In Jesus in Our Wombs, Rebecca J. Lester takes us behind the walls of a Roman Catholic convent in central Mexico to explore the lives, training, and experiences of a group of postulants--young women in the first stage of religious training as nuns. Lester, who conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in the convent, provides a rich ethnography of these young women's journeys as they wrestle with doubts, fears, ambitions, and setbacks in their struggle to follow what they believe to be the will of God. Gracefully written, finely textured, and theoretically rigorous, this book considers how these aspiring nuns learn to experience God by cultivating an altered experience of their own female bodies, a transformation they view as a political stance against modernity. Lester explains that the Postulants work toward what they see as an "authentic" femininity--one that has been eclipsed by the values of modern society. The outcome of this process has political as well as personal consequences. The Sisters learn to understand their very intimate experiences of "the Call"--and their choices in answering it--as politically relevant declarations of self. Readers become intimately acquainted with the personalities, family backgrounds, friendships, and aspirations of the Postulants as Lester relates the practices and experiences of their daily lives. Combining compassionate, engaged ethnography with an incisive and provocative theoretical analysis of embodied selves, Jesus in Our Wombs delivers a profound analysis of what Lester calls the convent's "technology of embodiment" on multiple levels--from the phenomenological to the political.

In this dynamic collection of poems, Drew Jackson explores the first eight chapters of Luke's Gospel. These are declarative poems, faithfully proclaiming the gospel story in all its liberative power. Here the gospel is the "fresh words / that speak of / things impossible." This powerful poetry helps us hear the hum of deliverance—against all hope—that's been in the gospel all along.

"A stunning first book, Jesus In Our Wombs is a haunting ethnography with fresh theoretical insights. Blending psychoanalytic theories with postmodern imageries, Lester demonstrates that the body is both a source and object of analysis. This is a model ethnography."—Vicki Ruiz, author of From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in the Twentieth-Century America "In Jesus In Our Wombs, Rebecca Lester uses her rich, evocative ethnography of the first year experiences of nuns-in-training to explore the formation and transformation of selves, the relationships of bodily practices, and the centrality of gender to these intertwined processes of self-formation and embodiment. This work will spark renewed interest in the potential of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic theories of change to offer insights for crucial theoretical issues in anthropology and the social sciences more generally. A superb book."—Dorothy Hodgson, author of The Church of Women: Gendered Encounters between Maasai and Missionaries "This study of young Mexican nuns in their first year of training is a thought provoking and ethnographically rich work that will be an important contribution to the anthropological study of religion, gender, and embodiment. Through her careful analysis of the ways the postulates negotiate their training intellectually, emotionally, and bodily, Lester provides unique insights into the religious processes of personal transformation. A beautifully observed ethnography of life in a Catholic convent."—Joel Robbins, author of Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society

If it is true that God is a male, then His Divinity or Deity is expressed in His masculinity. Yet I am a woman, and there are parts of my body; such as my breasts, my vagina, and my womb that are telling a story about God that I have never learned or understood. This is an exploration of the significance of a womb that must shed and bleed before it can create. How will we engage our body which cyclically bleeds most of our life and can build and birth a human soul? How will we honor the living womb, that lives and sometimes dies within us? This is a book about the theology found in the cycle of the womb, which births both life and death. Every day each one of us is invited to create, and every day we make a decision knowing that from our creation can come death or life. Women's voices have been silenced for a long time as society and the church has quieted their bodies. Will we courageously choose to listen to the sound of your voice, the song of your womb, and speak for the world to hear?

