Someday we all reach the end of our journey through life and pass on. How do we conduct ourselves at that point? Can we change or alter the issues in ourselves we have encountered? "Crooked Path" illustrates through the dynamic story of Peter Stevens that eventually we all have to examine our own makeup and come to terms with who and what we are. Every person will inevitably examine and judge his own faults and strengths. Are you ready to look?

Esther Cox is challenged with coping with the death of her husband, Samuel, and raising her teenage daughter, whose heart has drifted from God. David Fisher is a well-respected farmer in the town of Williamsville, Missouri. His heart is broken over his wife, Sadie. He is determined not to give his heart to another. Will He open his heart to love again?

From the bestselling author of The Girl From the Train, comes another compelling coming of age story of delayed love, loss, and reconciliation in WWII-era South Africa. Lettie has always felt different from and overshadowed by the women around her– this friend is richer, that friend is more beautiful, those friends are closer. Still, she doesn’t let this hold her back. She works hard to apply her mind, trying to compensate for her perceived lack of beauty with diligent academic work and a successful career as a doctor. She learns to treasure her friendships, but she still wonders if any man will ever return her interest. Marco’s experience in the second world war have robbed him of love and health. When winters in his native Italy prove dangerous to his health even after the war has ended, he moves to South Africa to be with his brother, husband to one of Lettie’s best friends. Marco is Lettie’s first patient, and their relationship grows as she aids him on the road back to restored health. In the company of beloved characters from The Child of the River, Marco and Lettie find a happiness that neither of them thought possible. With that joy comes pain and loss, but Lettie learns that life—while perhaps a crooked path—is always a journey worth taking.

Part the thorny bramble and take a walk along the bewitchingly mysterious Crooked Path. Within these pages discover a wealth of hands-on tips and techniques to begin your journey into the realm of Traditional Witchcraft. Learn to weave a powerful personal practice that is informed by folklore and grounded in your own location and natural landscape. Along the way you will find valuable information regarding the tools, rituals, and spells of this fascinating tradition, together with lessons on connecting with deities, familiar spirits, ancestors, and the spirits of place. With supportive advice and encouragement, Kelden provides everything you need to successfully navigate your own path, helping you master even advanced practices such as hedge-crossing as you transform your day-to-day experience into a life filled with magic and spirit.

Issue 1 of The Crooked Path Journal contains the following articles: Inside the Wicker Man - Peter Paddon The Origin of the Word "Witch" - R.J. Thompson Witch's Ritual For Getting Rid of Evil Magic - "Ku Potula" - Radomir Ristic Tapping the Bone - Peter Paddon Morning - Hedgewizard Usage of Animals and Animal Body Parts in Traditional Witchcraft - Radomir Ristic Candlemas and the Land Ceremonies Charm R.J. Thompson Cosmic Soup and the Mighty Dead - Peter Paddon The Rite of Candlemas and the Land Ceremonies Charm R.J. Thompson Blacksmith as Magus - Radomir Ristic Celtic Nine Poems - Peter Paddon As I Do Will It - Ann Finnin Walking the Crooked Path - Peter Paddon Turning The Hand of Fate - Raven Womack Making a Traditional Witches' Besom - Peter Paddon The Crooked Path Journal is a quarterly magazine for Traditional Witches, Cunningfolk and other practitioners of the Nameless Art.

Issue 2 of The Crooked Path Journal contains the following articles: Artemisia - Eric De Vries Bag of Bones - Steven Posch Balkan Traditional Witchcraft - Radomir Ristic Sympathetic Magic - R.J. Thompson The Call - Veronica Cummer The Dragon and the Dragon Slayer - Robin Artisson Away With the Fairies - M.V. Wragg Childe Ballad 243 - Steven Posch Scourges and Traditional Craft - Radomir Ristic Occult Significance of the Crossing Rite - R.J. Thompson Cupmarks - Steven Posch Great Spirits of Fate - Radomir Ristic Virtues and Ethics - R.J. Thompson Young Hornie Steals Fire - Steven Posc

Winning is awesome, but is it worth achieving at any cost? That's just what ten-year-old Geri Martile will have to find out. Geri is excited For The upcoming soccer season, even more so when she learns she and her best friend, Yvonne, are going to be the co-captains of the Bayside Blasters. Geri is determined to be the best, and she is sure that things on the team need to change if they are going to win the big championship game against the Clayton Canyon Cannonballs. Soon she is telling the girls they shouldn't goof off at practice and that they should do homework at lunchtime so they'll have more time to practice, because they have to win. As Geri begins to belittle her teammates For The smallest mistakes and lose their respect, Yvonne tries to reach out, but Geri just thinks Yvonne doesn't want to win. Geri's bad attitude leads her down the Crooked Path to Victory, which she will discover isn't fun to follow alone. Will she ever learn the true meaning of victory?

Having spent almost fifty years in ministry both in America and abroad, I have experienced many un-Christian acts committed by those who should be Christian examples. Here, I catalogue some of those acts and describe the crooked path on the straight and narrow.

"After discussions of the media environments in the three countries, an overview and critique of current theories of media systems highlight how existing frameworks rest on the misguided presumption that nations and their press freedom landscapes exist within a state of linear democratization-that societies have progressed and will continue to progress from non-democracy to democracy-when, in actuality, specific events can unravel structures and derail democracy-building processes. Many existing frameworks are grounded in Western ways of thinking and tend to take a universalistic approach to the press that doesn't account for transitions and change. Press freedom means different things in different countries and within different contexts, making it difficult for any theory to aptly apply, thus, a more detailed set of considerations for understanding media systems outside of the Western world is needed"--

Finalist for the 2022 Lincoln Prize An award-winning scholar uncovers the guiding principles of Lincoln’s antislavery strategies. The long and turning path to the abolition of American slavery has often been attributed to the equivocations and inconsistencies of antislavery leaders, including Lincoln himself. But James Oakes’s brilliant history of Lincoln’s antislavery strategies reveals a striking consistency and commitment extending over many years. The linchpin of antislavery for Lincoln was the Constitution of the United States. Lincoln adopted the antislavery view that the Constitution made freedom the rule in the United States, slavery the exception. Where federal power prevailed, so did freedom. Where state power prevailed, that state determined the status of slavery, and the federal government could not interfere. It would take state action to achieve the final abolition of American slavery. With this understanding, Lincoln and his antislavery allies used every tool available to undermine the institution. Wherever the Constitution empowered direct federal action—in the western territories, in the District of Columbia, over the slave trade—they intervened. As a congressman in 1849 Lincoln sponsored a bill to abolish slavery in Washington, DC. He reentered politics in 1854 to oppose what he considered the unconstitutional opening of the territories to slavery by the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He attempted to persuade states to abolish slavery by supporting gradual abolition with compensation for slaveholders and the colonization of free Blacks abroad. President Lincoln took full advantage of the antislavery options opened by the Civil War. