From the time of the desert fathers to our own "post-Christian" age, the literature of monastic wisdom has provided inspiration for those of us who lead ordinary lives in the world. Father Jeremy Driscoll, a poet and theologian who is also a Benedictine monk, brings the genre into the twenty-first century with this exquisitely written collection of reflections on life from a monastic perspective. Whether reflecting on the details of the cloistered life, or observing the weirdness of American culture, explaining a fine point of Catholic theology to a child, or meditating on the flight of a seagull over the glittering ocean at sunrise, Fr. Jeremy’s voice both enchants and provokes us to further contemplation. The 189 meditations are arranged by short titles in alphabetical order to emphasize that the reader should approach them in random fashion, without preconceived ideas, in order to be open to where they lead the heart and mind.

In her highly ambitious second collection of poems, Katrina Vandenberg takes her inspiration from the alphabet. A meditation on the hump of a camel, and what it hides. A reminder that tomatoes belong to the nightshade family, and a vision of the plant as Adam’s downfall. The Book of Kells, gold-leafed and extravagantly decorated by monks. Titled for letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and employing such innovative forms as the ancient ghazal, these poems are richly grounded in objects both humble and exotic. Vandenberg explores the intersection of power and forgiveness, and deciphers the seemingly indecipherable in emotionally poignant ways. “What will protect us?” one poem asks. “The words will be our weapons. In the end.” Moving between the physical and the abstract, the individual and the collective, The Alphabet Not Unlike the World unearths meaning—with astonishing beauty—from the pain of loss and separation.

An inspirational introduction to creating decorative calligraphy.

This work tells the story of a community of fourth-century monks living in Egypt. The letters they wrote and received were found within the covers of works that changed our understanding of early religious thought - the Nag Hammadi Codices. This book seeks to contextualise the letters and answer questions about monastic life. Significantly, new evidence is presented that links the letters directly to the authors and creators of the codices in which they were discovered.

This is the first comprehensive study of an ingenious number-notation from the Middle Ages that was devised by monks and mainly used in monasteries. A simple notation for representing any number up to 99 by a single cipher, somehow related to an ancient Greek shorthand, first appeared in early-13th-century England, brought from Athens by an English monk. A second, more useful version, due to Cistercian monks, is first attested in the late 13th century in what is today the border country between Belgium and France: with this any number up to 9999 can be represented by a single cipher. The ciphers were used in scriptoria - for the foliation of manuscripts, for writing year-numbers, preparing indexes and concordances, numbering sermons and the like, and outside the scriptoria - for marking the scales on an astronomical instrument, writing year-numbers in astronomical tables, and for incising volumes on wine-barrels. Related notations were used in medieval and Renaissance shorthands and coded scripts. This richly-illustrated book surveys the medieval manuscripts and Renaissance books in which the ciphers occur, and takes a close look at an intriguing astrolabe from 14th-century Picardy marked with ciphers. With Indices. "Mit Kings luzider Beschreibung und Bewertung der einzelnen Funde und ihrer Beziehungen wird zugleich die Forschungsgeschichte - die bis dato durch Widerspruechlichkeit und Diskontinuit�t gepr�gt ist - umfassend aufgearbeitet." Zeitschrift fuer Germanistik.

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.

Maybe you've been speaking English all your life, or maybe you learned it later on. But whether you use it just well enough to get your daily business done, or you're an expert with a red pen who never omits a comma or misplaces a modifier, you must have noticed that there are some things about this language that are just weird. Perhaps you're reading a book and stop to puzzle over absurd spelling rules (Why are there so many ways to say '-gh'?), or you hear someone talking and get stuck on an expression (Why do we say "How dare you" but not "How try you"?), or your kid quizzes you on homework (Why is it "eleven and twelve" instead of "oneteen and twoteen"?). Suddenly you ask yourself, "Wait, why do we do it this way?" You think about it, try to explain it, and keep running into walls. It doesn't conform to logic. It doesn't work the way you'd expect it to. There doesn't seem to be any rule at all. There might not be a logical explanation, but there will be an explanation, and this book is here to help. In Highly Irregular, Arika Okrent answers these questions and many more. Along the way she tells the story of the many influences--from invading French armies to stubborn Flemish printers--that made our language the way it is today. Both an entertaining send-up of linguistic oddities and a deeply researched history of English, Highly Irregular is essential reading for anyone who has paused to wonder about our marvelous mess of a language.

In re-examining the Christianization of the Roman Empire and subsequent transformation of Graeco-Roman classical culture, this volume challenges conventional ways of understanding both the history of Christian monasticism and the history of education. The chapters interrogate assumptions that have framed monastic practice as pedagogically unprecedented, with few obvious precursors and/or parallels. A number explore how both teaching and practice merge classical pedagogical structures with Christian sources and traditions. Others re-situate monasticism within a longer trajectory of educational and institutional frameworks, elucidating models that remain central to the preservation of both Greek and Latin literary culture, and the skills of reading and writing. Through re-examination of archaeological evidence and critical re-reading of signature monastic texts, each documents the degree to which monastic structures emerged in close alignment with urban, literate society, and retain established affinity with classical rhetorical and philosophical school traditions.

Spirituality: An Art of Living was born out of a generous impulse: to pass on lessons from the monastic tradition to lay people so as to help them achieve a more ardent and fulfilling spiritual life. In this book, Benedictine monk, teacher, and scholar Benoît Standaert provides ninety-nine entries covering topics like abba, humility, listening and time. The entries are divided in twenty-six chapters according to the letters of the alphabet. A perfect book for all spiritual seekers to sit with and enjoy again and again.