Community First

It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At 35. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all-important first year. From finding out her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out her best friend and greatest supporter, Pam, will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events making up a woman’s life.

You are meant to be in relationships that bring joy and connection—that help you know soul-deep peace and leave you feeling loved instead of lonely. Instead, surface-level friendships, filtered social media feeds, unresolved conflicts, and unhealthy relationships can often seem to harm our self-worth, spiritual growth, and mental health—and keep us from the very relationships that could bring that true connection.

What does it mean to be a good citizen at school? Young listeners will learn what it looks like to be a part of a school community.

Ada always looks forward to her summers at the family villa with her mother and grandmother in a Turkish seaside town. It’s easy to leave life in California behind when the days are filled with boat rides, games at the beach, and long swims with friends. But no matter how much Ada feels she belongs in the country where her mother grew up, deep down, her connection to the culture seems as fleeting as the seasons. It’s certainly no help that her mother has lost her own sense of self, rootless and disoriented after so many years abroad.

In 16-year-old Mike Hernandez's life, only one thing is clear: Gay is not okay. His family's life revolves around the church, a church run by the vocally intolerant Pastor Myers, so Mike has resolved to spend his life in the closet. His only escape - besides the occasional, anonymous gay make-out session - is his art. He pours his complicated emotions into risque drawings he keeps in a secret sketchbook. A sketchbook he carries everywhere. When his sketchbook goes missing in the middle of Sunday school, Mike is sure his life is over.

Gun rights and control are well-trodden subjects, with prior work supporting the right of citizens to own firearms, discussing the failure of gun control efforts, or warning about or exhorting citizen gun ownership, among other things. Although social media in their many forms have only come to dominate modern U.S. life during the past decade, there has been little academic exploration of gun owner communities on the Internet and social media.

If you are hungry for a deeper understanding of your life and your relationships, join author D. A. Combs for an engaging and riveting study of god's eternal plan for community. Incorporating topics vitally relevant to the church today, Pastor Combs tackles the issues of community, gender relationships, family relationships, and equality folding them into a biblical understanding within the framework of god's plan for his creation.

Naeem is far from the model teen. Moving fast in his immigrant neighborhood in Queens is the only way he can outrun the eyes of his hardworking Bangladeshi parents and their gossipy neighbors. Even worse, they're not the only ones watching. Cameras on poles. Mosques infiltrated. Everyone knows: Be careful what you say and who you say it to. Anyone might be a watcher.