Transforming Wisdom

If you put aside what you think you know about Jesus and approach the Gospels as though for the first time, something remarkable happens: Jesus emerges as a teacher of the transformation of consciousness. Cynthia Bourgeault is a masterful guide to Jesus' vision and to the traditional contemplative practices you can use to experience the heart of his teachings for yourself.

The Illumination Process guides the listener on a healing journey, forged by the timeless wisdom of indigenous cultures and the latest theories of neurobiology. Through various stages in this journey of initiation, we grow to understand the causes of our suffering and how to free ourselves from the pain and drama of our unhealed emotions. Life itself invites us to be initiated through many means - the possibility of love, the loss of a parent or friend, the birth of a child, or a serious health crisis.

Living in Southern California, Gary Carmell has become very familiar with tectonic shifts: cataclysmic changes in the Earth’s crust that cause earthquakes and tsunamis. Carmell has also experienced numerous tectonic shifts in the economic landscape in his nearly 30-year investing career. Correctly anticipating economic trends has allowed his real estate investment and management firm, CWS Capital Partners LLC, to grow from assets of $250 million in the late 1980s to over $3 billion today.

We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the church. Not since the Reformation five centuries ago have so many Christians come together to ask whether the church is in sync with their deepest beliefs and commitments. These believers range from evangelicals to mainline Protestants to Catholics, and the person who best represents them is author and pastor Brian McLaren. In this much anticipated book, McLaren examines ten questions facing today's church - questions about how to articulate the faith itself, the nature of its authority, who God is....

One of the world's most popular Tibetan lamas shares accessible advice for working with adversity and living a spiritual life. Enjoy a variety of meditations on topics from flattery and jealousy to karma and compassion. In each brief chapter, Khenpo Sodargye weaves in stories from ancient classics and modern headlines. Drawing on adages from the Buddha, Confucius, and even Mark Twain, he delivers simple and timeless insights about facing adversity and developing a good heart.

For decades the accepted wisdom has been that America's mainline Protestant churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is the result of her extensive, three-year study of centrist and progressive churches across the country. Her surprising findings reveal just the opposite - that many of the churches are flourishing, and they are doing so without resorting to mimicking the mega-church, evangelical style. Christianity for the Rest of Us describes this phenomenon....