In the Belly of a Laughing God examines how eight contemporary Native women poets in Canada and the United States employ humour and irony to address the intricacies of race, gender, and nationality.

From bestselling poet Daniel Ladinsky, a rich collection that brings the great Sufi poet Hafiz to Western readers To Persians, the poems of Hafiz are not “classical literature” from a remote past but cherished wisdom from a dear and intimate friend that continues to be quoted in daily life. With uncanny insight, Hafiz captures the many forms and stages of love. His poetry outlines the stages of the mystic's “path of love”—a journey in which love dissolves personal boundaries and limitations to join larger processes of growth and transformation. With this stunning collection, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in capturing the essence of one of Islam’s greatest poetic and spiritual voices. “If you haven’t yet had the delight of dining with Daniel Ladinsky’s sweet, playful renderings of the musings of the great saints, I Heard God Laughing is a perfect appetizer. . . . This newly released edition of his first playful foray into Hafiz’s divinely inspired poetry is essential reading. . . . Ladinsky is a master who will be remembered for finally bringing Hafiz alive in the West.” —Alexandra Marks, The Christian Science Monitor

Kate Merrick examines the Bible’s gritty stories of resilient women as well as her own experience losing a child—a journey followed by more than a million on prayfordaisy.com—to reveal the reality of surprising joy and deep hope even in the midst of heartache. Is it possible live fully—even joyfully—in the middle of overwhelming pain? In the excruciating aftermath of her young daughter’s death from cancer, Kate Merrick struggled to find a way to live. Not just to survive or go through the motions, but to live fully. Faithfully. With real joy amid inevitable tears. To discover how, Kate delved into the stories in the Bible of real women who suffered deeply and emerged somehow joyful. How did Sarah, after twenty-five years of achingly empty arms, learn to laugh without bitterness? How did Bathsheba, defiled by the king who then had her husband killed, come to walk in strength and dignity, to smile without fear of the future? In her encounters with these heroines of the faith, Kate discovered how to have contentment—and even joy—whatever the circumstances. By turns heartbreaking and humorous, And Still She Laughs reveals the secret to finding hope in the midst of devastation. In the end, no matter what hardships we face, we can smile, cry, and come away full—laughing without fear and eagerly looking for what is to come. “And Still She Laughs is the terrifying, tearful, heartbreaking, heart healing and humorous, definitive true story of survival and triumph.” —Kathy Ireland, chair of Kathy Ireland Worldwide “Kate Merrick is one of those women that I always wish I had more time with—her honesty, sincerity, and messy straightforwardness are different, in the very best way. Her book, And Still She Laughs, is the same way. It’s one of those books I will keep coming back to it for truth and inspiration.” —Lindsey Nobles, COO of the IF:Gathering

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Winner of the Sophie Brody Medal • An NBCC Finalist for 2016 Award for Fiction • ALA Carnegie Medal Finalist for Excellence in Fiction • Wall Street Journal’s Best Novel of the Year • A New York Times Notable Book of the Year • A Washington Post Best Book of the Year • An NPR Best Book of the Year • A Slate Best Book of the Year • A Christian Science Monitor Top 15 Fiction Book of the Year • A New York Magazine Best Book of the Year • A San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year • A Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year • A New York Post Best Book of the Year iBooks Novel of the Year • An Amazon Editors' Top 20 Book of the Year • #1 Indie Next Pick • #1 Amazon Spotlight Pick • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A BookPage Top Fiction Pick of the Month • An Indie Next Bestseller "This book is beautiful.” — A.O. Scott, New York Times Book Review, cover review Following on the heels of his New York Times bestselling novel Telegraph Avenue, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon delivers another literary masterpiece: a novel of truth and lies, family legends, and existential adventure—and the forces that work to destroy us. In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother’s home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather. Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon’s grandfather shared recollections and told stories the younger man had never heard before, uncovering bits and pieces of a history long buried and forgotten. That dreamlike week of revelations forms the basis for the novel Moonglow, the latest feat of legerdemain from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon. Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession of a man the narrator refers to only as “my grandfather.” It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and marriage and desire, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact—and the creative power—of keeping secrets and telling lies. It is a portrait of the difficult but passionate love between the narrator’s grandfather and his grandmother, an enigmatic woman broken by her experience growing up in war-torn France. It is also a tour de force of speculative autobiography in which Chabon devises and reveals a secret history of his own imagination. From the Jewish slums of prewar South Philadelphia to the invasion of Germany, from a Florida retirement village to the penal utopia of New York’s Wallkill prison, from the heyday of the space program to the twilight of the “American Century,” the novel revisits an entire era through a single life and collapses a lifetime into a single week. A lie that tells the truth, a work of fictional nonfiction, an autobiography wrapped in a novel disguised as a memoir, Moonglow is Chabon at his most moving and inventive.

