Looks at documented cases of near-death experiences and interviews with survivors, doctors, and scientists, identifying key patterns in near-death experiences and what they imply about an afterlife.

Grasping the Heel of Heaven honours the immense legacy to the church of Michael Perham. A skilled and imaginative liturgist, a passionate advocate of women’s ministry, an inspirational dean and bishop, a wise and patient administrator, he was above all a faithful priest who loved the Church as the body of Christ. In all his ministry he sought to nourish that body by encouraging its worship and prayer and shaping its governance in the light of gospel ideals. In this volume, friends and colleagues bring their own expertise to reflect on some of the topics and themes that were most important to him, including: • Being transported and transformed by liturgy • The making of Common Worship • The full inclusion of the ministry of women • How structures and decision-making express an understanding of God • Unity despite differences in and through God • The gospel as good news for all Together, the contributors reflect the numerous ways that Michael Perham saw heaven touching earth and earth glimpsing heaven.

A “brilliant and fascinating” (Eben Alexander, MD, author of Proof of Heaven) exploration—rich with powerful personal stories and convincing research—of the many ways the living can and do accompany the dying on their journey into the afterlife. In 2000, end-of-life therapist William Peters was volunteering at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco when he had an extraordinary experience as he was reading aloud to a patient: he suddenly felt himself floating midair, completely out of his body. The patient, who was also aloft, looked at him and smiled. The next moment, Peters felt himself return to his body…but his patient never regained consciousness and died. Perplexed and stunned by what had happened, Peters began searching for other people who’d shared similar experiences. He would spend the next twenty years gathering and meticulously categorizing their stories to identify key patterns and features of what is now known as the “shared crossing” experience. The similarities, which cut across continents and cultures and include awe-inspiring visual and sensory effects, and powerful emotional aftershocks. The book is filled with “moving and tender” (Jack Kornfield, PhD, author of A Path with Heart) tales of spouses seeing their loved ones reach the other side after decades together and bereaved parents who share their children’s entry into the afterlife. Applying rigorous research, Peters digs into the effects of these shared crossing experiences impart—liberation at the sight of a loved one finding joy, a sense of reconciliation if the relationship was fraught—and explores questions like: What can explain these shared death experiences? How can we increase our likelihood of having one? What do these experiences tell us about what lies beyond? And, most importantly, how can they help take away the string of death and better prepare us for our own final moments? How can we have both a better life and a better death?

The author, Martin A. Lopez, (self), is a late-in-life father who wondrously transformed when his children arrived in his life. He changed from a compassionless pawn of the polluters, oblivious consumer, part of the throw-away culture, suffering from severe nature-disconnect, and blind to the environmental devastation happening to humanity. Through his children, he became filled with a mountainous emotional connection with them, and ultimately, to humanity and nature. At the same time, he became inspired to take action to fight for nature. This journey of metamorphosis includes poems, personal essays about nature and an analysis about solutions. He candidly identifies the villains and ‘saints’ destroying our children’s future and gives us a moral and a scientific perspective. He provides a poetic approach for our teachers to educate about the environmental disaster. He further provides an understandable approach to saving our planet. Glimpsing Heaven is an inspired father’s unique portrait of parenthood, eye-opening love, and the world’s environmental challenges.

Why have large numbers of the Bajju people of the Middle Belt of Nigeria become Christians? The first conversions occurred in 1929 and today almost one hundred percent of the Bajju claim to be Christians, so this people movement happened within a relatively short period. McKinney details the various contexts in which religious change took place among the Bajju: in traditional Bajju culture, in their relations with the Hausa-Fulani, in the British colonial context, and in the missionary context. She presents the results of an in-depth interview schedule administered in 1984 and 2011 to respondents in both a rural village and a Kaduna suburb. This longitudinal study, together with the author's involvement in participant observation, personal language learning, and archival records research, help provide answers to the questions of why, and to what degree, a worldview paradigm shift has occurred among the Bajju. The author also discusses some traditional religious beliefs retained by Bajju Christians, and charts traditional religious beliefs with biblical texts. Bajju Christian Conversion in the Middle Belt of Nigeria will be essential to anthropologists specializing in conversion studies, and be of interest to missiologists, and to the Bajju people themselves. It is a companion volume to Baranzan's People: An Ethnohistory of the Bajju of the Middle Belt of Nigeria, published by SIL International(R) 2019.

