Through his life experiences, author Terry Baze has come to realize the most significant aspect of anyone’s life is how it interacts with and is affected by God. In Our Deepest Longing, he shares parts of his long journey into a deeper, more intimate relationship with God, encouraging other Christians in their efforts to connect with him. A unique combination of Biblical reflection and therapeutic advice, Baze chronicles the things he’s learned about developing intimacy with God through the dynamics and details of his family relationships. He believes God purposefully designed the family to help explain His person and character and to help reveal the nature of his relationship with Him. Our Deepest Longing offers insight into Baze’s experiences to help others foster a deeper, closer walk with God and benefit other relationships throughout the journey. It shows how God reveals himself to us through the family unit.

Do you long for the closeness with God that you've tasted in fleeting moments? You can begin to fill that longing by developing your capacity to receive and respond to God's love. In this rich resource Richard Foster and Gayle Beebe introduce you to people from the past who have known God deeply and model the seven paths to intimacy with God from Christian history.

Ronald Rolheiser makes sense of what is frequently a misunderstood word: spirituality. In posing the question "What is spirituality?" Father Rolheiser gets quickly to the heart of common difficulties with the subject, and shows through compelling anecdotes and personal examples how to channel that restlessness, that deep desire, into a healthy spirituality. This book is for those searching to understand what Christian spirituality means and how to apply it to their own lives. Rolheiser explains the nonnegotiables--the importance of community worship, the imperatives surrounding social action, the centrality of the Incarnation, the sustenance of the spiritual life--and how spirituality necessarily impacts every aspect of human experience. At the core of this readable, deeply revealing book is an explanation of God and the Church in a world that more often than not doubts the credibility of both.

"In this companion volume to God with Us: Critical Issues in Christian Life and Faith, Fr. John Breck continues his exploration of the ethical and moral dilemmas facing believers who live in the flesh but not for the flesh." "Throughout the book, a "holy eros," a longing for God, intersects the mundane and transfigures the ordinary, directing our gaze toward the Love we long to know beyond all else. Fr. John refracts common perceptions - media messages, politically charged statements, and even religious suppositions - through a lens that takes account of the Crucified and Risen Lord."--BOOK JACKET.

At present the battle over who defines our future is being waged most publicly by secular and religious fundamentalists. 'Hope and the Longing for Utopia' offers an alternative position, disclosing a conceptual path toward potential worlds that resist a limited view of human potential and the gift of religion. In addition to outlining the value of embracing unknown potentialities, these twelve interdisciplinary essays explore why it has become crucial that we commit to hoping for values that resist traditional ideological commitments. Contextualized by contemporary writing on utopia, and drawing from a wealth of times and cultures ranging from Calvin's Geneva to early twentieth-century Japanese children's stories to Hollywood cinema, theseessays cumulatively disclose the fundamental importance of resisting tantalizing certainties while considering the importance of the unknown and unknowable. Beginning with a set of four essays outlining the importance of hope and utopia as diagnostic concepts, and following with four concrete examples, the collection ends with a set of essays that provide theological speculations on the need to embrace finitude and limitations in a world increasingly enframed by secularizing impulses. Overall, this book discloses how hope and utopia illuminate ways to think past simplified wishes for the future.

"Longing is the core of mystery. Longing itself brings the cure." Rumi In every tradition, saints and poets speak of the soul's search for the beloved, the seeker's yearning for the divine. This holy longing, a secret feeling with many disguises, leads us to pursue religious discipleship, spiritual practice, romantic union, or an ideal community. It guides us to timeless wisdom and transcendent experience. But it also can go awry, when we misplace it onto objects, such as food, alcohol, drugs, or sex, believing that they will satisfy our craving. Or when we misplace it onto an authoritarian personality, believing that he or she will meet our unmet needs. If this teacher or priest abuses power, we encounter the shadow side of spiritual life. Whether the abuse is sexual, financial, or emotional coercion, we may feel forsaken and lose faith, even in God. The Holy Longing tells the stories of teachers in many traditions Sufi poet Rumi, Hindu master Ramakrishna, Christian saint Catherine of Siena whose lives unfolded as they followed their longing. And it tells the tales of many ordinary people Catholic believers, students of Zen and TM, followers of Trungpa Rinpoche and Rajneesh and their encounters with spiritual shadow. Finally, it offers wise counsel for rekindling the flame of faith-moving through the shadow to the light by reclaiming sacred parts of the self that were lost along the way.

Written in a clear and down-to-earth fashion that weaves together daily life and faith, The Nearness of God draws extensively on scripture and on key elements of the Catholic faith in order to lead the reader on a journey of rediscovery. The journey follows the story of God’s love and longing for his people, God’s gift of his life to creation, God’s gift of himself in covenant and in Christ.

Longing is a universal human experience, born of the inevitable gulf between dream and reality, what we need and what we have. While the experience of longing may arise from loss or the awareness of a void in one's life, it may also become a powerful engine of spiritual growth, prompting one to draw closer to the hidden yet present "Other." Across the range of Jewish teachings, longing takes center stage in one's spiritual life. From the Bible through current frontiers in Jewish belief and practice, God is both known and unknown, immediate and remote, present and in constant eclipse. This book captures the sense of longing in Jewish tradition by creating a dialogue between the author's own struggles with an estranged father and a wide range of traditional and contemporary sources. Focusing on the story of the Hebrew prophet Elisha, the book takes the reader through a journey of abandonment, creative destruction, and ultimately repair and healing, engaging with currents in biblical theology, rabbinic thought, Kabbalah, and contemporary Jewish philosophy. Written in a familiar yet probing style, this book is an accessible introduction to Jewish thought and spirituality as well as a thoughtful companion for more experienced students.

As Christians, we’re on a journey fraught with joys and sorrows, pleasant valleys and perilous mountains, encouraging gains and crippling losses. Whenever we feel besieged on our journey, we tend to turn to whatever we think can help us – and in doing so, often lose sight of our destination. In Longing for Home, Stephen Yuille directs our attention to the help God has given us in the Psalms of Ascent. In this collection of Psalms 120-134, we walk with our brothers and sisters through life’s many ups and downs on our way to Zion, the city of God. The Psalms guide us into the path of God-glorifying desires, God-magnifying emotions, and God-honoring thoughts. They shape our perspectives, equip us to pray in faith, regulate our feelings, inform our judgments and beckon us to fix our eyes heavenward as we journey homeward.

Can we still have joy in a world where hopelessness and and despair are the norm? Offering theologically grounded and research-based practices, Alastair Sterne explores pathways to joy and shows us how to gradually cultivate the deep abiding joy that we were created for and that enriches the world around us.