Are you ready to take a good look at your soul? This small book by Mindy Caliguire will help you do the hard—but good and necessary—work of self-examination, taking an honest look inside and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead, guide, and work. Complete these daily readings in four weeks, using four guided group discussions with a small group or a spiritual friend.

Sentimental Confessions is a groundbreaking study of evangelicalism, sentimentalism, and nationalism in early African American holy women’s autobiography. At its core are analyses of the life writings of six women--Maria Stewart, Jarena Lee, Zilpha Elaw, Nancy Prince, Mattie J. Jackson, and Julia Foote--all of which appeared in the mid-nineteenth century. Joycelyn Moody shows how these authors appropriated white-sanctioned literary conventions to assert their voices and to protest the racism, patriarchy, and other forces that created and sustained their poverty and enslavement. In doing so, Moody also reveals the wealth of insights that could be gained from these kinds of writings if we were to acknowledge the spiritual convictions of their authors--if we read them because (not although) they are holy texts. The deeply held, passionately expressed beliefs of these women, says Moody, should not be brushed aside by scholars who may be tempted to view them as naïve or as indicative only of the racial, class, and gender oppressions these women suffered. In addition, Moody promotes new ways of looking at dictated narratives without relegating them to a status below self-authored texts. Helping to recover a neglected chapter of American literary history, Sentimental Confessions is filled with insights into the state of the nation in the nineteenth century.

Sharing experiences and insights from his visits to monasteries over the years, popular speaker and university professor Randy Harris invites us into a richer, fuller life in the Spirit. Today there is a new hunger in the Christian community to live out radical and authentic faith in Christ. The days of easy answers and sound-bite Christianity are fading. Where do you go to find such faith being lived out? Randy Harris--popular college teacher and well-known preacher--turned to monasteries and hermits in his search for answers. "When I decided I wanted to learn how to pray," he explains, "I sought those who had spent their lives praying. When I wanted to learn to 'be still and know that he is God, ' I sought those for whom silence is a way of life. As I sought stability and balance, I found a way of life that has endured for 1500 years. I didn't exactly want to become a monk or hermit, but I did want to learn what they know--and it has become a life-changing journey." Most of us don't have time to visit a monastery or a hermit's retreat for a week or a month. So Randy Harris shows how the monastery can come to us. With wisdom, gentle humor, and captivating insight, Harris guides us on an unforgettable spiritual journey into a hidden world that very few will ever experience. You will learn prayer, humility, surrender, and quietness along this well-traveled path. And you may find yourself becoming a radical Jesus follower.

Examines Jesuit techniques of self-formation, confessional practices, and the relationships between spiritual directors and their subjects that were folded into a dynamic that shaped new concepts of self and fueled the global Catholic missionary movement.

Former feminist and atheist Murray presents a powerful, insightful account of her journey from a radical feminist and nihilistic lifestyle to a seriously committed Christian woman, revealing and critiquing her former errant feminist ideas about the meaning of womanity, sexuality, love, motherhood, children, morality, men, etc. Even though she attained a masters degree in English and a Ph. D. in Philosophy, for many years after her college life, including as a philosophy professor, she lived the life of a feminist rebel. Her story of how she escaped from that darkness into the light of Gods truth and goodness is an inspiring witness for all.

The true diversity of the American experience comes to life in this superlative collection of autobiographies—including those of Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglas, Mark Twain, and more... A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682), perhaps the first American bestseller, recounts this thirty-nine-year-old woman’s harrowing months as the captive of Narragansett Indians. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771–1789), the most famous of all American autobiographies, gives a lively portrait of a chandler’s son who became a scientist, inventor, educator, diplomat, humorist—and a Founding Father of this land. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), the gripping slave narrative that helped change the course of American history, reveals the true nature of the black experience in slavery. Old Times on the Mississippi (1875), Mark Twain’s unforgettable account of a riverboat pilot’s life, established his signature style and shows us the metamorphosis of a man into a writer. Four Autobiographical Narratives (1900–1902), published in the Atlantic Monthly by Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird), also known as Gertrude Bonnin, provide us with a voice too seldom heard: a Native American woman fighting for her culture in the white man’s world. Edited and with an Introduction by William L. Andrews and an Afterword by Paul John Eakin