Usually when we pray we try to shut out the outside world and focus on the interior, the spiritual, in order to be able to be with God. Instead, this book invites us to be with God through the very tangible, specific objects of our everyday life. We're invited to take another look--as well as another listen, taste, touch, and smell--at what is right before us and see God there. A rock, a shoe, a pen--all offer an opportunity for entering into prayer and experiencing God's presence.

"This book compares two mystical works central to the Christian Discalced Carmelite and the Hindu Bhakti traditions: the sixteenth-century Spanish Cántico espiritual (Spiritual Canticle), by John of the Cross, and the Sanskrit Rāsa Līlā, originated in the oral tradition. These texts are examined alongside theological commentaries: for the Cántico, the Comentarios written by John of the Cross on his own poem; for Rāsa Līlā, the foundational commentary by Srīdhara Swāmi along with commentaries by the sixteenth-century theologian Jīva Goswāmī, from the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava school, and other Gauḍīya theologians. The phrase "savoring God" in the title conveys the Spanish gustar a Dios (to savor God) and the Sanskrit madhura bhakti rasa (the sweet savor of divine love). While "savoring" does not mean exactly the same thing for these theologians, they use the term to define a theopoetics at work in their respective traditions. The book's methodology transposes their notions of "savoring" to advance a comparative theopoetics grounded in the interaction of poetry and theology. The first chapter explains in detail how theopoetics is regarded considering each text and how they are compared. The comparison is then laid out across Chapters 2, 3, and 4, each of which examines one of the three central moments of the theopoetic experience of savoring that is represented in the Cántico and Rāsa Līlā: the absence and presence of God, the relationship between embodiment and savoring, and the fulfilment of the encounter between the divine and the lovers"--

What does a clock or calendar, a map, a newspaper or bandage, a set of measuring cups or a basket have to do with prayer? Kathleen Finley not only tells about how to pray with all our senses, but also shows us how, using Scripture as well as factual information about a wide variety of everyday objects, to help us take seriously how everything has the potential to be holy in light of Jesus' incarnation. If folding your hands and closing your eyes doesn't always work for you as a posture of prayer, this excursion into new possibilities for prayer may be for you.

...This book is more than a mere collection of recipes. Sattered throughout its pages are thirty boxed features on local phenomena: festivals such as Diwali and Pongal; specialty ingredients like cashew-fruit liquor, tamarind, and saffron; customs such as serpent worship and the giving of food to the gods; and Indian cooking utensils, including the karhai, tandoor, and stone spice-grinder...reveals how geography, history, religion, and culture have combined to influence the food of India. --cover.

The notion that the world is filled with holy sparks is shared by religious traditions around the world. Learn to uncover this sacred dimension and you will begin to both hallow the world and be healed by its powers. These 101 lively reflections will help you learn to look outward and discover a spark of the divine in everyday objects, activities, experiences, and the glories of the natural world.

In Dangerous Wonder, Michael Yaconelli invites you to recapture the joy of being a child and apply it to your relationship with God. He encourages you to take Jesus at his word when told his hearers they must become as little children to enter his kingdom.

Recovers and examines the visionary experiences of Mother Juana de la Cruz, the most famous visionary woman during her lifetime and for two centuries afterwards.

120 daily readings encompass many topics, from personal concerns to public and cultural issues, rooted in the Scriptures.