When a woman becomes pregnant, miscarriage is usually the furthest thing from her mind. Such was the case for Jessalyn Hutto when she became pregnant with her first baby. But as is all too common in our post-fall world, the life she carried came to an abrupt end. Death had visited her womb, and the horrors of miscarriage had become a part of her life’s story. ••• Ultimately, she would lose two children in the womb, at 6 and 15 weeks gestation. Through these painful losses, a whole new world of suffering opened up to her. It seemed that everywhere she looked women were quietly mourning the loss of their unborn children. Yet this particular type of loss has been grossly overlooked by the church. ••• Couples navigating the unique sorrow of losing a child are often left with little biblical counsel to draw upon. Well-meaning friends and family often offer empty platitudes and Christian clichés. But what these couples truly need is the hope of the gospel. ••• Short, sensitive, and theologically robust, Inheritance of Tears offers hope and comfort to those who are called to walk through the painful trial of miscarriage, and shows pastors and church members how to effectively minister to these parents in their time of need.

Every daughter of Eve faces an identity crisis at some time in her life. And many of us wonder where we fit in on a regular basis. Whether you feel discouraged and damaged or desire a greater understanding of your spiritual condition, this book will help you embrace your identity as one reclaimed by Jesus Christ.

When Rebecca Lester was eleven years old—and again when she was eighteen—she almost died from anorexia nervosa. Now both a tenured professor in anthropology and a licensed social worker, she turns her ethnographic and clinical gaze to the world of eating disorders—their history, diagnosis, lived realities, treatment, and place in the American cultural imagination. Famished, the culmination of over two decades of anthropological and clinical work, as well as a lifetime of lived experience, presents a profound rethinking of eating disorders and how to treat them. Through a mix of rich cultural analysis, detailed therapeutic accounts, and raw autobiographical reflections, Famished helps make sense of why people develop eating disorders, what the process of recovery is like, and why treatments so often fail. It’s also an unsparing condemnation of the tension between profit and care in American healthcare, demonstrating how a system set up to treat a disease may, in fact, perpetuate it. Fierce and vulnerable, critical and hopeful, Famished will forever change the way you understand eating disorders and the people who suffer with them.

Tackles the difficult subject of infertility using Jesus Christ's teachings and the Christian faith.

Rediscover the lost ancient mystery teachings of the Cosmic Womb • 2017 Nautilus Silver Award • Explains how each of us has a holographic blueprint of the Womb of Creation, our spiritual Womb • Offers practices to help awaken your spiritual Womb, experience the Womb of God within, and activate the Womb’s sacred magic of creation and manifestation • Looks at the power of the moon and its connection to sacred Womb Consciousness • Explores how the lost Womb mystery teachings were encoded in folk and fairy tales, the legends of the Holy Grail, and the traditions of Mary Magdalene and Sophia • Includes access to three guided Womb Awakening audio journeys The Ancients lived by a feminine cosmology of creation, where everything was birthed and dissolved through a sacred universal Womb. Within each of us, whether female or male, lies a holographic blueprint of this Womb of Creation, connecting us to the Web of Life. By awakening your spiritual Womb, the holy of holies within the temple of your body, you can reconnect to the transformative energy of Womb Consciousness and reclaim your sacred powers of creation and love. Drawing on mythical and spiritual traditions from almost every culture, Dr. Azra and Seren Bertrand reconstruct the moon-based feminine mystery teachings of a lost global Womb religion, tracing the tradition all the way back to the Neanderthals and beyond. They explore how these teachings were encoded in the symbolism of folk and fairy tales; the legends of the Holy Grail; the traditions of Mary Magdalene and Sophia; the maiden, queen, and crone archetypes; and the teachings of alchemy and the chakras. They show how sages and shamans across the globe all secretly spoke of the Cosmic Womb and the sacred creative powers of Moon Blood. The authors look at the power of the Moon and its connection to sacred Womb Consciousness, offering meditations and practices to help awaken your spiritual Womb and activate its sacred magic of creation and manifestation. They explain how to activate the energetic gateways of the Womb and merge the heart and Womb to make sexual union the highest sacrament of love. Revealing how we must reconnect with the Divine Feminine to rebirth the Divine Masculine and restore balance to our world, they show how, as we reawaken the powerful ancient path of the Womb Mysteries, we help return our world to harmony with the wild, untamed creative flows and cyclical rhythms of the cosmos.