The Seeker and the Monk

The Seeker and the Monk
Author: Scott Sophfronia
Publisher: Broadleaf Books
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2021-03-16
Genre:
ISBN: 1506464963

What if we truly belong to each other? What if we are all walking around shining like the sun? Mystic, monk, and activist Thomas Merton asked those questions in the twentieth century. Writer Sophfronia Scott is asking them today. In The Seeker and the Monk, Scott mines the extensive private journals of one of the most influential contemplative thinkers of the past for guidance on how to live in these fraught times. As a Black woman who is not Catholic, Scott both learns from and pushes back against Merton, holding spirited, and intimate conversations on race, ambition, faith, activism, nature, prayer, friendship, and love. She asks: What is the connection between contemplation and action? Is there ever such a thing as a wrong answer to a spiritual question? How do we care about the brutality in the world while not becoming overwhelmed by it? By engaging in this lively discourse, readers will gain a steady sense of how to dwell more deeply within--and even to love--this despairing and radiant world.

The Invention of Wings

The Invention of Wings
Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2014-01-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698175247

The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. Writing at the height of her narrative and imaginative gifts, Sue Monk Kidd presents a masterpiece of hope, daring, the quest for freedom, and the desire to have a voice in the world. Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. Kidd’s sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This exquisitely written novel is a triumph of storytelling that looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. Please note there is another digital edition available without Oprah’s notes. Go to Oprah.com/bookclub for more OBC 2.0 content

Spirit Seeker

Spirit Seeker
Author: Gary Golio
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 51
Release: 2012
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0547239947

Describes the spiritual journey jazz musician John Coltrane took in his life and the way that it is reflected in his music.

The Book of Longings

The Book of Longings
Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2020-04-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0698408195

“An extraordinary novel . . . a triumph of insight and storytelling.” —Associated Press “A true masterpiece.” —Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed An extraordinary story set in the first century about a woman who finds her voice and her destiny, from the celebrated number one New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Invention of Wings In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything. Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana's pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome's occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history. Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus's life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman's bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.

Firstlight

Firstlight
Author: Sue Monk Kidd
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2007-09-25
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 0143112325

From the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and the new novel The Book of Longings comes a thoughtful, revelatory book of writings on self and spirit Before she won an international readership with her novels, Sue Monk Kidd was best known for her smart, passionate spiritual writings. Now many of those early stories and essays (most of which first appeared in Guideposts) are collected in one volume, organized around thirteen spiritual motifs. In Firstlight, Kidd charts her emergence as a writer and seeker; reflects on her roles as wife, mother, daughter, nurse, and artist; and assesses what she has learned in settings as far-flung as Africa and her own home. The result is an intimate, uplifting book, filled with moments of recognition and discovery.

Lessons from the Monk I Married

Lessons from the Monk I Married
Author: Katherine Jenkins
Publisher: Seal Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2012-04-03
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 158005451X

Lessons from the Monk I Married offers up ten of the most powerful lessons about life, love, and spirituality that Katherine Jenkins has gathered during her marriage to former Buddhist monk Seong Yoon Lee. A seeker in the truest sense of the word, Jenkins went to Korea on a whim, hoping to find the answers to her deepest, most pressing questions about how to find peace and her purpose in life. During her first months there, she sought out a remote temple, where she unknowingly crossed paths with an unassuming Buddhist monk. Months later, they met again by chance—and fell in love. Though their courtship was long, mostly secretive, and fraught with logistical and spiritual considerations, Jenkins and Lee were ultimately married in Korea in 2003. Through their relationship, Jenkins discovered the most important lesson of all: No one holds the keys to peace and happiness—you have walk your own path and find your own wisdom through your own experiences. More than the improbable story of a girl from Seattle who found peace of mind (and love) with a Buddhist monk, Lessons from the Monk I Married is an approachable guide to the most elemental spiritual questions of our day.

The Monk's Cell

The Monk's Cell
Author: Paula Pryce
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2018
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 019068058X

Based on nearly four years of research among semi-cloistered Christian monastics and a dispersed network of non-monastic Christian contemplatives around the United States, The Monk's Cell shows how religious practitioners in both settings combined social action and intentional living with intellectual study and intensive contemplative practices in an effort to modify their ways of knowing, sensing, and experiencing the world.

The Monk Within

The Monk Within
Author: Beverly Lanzetta
Publisher:
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2018-10-03
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780984061655

The Monk Within is written for the person seeking a deeper, contemplative orientation to daily life. Yearning for inner realization of divine wisdom, this "new monk" draws on four interlocking themes: embodied spirituality; the mystical path of the feminine; the archetype of the monk; and the interdependence of the world's wisdom traditions.

This Child of Faith

This Child of Faith
Author: Sophfronia Scott
Publisher: Paraclete Press
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2017-12-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1640600736

Tain Gregory was present in his third grade classroom on the morning of December 14, 2012, the date of the Sandy Hook shootings. As part of the healing process for the community after the tragedy Tain was asked "What's the most important thing in the world to you?" His mother expected an answer about a video game or Pokemon trading card. Tain thought for a moment then answered with one word. "God." Until that moment, Tain's mother had no idea how close to the surface Tain's faith existed for him. This is a fascinating look at the journey of two souls, both Tain's and his mother's, that began with Tain enrolling in Sunday School and led to a strong life of faith for both of them. In This Child of Faith, Sophfronia and Tain share stories, experience and ideas to help parents get to the heart of a question that becomes more perturbing as our world grows ever more complicated: How do you help a child have faith—real faith, something he or she owns and not a regurgitation of something they've heard? How do you create a life space where they can learn to understand what they believe? Tain's stories include early encounters with death and, of course, the shootings at Sandy Hook where he was present in his third grade classroom on the morning of December 14, 2012. Tain is now entering an age where his peers are questioning everything and saying "everything just goes black" when you die, but because of his faith, Tain knows differently. “In this beautiful and timely memoir, mother and son share insights from a family’s spiritual awakening, a journey that led to a deep experience of God and a new way of life in the world. Not only do they offer practical advice on faith formation, but they tackle a difficult question: How does faith prepare us not only life’s joys but for its most shocking tragedies? The answer is deceptively simple: by paying attention to the Spirit and trusting one another. Read this one and weep. And discover the hope of a child.” —Diana Butler Bass, Author, Grounded: Finding God in the World, A Spiritual Revolution “When children begin to ask the big questions in life, many parents feel unprepared. What's more, their own yearning to find meaning, hope, and a deeper faith may be ignited. In this unblinkingly honest and tender work, Sophfronia Scott and her son, Tain, share their journey of faith. From her roots growing up in a large Baptist family in Ohio, to her spiritual curiosity as a Harvard undergrad, to her commitment to honor her young son’s request to attend Sunday School, Sophfronia gently models how to nurture the innate spirituality and faith of a child. In doing so, her own faith grows and deepens as well. And when the trials come, such as the deaths of several people close to her and her family, she is more prepared to help Tain understand and accept these losses. This Child of Faith doesn’t claim to know all the answers, but it serves as a moving testimony to the power of faith when a family embarks upon the journey together.” —Rev. Andrea Raynor, author of Incognito: Lost and Found at Harvard Divinity School