending up exhausted, disillusioned, and isolated. Then with the Old Testament prophet Elijah as a model, enormous research on the subject, and his own pastor’s heart, he takes the role of a shepherd to the wounded. He gently leads toward rest, renewal, and ministry realignment. Whether prevention or cure is needed, this is a helpful book for any Christian who feels stressed, overworked, or severely criticized.
Charles Mylander
former superintendent of Evangelical Friends Church-Southwest, former director of Evangelical Friends Mission
co-author with Neil Anderson of Setting Your Church Free

Self-care is one of the most important—yet most neglected—aspects of a sustainable, enduring pastoral ministry. So often those who dedicate their lives shepherding others toward healing and wholeness seem unsure of how to experience that same shalom in their own lives. Dave Williams’s book is a spiritual roadmap for those who have lost their way. As a pastor of pastors, Dave communicates with a shepherd’s heart as he guides leaders back to the Good Shepherd. Biblically-grounded, theologically astute, and enormously practical—I consider this book a must for any pastor looking to sustain or regain the unforced rhythms of life-giving grace.
Derek Brown, PhD
professor of pastoral ministry, Barclay College

Rhythms of Grace is a deeply personal and practical book. With raw honesty and humble transparency, David Williams offers realistic remedies for the deadly threat of burnout. To the weary, disillusioned, and lonely, I pray that this book will encourage your soul in the profound way that it has refreshed mine.
Fil Anderson
executive director, Journey Resources
author of Running on Empty and Breaking the Rules

To be human is to live rhythmically. Many of us are living painfully out of sync. It is this eternal call to rhythm that we desperately need to cure us from our ever-present sense of desperation. With Rhythms of Grace, David Williams kindly and persuasively invites us into the life that God has offered—a life of goodness and beauty; a life of rest; a rhythmic life of depth in the whirlwind of shallowness. If your life is out of sync, look no further to find the cadence that your heart has been waiting to hear.
Curt Thompson, M.D.
founding director, Being Known
author of Anatomy of the Soul and The Soul of Shame

Available from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/Rhythms-of-Grace.html

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Rhythms-Grace-Life-Saving-Disciplines-Spiritual/dp/1594980403/ref=sr_1_1

A Quaker Behind the Dream

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Charlie Walker and the Civil Rights Movement

by Brenda Walker Beadenkopf

In this narrative biography of her Quaker father, Charles Walker, author Brenda Walker Beadenkopf tells the story of her father’s involvement with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Walker became a key trainer and writer of training materials for the civil rights movement and a steadfast supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent campaign. This book provides a unique inside view of the training and support that took place behind the headlines.

Read more about Charles Coates Walker on www.Wikipedia.com.

For more information, go to brendabeadenkopf.com, or email Brenda at brendabeaden@gmail.com.

“Mr. Charles C. Walker … has been close to developments in the struggle for racial justice ever since I first met him in Montgomery in early 1956.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Coral Castles

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A poem she wrote has been translated into multiple languages, set to music, and featured in a best-selling book on spirituality and the twelve steps. But until recently, the author of “Breathing Underwater” has been virtually unknown, and the collection containing that famous poem has never been published. Richard Rohr calls it “stunning”; other writers and poets describe Carol Bialock’s debut collection as “brilliant and luminous”; “lighthearted and holy”; “dynamic, immediate, ecstatic”; “a book of love and God … bursting into bloom.”

Honestly, the poetry of Carol Bialock is stunning! Her ability to communicate inner states, universal truths, and spiritual depth is unparalleled. What a loss that the world did not discover her earlier! But it is not too late!

Richard Rohr, OFM, Founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation

Reading Carol Bialock’s poems, I forget to doubt and critique and meddle and complain. Here is a spiritual poetry that offers the reader vivid, dynamic, immediate, ecstatic experience on a human scale. “Dizzy with love and light,” this book is a delight.

Katie Peterson, author of A Piece of Good News

Carol Bialock’s work hums in wise praise of a world hemmed in mystery and wildness. Brilliant and luminous, each poem burns with a quiet, interior light.

Gina Ochsner, author of The Hidden Letters of Velta B.