Cold, arrogant, and demanding Henry Eldridge, Marquess of Riverton, would never dally with a mere servant. But when Henry is injured in a horrible fire, his pretty housekeeper Cassandra nurses him back to health, throwing them together day and night. As he slowly heals from his burns, their friendship blossoms, and the class walls between them start to crumble. Cassandra is surprised by glimpses of a kind and thoughtful man beneath her employer’s hard façade—and even more surprised when she develops tender feelings for him. But anything between lord and servant is impossible...and besides, as a widow, she knows love only leads to heartbreak. Henry is changing, as well. His close brush with death has opened his eyes to his self-imposed emotional isolation...and has urgently reminded him of his duty to marry a well-bred lady and produce an heir. Determined to do right by his family name, he immediately begins searching for a suitable bride. But Cassandra is the only woman who is never far from his mind or his heart. Contrary to everything he’s been taught to believe, he realizes his lovely housekeeper might just be his perfect match. Now, if only he could convince everyone else of that. Especially Cassandra...

Revolutionary idealist and vocal cultural critic Andrew Cohen promotes a new spiritual paradigm in this exploration of a true visionary’s controversial school of thought. Though Cohen was once a teacher of personal enlightenment, he now quests for a joint spiritual longing and humanitarian love-two forces that enable and empower each other to the point where enlightenment becomes evolution. Uncompromising in his call for human transformation, Cohen is presented as an illustrious spiritual figure whose liberated consciousness and ruthless deconstruction of the culture around him have kept everyone talking; in 2004, he was invited to address the Parliament of World Religions, an unusual honor for a man buoyed by no established spiritual tradition and unyielding in his demand for integrity.

From the mind of John Smith to the pages of the Judge Dredd Megazine, eight stories are now together for the first time in this digital collection. From the sublime to the downright disturbing, these stand-alone short stories feature the worlds and characters from some of John Smith's best known series. The reptillian nun, conceptual artist and cosmic bounty hunter, Tyranny Rex, must survive Demonic forces, Occult organisations and dimension-hopping dream parasites if she wants to keep her tail in tact! Agents of the interdimensional INDIGO PRIME continue their work repairing (and often even rebooting) universes under threat from catastophic reality-shattering events including New York disappearing due to a mass LSD trip and a powerful Vodoo Priestess resurrecting Elvis Presley by way of Magickal haircuts. Meanwhile, vampiric Vatican agent, international celebrity and bon vivant, Devlin Waugh, finds himself the target of an obsessed stalker and diabolic entities...

A debutante with a scandalous past is whisked away from London only to create new headlines on the Continent. After being expelled from a young ladies’ academy, it seems Miss Arabella Jardine will never find a well-connected husband. Not that she minds. A bluestocking at heart, she’d rather bury her nose in a medical text than wed. When Arabella is forced to accompany her family on a Grand Tour in Switzerland, she unexpectedly encounters the irresistible rakehell-in-exile, Gabriel, the Earl of Langdale. Arabella soon realizes the only thing worse than getting married to a charismatic but unrepentant rake would be to fall in love with him. Dubbed the Errant Earl by the ton, Gabriel Holmes-Fitzgerald is no stranger to scandal. However, when Gabriel is caught in flagrante with the utterly delectable Arabella Jardine, he’s obliged to offer for her hand. He’ll endeavor to do the right thing even though he’s not a prize catch. He’ll certainly never let Arabella get close enough to discover the demons of his dark past. Indeed, there is one particular demon out to destroy Gabriel by exposing a long-buried family secret. Soon Gabriel and Arabella find they are not just battling overwhelming desire, but in a fight to save their future together.

A fascinating, vivid, and on-the-ground account of Russian Orthodoxy's resurgence A bold experiment is taking place in Russia. After a century of being scarred by militant, atheistic communism, the Orthodox Church has become Russia's largest and most significant nongovernmental organization. As it has returned to life, it has pursued a vision of reclaiming Holy Rus' that historical yet mythical homeland of the eastern Slavic peoples; a foretaste of the perfect justice, peace, harmony, and beauty for which religious believers long; and the glimpse of heaven on earth that persuaded Prince Vladimir to accept Orthodox baptism in Crimea in A.D. 988. Through groundbreaking initiatives in religious education, social ministry, historical commemoration, and parish life, the Orthodox Church is seeking to shape a new, post-communist national identity for Russia. In this eye-opening and evocative book, John Burgess examines Russian Orthodoxy's resurgence from a grassroots level, providing Western readers with an enlightening, inside look at the new Russia.