From post-colonial India to New York City, from the land of the Navajo in the Southwest to unforgiving orbital space, The Laughing God tells the astonishing story of Doctor Joseph RamuPandu, a half American - half Indian, brilliant psychiatrist turned holistic guru who follows an unlikely and often comical path in his frantic search for spiritual enlightenment. In the milieu of the newly born nation's conflicting religious traditions, the infant Joseph is raised concurrently as a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian, and becomes preoccupied by “Gods, demons, and spirits”. The collision of these powerful elements leads the grown-up Joseph to devote himself to a life of austerity and service. His attempts to minister to the sick provoke disaster when a simple act is interpreted as a miracle and an avid, unwanted adoration follows. Wherever he goes, people flock to the swami psychiatrist with the saintly face. Joseph seems either destined or doomed to attract followers. When he fails to find peace or enlightenment in India, he continues his quest in New York City at the invitation of an American Dean of Holistic Medicine who sees the Indian doctor as a guru for unhappy Westerners looking to the east for spiritual wisdom. Before long Joseph finds himself caring for a set of psychotic patients at M’Naghten Psychiatric Hospital: a deranged Senator in permanent campaign mode; a homicidal federal judge; a furious Rabbi who sometime believes he is God; a gypsy woman with a Jesus fixation; a senile old storyteller and Zamba, a hip schizophrenic with a bizarre world view. The lively bunch is quickly drawn to Joseph, basking in the peace of his presence. Into this circus of madmen comes Hastiin Nayachai, a Native American professor of astronomy who suffers psychotic breakdowns and predicts an apocalypse of stars in a galactic cluster. Touched by insanity, haunted by ancestral drums, and obsessed with the death of stars, he hears the voice of the Great Spirit calling him home to regain the balance and peace of mind that eludes him. In Nayachai, Joseph sees a disturbing reflection of his own quest and finds himself drawn ever deeper into his patient's enthralling delusions. It is this eccentric scientist Nayachai who by drawing Joseph along his own path of delusion and soul seeking, ultimately brings our protagonist to the place and the godly answers he seeks reside. The powerful relationship that grips the two goes beyond the boundaries of sanity and leaves the crusading psychiatrist wondering whether he’s achieved spiritual enlightenment or himself succumbed to madness.

Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins analyses how laughter has been used as a symbol in myths, rituals and festivals of Western religions, and has thus been inscribed in religious discourse. The Mesopotamian Anu, the Israelite Jahweh, the Greek Dionysos, the Gnostic Christ and the late modern Jesus were all laughing gods. Through their laughter, gods prove both their superiority and their proximity to humans. In this comprehensive study, Professor Gilhus examines the relationship between corporeal human laughter and spiritual divine laughter from c`ussical antiquity, to the Christian West and the modern era. She combines the study of the history of religion with social-scientific approaches, to provide an original and pertinent exploration of a universal human phenomenon, and its significance for the development of religions.

