Sycamore's Gift is a retelling of the popular Bible story of Zaccheaus the tax collector. The story is told through the eyes of the sycamore tree that lifts Zaccheaus up to meet Jesus on the road to Jericho.

Karen Sommerfield has been hiding from life-immersing herself in a high-powered job-until the day the company downsizes her out of a job and the doctor tells her that she may have cancer. It's a double blow that sends Karen on a search for herself in the last place she ever thought to look: Grandma Rose's old farm. As Karen's hectic schedule falls away, she opens up to the unexpected. In the quiet of the Missouri Ozarks, she hears the soft, secret language of the sycamore trees, and discovers answers and a joy to make her life complete.

A meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity. When you turn the music off, and suddenly you feel an unbearable sadness, that means turn the music back on, right? When you still feel the sadness, even with the music, that means there's something wrong with this music. Sometimes I feel like sex without context isn't sex at all. And sometimes I feel like sex without context is what sex should always be.--The Freezer Door The Freezer Door records the ebb and flow of desire in daily life. Crossing through loneliness in search of communal pleasure in Seattle, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore exposes the failure and persistence of queer dreams, the hypocritical allure of gay male sexual culture, and the stranglehold of the suburban imagination over city life. Ferocious and tender, The Freezer Door offers a complex meditation on the trauma and possibility of searching for connection in a world that relentlessly enforces bland norms of gender, sexual, and social conformity while claiming to celebrate diversity.

The human heart is restless and searching. We are longing for happiness and peace. Even though many people speak about "the death of God", the question of meaning and religion doesn't seem to go away.This booklet looks at the adventure of spiritual life and the search for God. It uses stories and examples from history and from the bible to show how religion can be such an important part of everyday life. It explains some of the reasons why people continue to believe in God and why faith can bring us meaning and hope.

Early in the year, our North American forests come to life as native wildflowers start to push up through patches of snow. With longer days and sunlight streaming down through bare branches of towering trees, life on the forest floor awakens from its winter sleep. Plants such as green dragon, squirrel corn, and bloodroot interact with their pollinators and seed dispersers and rush to create new life before the trees above leaf out and block the sun's rays. Wake Up, Woods showcases the splendor of our warming forests and offers clues to nature's annual springtime floral show as we walk in our parks and wilderness areas, or even in shade gardens around our homes. Readers of Wake Up, Woods will see that Gillian Harris, Michael Homoya and Shane Gibson, through illustrations and text, present a captivating look into our forests' biodiversity, showing how species depend on plants for food and help assure plant reproduction. This book celebrates some of nature's most fascinating moments that happen in forests where we live and play.

Welcome to Sycamore Hill, where hearts mend, redemption is within reach, and love’s blossoms endure even the harshest storms. This collection includes: Series starter - To Sweet Beginnings in Sycamore Hill: When a disgraced woman's return to Sycamore Hill entangles the lives of five couples, twenty-four hours changes everything. Book 1 - The Sycamore Standoff: He’s the small town’s biggest catch. Her past threatens the future. A gripping story of survival, community, and the power of love. Book 2 - His Sycamore Sweetheart: She wants acceptance. He wants approval. They get a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction and a disastrous church scandal. Book 3 - The Sycamore Slopes: When a family is torn apart, the battle lines are drawn and the fight to control Sycamore Hill heats up. Book 4 - One Sycamore Sunday: It starts as a normal Sunday, but one horrifying moment changes everything. Book 5 - A Sycamore Secret: His custom coffee blend paired with her social media following brews a latte of trouble.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends and Before We Were Yours comes a heartfelt novel about the bonds of family and the power of second chances. When Kate Bowman temporarily moves to her grandmother’s Missouri farm with her husband and baby son, she learns that the lessons that most enrich our lives often come unexpectedly. The family has given Kate the job of convincing Grandma Rose, who’s become increasingly stubborn and forgetful, to move off her beloved land and into a nursing home. But Kate knows such a change would break her grandmother’s heart. Just when Kate despairs of finding answers, she discovers her grandma’s journal. A beautiful handmade notebook, it is full of stories that celebrate the importance of family, friendship, and faith. Stories that make Kate see her life—and her grandmother—in a completely new way....

Welcome to Sycamore Hill, where hearts mend, redemption is within reach, and love’s blossoms endure even the harshest storms. Landscape Architect Meg Gilmore's past resurfaces, threatening the harmony she's fought to cultivate. She's forced to confront the powerful family of Eli Martin, a friend she thought she could trust. With a 250-year-old tree—the very heart of Sycamore Hill—at stake, Meg and Eli’s goals intertwine. For now. Eli’s roots run as deep as the ancient tree, and his noble intentions clash with familial expectations. He tries to help Meg—the first woman to see beyond his wealth and status—but only jeopardizes their future. Will Eli and Meg find their way out of the weeds and let love bloom, or will their secrets tear them apart? Explore themes of trust, forgiveness, community, and the resilience of love in this stirring tale of redemption. Fans of Karen Kingsbury and Deborah Raney will love The Sycamore Standoff. Buy now before the price changes!

The prophet Amos, a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees, had a parallel, and more challenging, calling as a shepherd of human souls. So too does Garret Keizer, an Episcopalian minister to the community of Island Pond in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. This profoundly contemporary book displays not only Keizer's knowledge of life's small practicalities (winding the church clock, shopping for groceries), but also his insights about faith and the mysterious ways of God. With an eye attuned to both the pleasures and foibles that make life on earth so rich, he presents a refreshing and often hilarious account of the hands-on work needed to maintain a parish and sustain its spirit. He is a man who believes that God's intentions, if seldom apparent, are inevitably compassionate and compelling.

A Southwest Book of the Year "In this masterful performance, Bryn Chancellor explores the loss around which an entire community has calcified with humanity and wisdom. Chancellor digs deep in these pages, unearthing broken hearts, secrets, betrayals, passion and—most impressively—grace. What a joy to find a book that is both propulsive and perfectly composed."—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest An award-winning writer makes her debut with this mesmerizing page-turner in the spirit of Everything I Never Told You and Olive Kitteridge. Out for a hike one scorching afternoon in Sycamore, Arizona, a newcomer to town stumbles across what appear to be human remains embedded in the wall of a dry desert ravine. As news of the discovery makes its way around town, Sycamore’s longtime residents fear the bones may belong to Jess Winters, the teenage girl who disappeared suddenly some eighteen years earlier, an unsolved mystery that has soaked into the porous rock of the town and haunted it ever since. In the days it takes the authorities to make an identification, the residents rekindle stories, rumors, and recollections both painful and poignant as they revisit Jess’s troubled history. In resurrecting the past, the people of Sycamore will find clarity, unexpected possibility, and a way forward for their lives. Skillfully interweaving multiple points of view, Bryn Chancellor knowingly maps the bloodlines of a community and the indelible characters at its heart. Evocative and atmospheric, Sycamore is a coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a moving exploration of the elemental forces that drive human nature—desire, loneliness, grief, love, forgiveness, and hope—as witnessed through the inhabitants of one small Arizona town.