Gold Medal IPPY Winner in Religious Fiction Finalist in the novel/fiction category of the Next Generation Indie Book Award Winner: Best Religious Fiction, International Book Award 2017 2017 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Religious 2017 International Book Awards Winner in Fiction: Religious The Divine Shekinah seeks deliverance from exile to heal a world desperately in need of Her wisdom. Her chosen mission keeper, three generations of kabbalists from places as diverse as a 19th century shtetl and modern day Israel/Palestine, must grapple with profound injustices and the shadows of humanity. If they choose the path of righteousness, love, and forgiveness, Her light can return to the world. Will the mission succeed? Will the divine feminine return to the world? The Shekinah calls to all of us to find our own way to ‘knit the world back together.’

Journeys into Radiance is a compilation of messages that were telepathically received from the realms of light where the angels and the Ascended Masters dwell. The messages were received in a group setting where people came together to meditate and commune with the celestial realms. The focus of this activity was to be in service to God and the Divine Plan for planet earth. The information received was recorded and later transcribed for this book. All of those present could feel the infusion of Grace and Light that accompanies this work. It is hoped that all of those that read this book will receive of that Grace.

"Who do you say that I am?" This question that Jesus asked of his disciples, so central to his mission, became equally central to the fledgling church. How would it respond to the Gnostics who answered by saying Jesus was less than fully human? How would it respond to the Arians who contended he was less than fully God? It was these challenges that ultimately provoked the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. In this volume covering the first half of the article in the Nicene Creed on God the Son, John Anthony McGuckin shows how it countered these two errant poles by equally stressing Jesus' authentic humanity (that is, his fleshliness and real embodiment in space and time) and his spiritual glory or full divinity. One cottage industry among some historical theologians, he notes, has been to live in a fever of conspiracy theory where orthodox oppressors dealt heavy-handedly with poor heretics. Or the picture is painted of ancient grassroots inclusivists being suppressed by establishment elites. The reality was far from such romantic notions. It was in fact the reverse. The church who denounced these errors did so in the name of a greater inclusivity based on common sense and common education. The debate was conducted generations before Christian bishops could ever call on the assistance of secular power to enforce their views. Establishing the creeds was not a reactionary movement of censorship but rather one concerned with the deepest aspects of quality control. Ultimately, what was and is at stake is not fussy dogmatism but the central gospel message of God's stooping "down in mercy to enter the life of his creatures and share their sorrows with them. He has lifted up the weak and the broken to himself, and he healed their pain by abolishing their alienation."

The Magic in Maya examines how you play an integral role in God’s ever evolving destiny. Your everyday outlook and activities can enable the infinite One to grow and realize joy. Within you, the Zoroastrian twins Spenta Mainyu and Angra Mainyu activate divine Love’s Real imagery, which your consciousness creates and encounters in maya’s arena. It’s up to you to tailor your awareness to recognize your Higher Self right within maya’s potentially illusory fabric and to reject the phantoms that arise from it. That spiritual practice will liberate you to bring alchemical verve to everyday life.

One day, a baby girl, Tara, is found, abandoned and covered in flies. She is raised by two mothers in a community rife with rituals and superstition. As she grows, Tara pursues acceptance at all costs. Saffiya, her adoptive mother, and Bhaggan, Saffiya’s maidservant, are victims of the men in their community, and the two women, in turn, struggle and live short but complicated lives. The only way for the villagers to find solace is through the rituals of ancient belief systems. Tara lives in a village that could be any village in South Asia, and she dies, like many young women in the area, during childbirth. Her short life is dedicated to her efforts to find happiness, despite the fact that she has no hope of going to school or making any life choices in the feudal, patriarchal world in which she finds herself. Poignant and compelling, Wild Boar in the Cane Field depicts the tragedy that often characterizes the lives of those who live in South Asia—and demonstrates the heroism we are all capable of even in the face of traumatic realities.

What happens when a troubled young woman dares to follow the stirrings of her soul in turbulent times? Elmina begins life with a troubled childhood in a medieval French town—a childhood that turns her into a spiritually seeking young woman who dares to follow the stirrings of her soul. Her idealism and love lead her to leave a Cathar school and follow the man who will become Saint Dominic. As the world around her erupts into the Albigensian Crusade, Elmina finds herself complicit in its horror, and her spiritual and emotional life begins to unravel. With the aid of the counsel of her wise prior, Brother Noel, Elmina learns to paint her experiences within a sacred circle—a practice that helps her discover the origins of her lifelong fears and wrestle with questions that are as divisive today as they were eight centuries ago: the nature of God, the purpose of creation, the nature of evil, and the possibility of reincarnation.

Ancient Synagogues - Archaeology and Art. New Discoveries and Current Research presents archaeological evidence - the architecture, art, Jewish symbols, zodiac, biblical tales, inscriptions, and coins – which attest to the importance of the synagogue. When considered as a whole, all these pieces of evidence confirm the centrality of the synagogue institution in the life of the Jewish communities all through Israel and in the Diaspora. Most importantly, the synagogue and its art and architecture played a powerful role in the preservation of the fundamental beliefs, customs, and traditions of the Jewish people following the destruction of the Second Temple and the loss of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The book also includes a supplement of the report on the Qazion excavation.

Just days after Jacob and Kristine Watson celebrated their thirty-third wedding anniversary, Kristine unexpectedly passed away while on a family reunion. Jacob was devastated, engulfed in grief. A writer, he did the only thing he knew: he wrote. In Gifts of Grief, Watson shares his story as he describes the unexpected gifts he received, not only from friends and neighbors, but from the universe, soap bubbles, a hummingbird, a neighbor’s cellar candle, green tree leaves overhead, an offshore ocean chorus, sailing on a wooden schooner, an English teapot, and monarch butterflies. Through his journaling, Watson learned more about who he was and who he was becoming as a widower. He tells how grief can’t be scheduled. It has its own way. Grief is now simply a part of him. In Gifts of Grief, he offers his encouragement to others to trust grief, to acknowledge it, and to find a way to express it.

There is perhaps no greater constant in religious intuition and experience than the presence of light. In spiritual traditions East and West, light is not only ubiquitous but something that assumes strikingly similar forms in altogether different historical and cultural settings. This study examines light as an aspect of religiously valued experiences and its entailments for mystical theology, philosophy, politics, and religious art. The essays in this volume make an important contribution to religious studies by proposing that it is misleading to conceive of religious experience in terms of an irreconcilable dichotomy between universality and cultural construction. An esteemed group of contributors, representing the study of Asian and Western religious traditions from a range of disciplinary perspectives, suggests that attention to various forms of divine radiance shows that there is indeed a range of principles that, if not universal, are nevertheless very widely occurring and amenable to fruitful comparative inquiry. What results is a work of enormous scope, demonstrating compelling cross-connections that will be of value to scholars of comparative religions, mysticism, and the relationship between art and the sacred. Contributors: * Catherine B. Asher * Raoul Birnbaum * Sarah Iles Johnston * Matthew T. Kapstein * Andrew Louth * Paul E. Muller-Ortega * Elliot R. Wolfson * Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan * Hossein Ziai