Author Laura Swan looks at the Rule, written fifteen centuries ago, with a critical eye, seeking to unpack parts that are problematic and uncover gems that support the yearnings of today's seekers. Readers will discover that Benedict's wisdom can shed light on their own lives.

The updated third edition of this book critically reconsiders the history of anthropological theory. Covering key concepts and theorists in a lively style, Engaging Anthropological Theory examines the historical context of anthropological ideas and the contested nature of anthropology itself. The book illustrates how anthropological ideas about human diversity are rooted in historical conditions, including the West’s relationship with colonized societies and the politics of scholarly inquiry itself. Exploring anthropological ideas in context helps students understand how they evolved and how they relate to society and history. This new edition pays close attention to non-canonical figures and scholars of color whose contributions are too often bypassed in disciplinary histories. Students and instructors will also appreciate the open-ended review questions for each chapter that stimulate critical thought and discussion. Extensively illustrated throughout, this engaging text moves away from the dry recitation of past viewpoints in anthropology and shows their continued relevance to modern life.

Large Group Interventions presents a comprehensive overview of twelve of the most powerful methods of large group interventions in use today. This comprehensive guide describes the methods' origins, explores their differences and similarities, and presents vivid examples and case studies of each intervention method in action. Bring together as many as two thousand employees and customers in one location for activities as diverse as creating future direction, restructuring the organization, solving problems, and generating new ideas. Large Group Interventions covers: **A brief history of large group interventions **The search conference **Real-time strategic change **Participative design **Large group dynamics Large Group Interventions is the first and only book to present and compare different large group intervention methods and describe the situations and conditions under which each might be used.

The Lonely Soldier--the inspiration for the documentary The Invisible War--vividly tells the stories of five women who fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2006--and of the challenges they faced while fighting a war painfully alone. More American women have fought and died in Iraq than in any war since World War Two, yet as soldiers they are still painfully alone. In Iraq, only one in ten troops is a woman, and she often serves in a unit with few other women or none at all. This isolation, along with the military's deep-seated hostility toward women, causes problems that many female soldiers find as hard to cope with as war itself: degradation, sexual persecution by their comrades, and loneliness, instead of the camaraderie that every soldier depends on for comfort and survival. As one female soldier said, "I ended up waging my own war against an enemy dressed in the same uniform as mine." In The Lonely Soldier, Benedict tells the stories of five women who fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2006. She follows them from their childhoods to their enlistments, then takes them through their training, to war and home again, all the while setting the war's events in context. We meet Jen, white and from a working-class town in the heartland, who still shakes from her wartime traumas; Abbie, who rebelled against a household of liberal Democrats by enlisting in the National Guard; Mickiela, a Mexican American who grew up with a family entangled in L.A. gangs; Terris, an African American mother from D.C. whose childhood was torn by violence; and Eli PaintedCrow, who joined the military to follow Native American tradition and to escape a life of Faulknerian hardship. Between these stories, Benedict weaves those of the forty other Iraq War veterans she interviewed, illuminating the complex issues of war and misogyny, class, race, homophobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each of these stories is unique, yet collectively they add up to a heartbreaking picture of the sacrifices women soldiers are making for this country. Benedict ends by showing how these women came to face the truth of war and by offering suggestions for how the military can improve conditions for female soldiers-including distributing women more evenly throughout units and rejecting male recruits with records of violence against women. Humanizing, urgent, and powerful, The Lonely Soldier is a clarion call for change.

The single most important document on monastic life that helped to shape Western society Composed in Italy around 530 AD but based on earlier compilations, The Rule of St Benedict has been the defining guide to daily prayer and work for Benedictine communities for fifteen centuries. The Rule also embodies the idea of a written constitution, authority limited by law and under the law, and the right of the ruled to review the legality of their superiors' actions-ideas at the heart of the West's most treasured civic institutions. This is a fundamental contribution to the tradition of simple living that continues to experience a renaissance.

A book of daily readings drawn from the writings of those who have lived the monastic life in all the major spiritual traditions of the Eastern and Western Churches: Benedictine, Franciscan, Orthodox, Carmelite, and others. For each month there is a specific theme: Starting Out, Seeking Guidance, Living With Others, Balancing Life and so on, through the year. Each theme is introduced by quotations from one of the great monastic Rules, and for each day of the year there is an excerpt from the writings of a huge variety of men and women stretching across the centuries, from 5th century Desert Mothers to Basil Hume, Joan Chittister, Thomas Merton and many more familiar and new names. This is a book for all who are looking to an ancient, rooted wisdom for practical guidance on living in the world today.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Already the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade." —David Brooks In this controversial bestseller, Rod Dreher calls on American Christians to prepare for the coming Dark Age by embracing an ancient Christian way of life. From the inside, American churches have been hollowed out by the departure of young people and by an insipid pseudo–Christianity. From the outside, they are beset by challenges to religious liberty in a rapidly secularizing culture. Keeping Hillary Clinton out of the White House may have bought a brief reprieve from the state’s assault, but it will not stop the West’s slide into decadence and dissolution. Rod Dreher argues that the way forward is actu­ally the way back—all the way to St. Benedict of Nur­sia. This sixth-century monk, horrified by the moral chaos following Rome’s fall, retreated to the forest and created a new way of life for Christians. He built enduring communities based on principles of order, hospitality, stability, and prayer. His spiritual centers of hope were strongholds of light throughout the Dark Ages, and saved not just Christianity but Western civilization. Today, a new form of barbarism reigns. Many believers are blind to it, and their churches are too weak to resist. Politics offers little help in this spiritual crisis. What is needed is the Benedict Option, a strategy that draws on the authority of Scripture and the wisdom of the ancient church. The goal: to embrace exile from mainstream culture and construct a resilient counterculture. The Benedict Option is both manifesto and rallying cry for Christians who, if they are not to be conquered, must learn how to fight on culture war battlefields like none the West has seen for fifteen hundred years. It's for all mere Chris­tians—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox—who can read the signs of the times. Neither false optimism nor fatalistic despair will do. Only faith, hope, and love, embodied in a renewed church, can sustain believers in the dark age that has overtaken us. These are the days for building strong arks for the long journey across a sea of night.

Following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI, in Dark Passages of the Bible Matthew Ramage weds the historical-critical approach with a theological reading of Scripture based in the patristic-medieval tradition. Whereas these two approaches are often viewed as mutually exclusive or even contradictory, Ramage insists that the two are mutually enriching and necessary for doing justice to the Bible s most challenging texts.

The classic path for growing a Christian community. This innovative guide to Christian formation offers an ancient-yet-contemporary approach to growth in Christ. Providing practical guidance for pastors and lay leaders in the local congregation and help for home groups, house churches, and small groups, Ancient Paths will show you the way that has formed millions of Christians over the last 1,500 years. A 12-week study guide is included. "I highly recommend David Robinson's Ancient Paths. Robinson's pastoral heart is evident as he carefully peels back the layers of monastic wisdom--in practical and commonsense ways." –Laura Swan, OSB, author of Engaging Benedict