Decision Making & Spiritual Discernment

Title: Decision Making & Spiritual Discernment: The Sacred Art Of Finding Your Way
Author: Nancy L. Bieber
Publisher: Skylight Paths Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-59473-289-8

From the publisher: Spiritual discernment is the traditional name for listening and responding to divine guidance. In this book you will approach decision making as an active participant, a co-creator with God in shaping your life. Drawing on twenty-five years of experience as a psychologist and fifteen years as a spiritual director, Nancy L. Bieber presents three essential aspects of Spirit-led decision making:

• Willingness—being open to God’s wisdom and love

• Attentiveness—noticing what is true, discerning the right path

• Responsiveness—taking steps forward as the way becomes clear.

With gentle encouragement, Bieber shows how to weave these themes together to discover the best path for you.

Each chapter is enriched by practical spiritual exercises to help you understand yourself and your specific situation, as well as to strengthen spiritual discernment as a daily way of life. An appendix includes a detailed guide for using the book in group study.

The Governor

Title: The Governor: The Life & Times of the Man Who Ran Mountjoy
Author: John Lonergan
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9781844882403

From the publisher: In his talks to communities throughout the length and breath of Ireland, John Lonergan finds himself coming back to one theme: the importance of kindness. It is an unexpected theme for the former boss of Ireland's biggest and toughest prison, Mountjoy, but then John Lonergan is an unusual man.

John entered the prison service in 1968 and in the years that followed, as he saw human nature at its worst - and often, unexpectedly, at its best - he developed a deep understanding both of human nature and of Irish society.

Now, after 42 years in the service, 26 of them as the most senior prison officer in the country, John tells his fascinating life story - from his idyllic childhood in rural Tipperary, to coming face to face with the ugliest face of Irish life, to grappling with the politics of working in a service that was the plaything of officials and politicians. His description of life in the prison service is not only a gripping account of humanity at its rawest, but also an invaluable primer for anyone in top level management.

Revealing, surprising and inspiring The Governor gives a unique insight into modern Ireland.

From the review by Ivana Bacik: This honest, forthright and highly readable account of his career is written in his distinctive voice. It can often be a grim tale, but it is lightened by Lonergan’s innate faith in humanity. He displays real empathy for the prisoners under his care, commenting that “some children are born into circumstances where the odds are so stacked against them it is almost impossible for them to overcome the obstacles in their path”.... In writing this thoughtful and compassionate book, John Lonergan is shining a welcome light on a shamefully neglected area. Ministers and policy makers alike have much to learn from his vast experience as prison governor, and from the sensible, humane and rational prison reforms that he so powerfully advocates. Read the full review

Letters From Burma

Title: Letters From Burma
Author: Aung San Suu Kyi
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780141041445

From the publisher: In these unforgettable letters, Aung San Suu Kyi reaches out beyond Burma's borders to paint for her readers a vivid and poignant picture of her native land.

Here she celebrates the courageous army officers, academics, actors and everyday people who have supported the National League for Democracy, often at great risk to their own lives. She reveals the impact of political decisions on the people of Burma, from the terrible cost to the children of imprisoned dissidents - allowed to see their parents for only fifteen minutes every fortnight - to the effect of inflation on the national diet and of state repression on traditions of hospitality. She also evokes the beauty of the country's seasons and scenery, customs and festivities, that remain so close to her heart.

Through these remarkable letters, the reader catches a glimpse of exactly what is at stake as Suu Kyi fights on for freedom in Burma, and of the love for her homeland that sustains her non-violent battle.

The Bread Of Angels

Title: The Bread Of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith
Author: Stephanie Saldana
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 978-0-385-52200-7

From the publisher: In 2004, twenty-seven-year old Stephanie Saldaña arrives in Damascus with a broken heart and a haunted family history that she has crossed the world to escape. She has come on a fellowship to study the role of Jesus in Islam, but speaks very little Arabic, has no friends in the city, and has no place to live. Nor is it an ideal time to be in the region—the United States has recently invaded neighboring Iraq, and refugees are flooding into the streets of Damascus. Still, Stephanie does the only thing she can think of: she begins knocking on doors in the Christian Quarter, asking strangers if they have a room to rent. So begins The Bread of Angels, the unforgettable memoir of one woman’s search for faith, love, and the meaning of her life in the place she least expects to find it.

Before long, Stephanie is offered an airy room in a glorious, dilapidated house. She begins to stumble through Arabic and to make the Old City her home. But after a series of disheartening developments, she leaves to spend a month in an ancient Christian monastery carved into the Syrian desert cliffs. There in the austere, beautiful landscape she finally begins to face the past she has been running from and to confront her wavering faith.

She is joined in her search for God and self-knowledge by a series of improbable teachers: the Sheikha, a female Muslim scholar who guides her through the Quran; Hassan, an Iraqi refugee who shows her the poetry that exists in war; the Baron, an Armenian neighbor who fusses over her like an eccentric relative; and finally Frédéric, a young French novice monk who becomes her best friend.

The Bread of Angels is the story of the unlikely year that changed Stephanie Saldaña’s life. Wise, funny, and heartbreaking by turns, it celebrates the beauty of faith, the necessity of self-discovery, and the possibility of true love.

Bible

Title: Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011
Author: Gordon Campbell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 978-0-19-955759-2

From the publisher: This is a history of the King James Version of the Bible (known in Britain as the Authorised Version) over the four hundred years from its remote beginnings to the present day.

Gordon Campbell, expert in Renaissance literatures, tells the fascinating and complex story of how this translation came to be commissioned, of who the translators were, and of how the translation was accomplished. The story does not end with the printing of that first edition, but introduces the subsequent generations who edited and interacted with the text. The present text of the King James Version differs in thousands of small details from the original edition. Campbell traces the textual history from 1611 to the establishment of the modern text by Oxford University Press in 1769.

Attitudes to the King James Version have shifted through time and territory, ranging from adulation to deprecation and attracting the attention of a wide variety of adherents. It is more widely read in America today than in any other country, and its particular history in there is given due attention.

Generously illustrated with reproductions taken from early editions, this volume helps to explain the enduring popularity of the King James Version throughout the world today.