“All you need is a little courage” Carol Bialock declares, and then takes us through image and rhythm on a “trip to the edge of the world” where we encounter sacred mysteries, the heart of the poet, and our own surprising wholeness. This work is lighthearted and holy, whimsical and profound – the fruit of a life spent watching for wonder, the gift of a soul in love with the world.

Bethany Lee, author of The Breath Between

Carol Bialock’s heart is a “huge and lovely land” filled with poems of invitation to the available communion in every moment. They affirm that God is irresistibly, mysteriously afoot. Sister Carol is not afraid of paradox or the embodied wild experience of the greatest, fierce and Sacred Adventure. She asks us to “let the true Gods out” and to know “we have been in heaven all our lives.” She is a loving companion whispering to us look, listen, touch, right here now, do you love this world? All you need is a little courage, a dash of daring.

Take the invitation, read these poems, walk this mystic’s path, join this wise woman awhile.

Peg Edera, author of Love Is Deeper than Distance

Carol Bialock’s Coral Castles is a wide and generous door into poetry and joy. These poems offer us a merging of forces that are tangible and full of delight: here we find bone meeting soul, I journeying to We, and the seen fearlessly greeting the unseen. “Go sane,” the poems tell us, “You are the whole, not part…Come home to being world / and galaxy / and universe.” This is a book of love and God in which poet and poem also fuse, bursting into bloom. I want to give it to everyone I know, saying, “Look and see!”

Annie Lighthart, author of Iron String and Lantern

 

Available from Fernwood Press: http://www.fernwoodpress.com/2019/06/19/coral-castles/

Available from Barclay Press: http://www.barclaypressbookstore.com/Coral-Castles/

Sweetness of Unity

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Sweetness of Unity: Three Hundred Years of Quaker Minuting. Judith Roads, 2019.

ISBN/Price: 978-1-5272-4085-8 (Paperback) £5.00 / €6.00. 64 pages.

This book is speaking mainly to those with some experience of Quakerism and those who understand something already about Quaker processes. Others interested in language or historical aspects of business Engish may also find snippets of new learning.

Judith Roads has dug deap into the fascinating world of Quaker minute-producing in past generations, and introduces us to the processes, topics and language used by Friends across the ages. These communities left us a rich legacy of manuscript material that for the first time has been brought into general view.

Prof. Rachel Muers (University of Leeds) writes: If you’ve ever looked at the minutes of a Quaker decision-making meeting and wondered “why is it said like that?” or “why are these different from the minutes of other meetings?”, you need to read this book. Judith Roads brings together her fascination with Quaker decision-making processes and her expertise in the close study of language to uncover the stories that minutes tell us about the history of Quaker communities.

Available from the Quaker Bookshop, Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE. UK. https://bookshop.quaker.org.uk

or from Judith Roads (£6.40 incl. p&p within the UK) at:

roads4@me.com

Hester and Sophie

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HESTER AND SOPHIE    

a novel by John Lampen

Thirteen-year-old Hester and Sophie were best friends, but Sophie has now gone. A troubling dream and an inexplicable message start Hester on a journey of discovery—the journey from grief into new hope, and from childhood into adolescence. 

What readers of this book have said about it:

In John Lampen’s sensitive, unsentimental story, we get to know Hester, a lively and thoughtful young woman finding her way through the ordinary complications of life, school, family… and the shock of losing her best friend. There is no easy comfort on offer, but a realistic road map to the stages of loss, as she discovers the specialness not just of Sophie, and of other people round them, but also her own. The comfort when it comes lies at the edge of, just beyond the grasp of, words. .

—Philip Gross Poet and author of Turn to Stone and The Lastling

I really enjoyed reading this and I thought that it was very good. I wanted to go on reading from when it mentions Sophie communicating with Hester through her diary. I liked the fact that Hester was a similar age to me because it made it easier to relate to her and become more engaged in the book. I also liked it that she allowed herself to be motivated by God. I really wanted to carry on reading right to the very end. One of my favourite scenes was when the writing first appeared in the diary because it made me curious and got me more into the book.

—Stephanie Age 13

With illustrations by Rosie Ryder

Publisher: Independent Publishing Network https://bookisbn.org.uk/ In association with The Hope Project.

Price £7.50 or US$10 plus postage;   available from The Quaker Centre,
173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ or
 www.hopeproject.co.uk

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