Olives and Obligations is a collection of stories, scripts and reflections written by Iona Community members, associates, friends and others. The collection is based on the biblical books from Genesis to Nehemiah. Esther to Maccabees will follow. There are some beautiful stories in the Bible and there are some hideous stories as well. What do we do with them? Do we tell them in Sunday school? Do we omit them from the lectionary? Do we try to explain them? Stories are important. Stories are powerful.

Collects poems on a variety of topics, including the joys and anxieties of marriage and motherhood.

Possessing a powerful love for both Palestine and its people, Fida Islaih works to understand their struggles as she endures her own. Though she has yet to travel to Palestine, a deep rooted desire to do so inspires her and comes through in her lovely poetry. Join Fida on her poetic journey through life and share her inspiration.

Juan Narvaez is a young boy living in the dying town of Alborde. Once famous for its great olive trees, Alborde has lost its prosperity and population as the people who cultivated the land move from place to place across the country as migrant workers to supplement their meager incomes. The children of the migrant workers, Juan's young friends, are forced to go with their parents, losing out on the opportunity for a proper education and thus a future different from their parents. Juan realizes things have to change, and with the help of his grandfather, affectionately named Fello, he develops a plan to transform Alborde into a place where families can stay year-round, generating jobs and business opportunities, one step at a time, through civic involvement and thoughtful activism. Originally published in Spanish, The Space Between the Olives: A Story of Civic Engagement is based on a true story. It is a tale of courage, solidarity, civic action, and commitment. Author Lily Guzman shows those interested in community development how to participate and act to improve the lives of citizens at the core of an organized society: the municipality. It is a much-needed example to inspire readers to produce significant changes in their own communities at the grassroots level. Lily Guzman is currently an international business development consultant for LGA Inc. She represents the U.S. in the Ibero-American Union of Municipalists (UIM), an international municipal government organization, under which she has managed several exchange programs between U.S. institutions and Latin America and Spain, including the Stetson University faculty and students exchange program, the Stetson University law exchange program with the Universities of Granada and Malaga, the Latin American Studies Program Municipal Government Internship, and the yearly Latin American Mayors and Municipal Workers Workshop in central Florida. Lily Guzman has also served as Latin America Coordinator for the Greater Fort Lauderdale Sister Cities Organization. She is the author of The Caterpillar Story/La Historia de la Oruga and Mas Alla de Mi, a book of poetry and short stories.

Pittsburgh Theological Monograph Series General Editor - Dikran Y. Hadidian

This book of 'olives' is the result of many years' endeavours in collecting valuable information from the existing literature concerning the olive tree and its culture; a proportion of this information, and experience, has originated from scientific projects of the author and his scientific team. Topics include all aspects of olive culture, from its history, through traditional practices to modern techniques and horticultural procedures. Furthermore, this book covers the basic physiological and horticultural principles of olive culture in both theory and practice. The objective is to provide knowledge appropriate for students, scientists, both experienced and inexperienced horticulturists and, in general, for anyone wishing to obtain knowledge and experience of olive culture to increase productivity and improve product quality.

How many otherwise well-educated readers know that the familiar orange carrot was once a novelty? It is a little more than 400 years old. Domesticated in Afghanistan in 900 AD, the purple carrot, in fact, was the dominant variety until Dutch gardeners bred the young upstart in the seventeenth century. After surveying paintings from this era in the Louvre and other museums, Dutch agronomist Otto Banga discovered this stunning transformation. The story of the carrot is just one of the hidden tales this book recounts. Through portraits of a wide range of foods we eat and love, from artichokes to strawberries, The Carrot Purple traces the path of foods from obscurity to familiarity. Joel Denker explores how these edible plants were, in diverse settings, invested with new meaning. They acquired not only culinary significance but also ceremonial, medicinal, and economic importance. Foods were variously savored, revered, and reviled. This entertaining history will enhance the reader’s appreciation of a wide array of foods we take for granted. From the carrot to the cabbage, from cinnamon to coffee, from the peanut to the pistachio, the plants, beans, nuts, and spices we eat have little-known stories that are unearthed and served here with relish.