An inspiring guide to contemplative photography and a slow creative process, including hands-on assignments, and inspirational stories, illustrated with fifty photographs. In a world where millions of images are shot every day and fast-paced environments can exhaust and stifle creativity, The Mindful Photographer proposes a simple antidote: slowing down. Through twenty concepts as varied as “Confidence,” “Gratitude,” and “Compassion,” combined with hands-on assignments, author Sophie Howarth invites readers to reflect on their photographic practice and learn to pause, pay attention, and become more attuned with the world around them. Ranging from the canonical to the contemporary, The Mindful Photographer features the work of photographers including Edward Weston, Kali Spitzer, Nadav Kander, Thomas Merton, Sarker Protick, and many more. Their photographs are accompanied by quotes, stories, and anecdotes to both inspire the reader, and broaden their photographic knowledge and creative perspectives. Putting aside preconceived ideas and the competitive pressures of picture-perfect Instagram posts, this book rewires our relationship to photographic practice as one to be understood as unconditionally joyful and rewarding. Howarth’s insightful texts work as a guide to both a mindful approach to photography, and as a photographic approach to meditation. Offered in an affordable format, this will be the must-have companion for anyone seeking a more mindful approach to engaging with their world through photography.

Why does God feel so far away? Why is my worship so empty? Has God left me? David Bowden knows these questions firsthand, having wrestled for years with God’s apparent absence and studying what the Bible says about it. In this new book, Bowden tackles the subject head-on, finding the key to understanding it in the Bible’s depiction of a God who is infinitely far from us, free to move where he wants, but who chooses to come near in the person of Jesus. A resource of encouragement for those who struggle with feeling God’s absence and a wake-up call to those who take God’s presence for granted, When God Isn’t There will forever change your understanding of why God sometimes seems to vanish and how he can be found again. Praise for the work of David Bowden “Awesome and inspiring.”—Blake Mycoskie, Founder and Chief Shoe Giver at TOMS Shoes “David brings a fresh, engaging and highly impactful approach to Scripture. His passion for the Word is both contagious and inspirational.” —Roy Peterson, President of American Bible Society

Our one and only real purpose in writing this work has been to awaken love for the whole Christ, and when we speak of the whole Christ, we are referring both to the Christ who died for mankind in Jerusalem more than two thousand years ago, love for whom has been encouraged by manifest exegesis since the beginning of the Christian era, and at the same time, to the Christ preexisting and eternal. Although both are one and the same being, if we speak of the whole Christ, we cannot disregard the inseparable Christ who, from the beginning, has lain forgotten, unknown, crucified within every man, and who is only waiting to reveal his immortal, divine presence, invoked by love and faith. Then the true beatitude of his resurrection will arise in every man. (Pag.38)* The purpose of this work is to awaken in some men awareness that the canonical New Testament texts express a dual hermeneutic, and exegesis makes it possible, once one has assimilated a first reading, which we shall call manifest, to undertake a second reading, one that will be more difficult to apprehend, in order to find through it a new meaning which the Christian hagiographers called hidden, or secret. (Pag.28)*

Shusaku Endo is celebrated as one of Japan's great modern novelists, often described as "Japan's Graham Greene," and Silence is considered by many Japanese and Western literary critics to be his masterpiece. Approaching Silence is both a celebration of this award-winning novel as well as a significant contribution to the growing body of work on literature and religion. It features eminent scholars writing from Christian, Buddhist, literary, and historical perspectives, taking up, for example, the uneasy alliance between faith and doubt; the complexities of discipleship and martyrdom; the face of Christ; and, the bodhisattva ideal as well as the nature of suffering. It also frames Silence through a wider lens, comparing it to Endo's other works as well as to the fiction of other authors. Approaching Silence promises to deepen academic appreciation for Endo, within and beyond the West. Includes an Afterword by Martin Scorsese on adapting Silence for the screen as well as the full text of Steven Dietz's play adaptation of Endo's novel.

Internationally renowned photographer Bill Henson is a passionate and visionary explorer of twilight zones, between day and night, nature and civilization, youth and adulthood, male and female. Bill Henson's photographs of landscapes at dusk, of the industrial no-man's land at the outskirts of our cities, of androgynous girls and boys adrift in the nocturnal turmoil of adolescence are painterly tableaux that continue the traditions of romantic literature and painting. The rich chiaroscuro, the oscillating light, and the masterful composition of his photographs map enigmatic states that escape rationalism's iron grip, providing a much-needed antidote to a culture that increasingly looses itself in a numbing vortex of blinking screens and glittering surfaces.

Throughout one's life, from its beginning to its end, one is constantly bombarded with "spin" by those who desire to promote products and push ideas, philosophies, and a multitude of faiths whether religious or secular. There is only one work, even since the beginning of time, which is free of "spin" and tells it exactly as it was and is now: God's inspired Word, the Bible. Right from the very beginning, Eve put three "spins" on what God had told Adam. She deleted the word "freely," she added the phrase, "neither shall you touch it," and altered the word "surely" to "less." Yet it was Lucifer, the fallen archangel in the guise of a serpent who put into motion the ultimate "spin" on God's word: "Yea, has God said...?" From then on, this question has played havoc with every society down through the ages. Any question of doubt concerning God's word always opposes truth and reality. This book has been written to put forth a definitive answer to this insidious question. In fact, this question begs for an answer and not just a rhetorical one. The questions raised concerning God's word itself, creation, salvation, eschatology, morality, death, and more are in this book and are answered with a resounding: "Yes, God has said!"