Spiritual Memoir

At a time when we are all more rudderless than ever, we look for the very best teachers and mentors to guide us. In Fully Alive, an unusual and gripping memoir, Timothy Shriver shows how his teachers have been the world's most forgotten minority: people with intellectual disabilities. In these pages we meet the individuals who helped him come of age and find a deeper and more meaningful way to see the world.

John Dee was one of the greatest scientific minds of his time, but also one of the most controversial. He was a learned man in fields as varied as mathematics and astronomy, centuries before they became formalized fields of study, but he is better remembered for performing magic and alchemy. Instead of astronomy, he became renowned across England for astrology, and he was one of the country’s most notorious occult writers during his life.

From a stranger in a casting office predicting Matt would succeed at a time when he felt like giving up, to deciding to work with Tim Allen after vowing not to work with another comedian after Roseanne, to learning what love really meant after “Spirit” told him he would marry Angelina—Williams realized that these “glimpses of God” have served as the loving, quiet providence that watched over him. Our job, then, is to pay attention to our lives. Regardless of your beliefs Glimpses will inspire you to look for and find God in your daily life.

Although Andrew Jackson gained notoriety as a rakish young man, religion's influence on him ebbed and flowed as he established himself as part of the South's planter elite. With his devout wife, Rachel, he attended church and knew his Bible and religious subjects well, and while his determination to preserve his reputation involved him in numerous personal conflicts—including a duel that led to his killing a rival—he blended the principles of the antebellum South's honor-based culture with his belief in a traditional, orthodox version of Christianity.

Fighting against an addiction to pornography while trying his best to live as a Christian, Matthew Robert Payne is a sinner who has gone through a lot in his efforts to conquer the challenges that life throws at him. In his memoir he speaks of his battle to overcome the past and ensure that he will walk in the future in the grace of God. Yes, there are days when the darkness seems to be gaining ground, but he perseveres and keeps a tight hold to his faith.

When I navigate the currents of the soul, I find myself within my ancestral pool. I find myself swimming in their grief, and the longing during the great event and initiation called the Middle Passage. I find myself in their collective soul journey from a place of homeland to a dream of the Promised Land. This audiobook is a telling of the soul-striving of people of African heritage into the American experience of creating a community - a community created for the possibilities of new covenants within the larger collective sphere of human life.

In You Are Loved, artist Alex Cook intimately relates his creative and spiritual adventures in his quest to create beauty and know God. Anyone longing to bring their own precious vision into reality will find solace and inspiration in these very human stories of a life dedicated to following inspiration. This inspiring collection of stories paints the heartfelt, personal journey of an artist who experiences and observes his inner life with unflinching honesty and strives to live his outer life just as honestly.

In an openhearted memoir of faith on the fringe, Roger Thompson meditates on the life and premature death of his best friend and business partner, Tim Garrety, cofounder of Skate Street Ventura. Roger and Tim's 25 friendship was forged in the surf and on the streets of 1980s California. Together they hazarded countless waves and every rite of passage - from guitars to girls to God - and influenced the lives of thousands of skateboarders, musicians, surfers, and otherwise disconnected youth in the process.

Women today feel a constant pressure to improve themselves and just never feel like they’re “enough.” All too often, they live their daily lives disheartened, disillusioned, and disappointed. That’s because joy doesn’t come from a new self-improvement strategy; it comes from rooting their identity in who God says they are and what he has done on their behalf.

The compelling, beautiful narrative of Code Name God is one man's rags-to-riches story and, more profoundly, the vision of a world-class physicist seeking to integrate the findings of science, religion, and spiritual quest.

The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers focuses on Mr. Rogers' spiritual legacy, but it is much more than that. It shows us a man who, to paraphrase the words of St. Francis of Assisi, "preached the gospel at all times; when necessary he used words".

In Coming Clean, Seth Haines writes a raw account of his first 90 days of sobriety, illuminating how to face the pain we’d rather avoid, and even more importantly, how an abiding God meets us in that pain. Seth shows us that true wholeness is found in facing our pain and anxieties with the tenacity and tenderness of Jesus, and only through Christ's passion can we truly come clean.

Do you feel compelled to run for political office but aren’t sure how or where to begin? Are you a pastor wondering how to address sensitive political issues with your church? Have you felt uncertain in the voting booth and wondered how to fulfill your civic duties without violating your conscience? Do you want to know how to speak to—and be heard by—your local city council or school board?

Finding Joy in Suffering. Quite a title right? Usually you wouldn’t think that joy and suffering would exist together. But in my life, they have. I’ve experienced great suffering and loss early on in my life, and many have asked me how I continue to put a smile on my face having lived through what I have. Ever since I was a kid, my response has been, “I don’t know, it’s because of Jesus.” For a while, I couldn’t understand why I had joy in my heart after my mother died. But I knew that God was providing joy in ways that I couldn’t begin to explain.

George Harrison met Muhammad Ali in 1964, when both men were on the cusp of worldwide fame. We Shook Up the World is the story of these two larger-than-life figures at a momentous time. A unique blend of biography and cultural history, this book goes to the very heart of the zeitgeist that each man inhabited and reinvented in profound and enduring ways.

DEMENTIA and OUR LOVE, Caregiving as spiritual practice, is the story of Gary and Heather's love that sustained them through an unusual and courageous life across continents, including tending Gary and his onset of dementia at 73 years. The story helped them remember their love and use this energy to move through the hard times. We will always remember us this way, a song by Lady Gaga, was pivotal in keeping Heathers focus.

An inside snapshot view of the innovative Seattle church called Mars Hill and its Acts 29 network. This audiobook provides - with a touch of sarcasm and humor - both principles and practices shared from the people actually doing missional church ministry with people often untouched by todays traditional and contemporary churches.

A Life Observed tells the inspiring story of Lewis' spiritual journey from cynical atheist to joyous Christian. Drawing on Lewis' autobiographical works, books by those who knew him personally, and his apologetic and fictional writing, this spiritual biography brings the beloved author’s story to life while shedding light on his best-known works.

Before May 31, 2008, September Vaudrey's life was beautiful. But on that day, with one phone call from the ER, her whole world - everything she knew and believed - was shaken to the core. Katie, her 19-year-old artist daughter, had been in a car accident and would not survive. How does a family live in the wake of devastating tragedy? When darkness colors every moment, is it possible to find light? Can God still be good, even after goodbye?

Join former NBC newsman and Meet the Press moderator David Gregory as he probes various religious traditions to better understand his own faith and answer life's most important questions: Who do we want to be, and what do we believe?