God is good, God does good, and oh, how He wants you to be happy. In her new book, The Sacrament of Happy: What a Smiling God Brings to a Wounded World, Lisa Harper unveils that happiness is a gift from God that we can unashamedly enjoy. Happiness tends to be cast as a fluffy emotion without substance rather than a biblical concept, but this is not theologically accurate. Wearing the twin hats of both seminarian and belly-laughing adoptive mom, Lisa Harper dismantles the old-school idea that joy, not happiness, is the truly spiritual emotion, and asserts that Christ-followers are actually called to happiness. We are called to happiness, and this happiness is not impacted by personal or global tumult. In fact, happiness is a sacrament. The general definition of sacrament is “a visible sign of inward grace.” In communities of faith, it most often refers to holy communion or the Eucharist. In the broadest understanding, however, a sacrament is a gift bestowed by God, and in that case, ‘happiness’ is absolutely a sacrament—a visible, sometimes even audible, sign of inward grace! Lisa shares heart-wrenching difficult stories from her past, as well as some side-splitting hilarity along the way. Throughout the book, we see that happiness and sadness can coexist and ebb and flow like the tides. Christine Caine, Founder of A21 & Propel Women, had this to say about Lisa’s new book: "The Sacrament of Happy—like all of Lisa’s messages and books—enriches my understanding of God and His Word—and His great love for us. As always, she unfolds biblical truth so clearly and calls me to action. Every. Single. Time.”

Deep down, you yearn to do something more with your life. You fear your life wont be a success unless you discover and do whatever that something is. You sense the universe gently nudges you towards your destiny, but you only pick up a clue here and there. The Divine Intelligence Governing Everyday Life (the DIGEL) is active in your daily life experiences providing you such clues to teach you your growth lessons and guide you to realize your potential success and life destiny. It reveals your growth lessons to you through your interpersonal relationships and life experiences. Through applying the Five Guiding Principles, you can learn these lessons from the DIGEL, if and when youre willing to do so. These Guiding Principles will help you: recognize the DIGEL when its trying to teach you, figure out its messages, and use it as a guide to learn your lessons. However, you have to directly experience the DIGEL for yourself to really get to know it. Experiencing it for the first time is like waking up from a dream. As a result, your life changes forever. You become conscious of an aspect of life that is interesting, engaging, stimulating and fun. This book invites you to get to know the DIGEL as your teacher and guide. The 7 Truths and 5 Guiding Principles provided, if followed, will help you position yourself to directly experience the DIGEL. While youre learning from the DIGEL, youll experience lots of excitement, delight, and happiness. Also, the DIGEL will connect you to a greater source. Your awareness of this connection will give you a sense of meaning, purpose, direction, and unlimited possibilities.

Give Us This Day is a unique daily devotional commentary for the entire New Testament based on the ancient method called lectio divina. Lectio divina, or "divine reading," is the method used by the early church and countless Christians through the centuries to read the Scriptures to form and transform the soul more than merely to inform the mind. Give Us This Day deals in depth with entire passages and their contexts. Rather than selecting only certain portions of the New Testament to write about, Fr. Charles has written a devotional for each and every passage of the New Testament. Fr. Charles writes for the whole person: he's not afraid to use his sense of humor, and he carefully relates the Bible not only to the individual's life but also to the life of the Church. At the end of each day's devotional, an appropriate Prayer is offered, as well as Points for Further Reflection on the day's lesson. Each devotional concludes with a suggested Resolution to put into effect what the Spirit has stirred up in the heart of the reader during the course of his reading, meditation, and prayer.

Life is messy. But life is also beautiful. These are the twin themes that author/artist Carolyn Arends (writer of ten Top 10 Christian songs) opens up in her searching exploration of how God meets people in the ordinary moments of life, part of the ConversantLife.com line of books. This humorous, tender, and passionate collection of personal stories illustrate the mysterious ways that God works to bring people through life's struggles and discover the amazing power of grace. Why the birth of her child and the death of a friend gave her a new perspective What a prairie storm and the beauty of a bright red canyon can teach people about God How mismatched shoes and Bach oratorios can give readers a glimpse into a deeper mystery Fans of Don Miller and Anne Lamott will discover a kindred spirit in Carolyn and her transparent and gutsy meditations on life's unanswered questions and the One who can be found there. Formerly titled "Living the Questions"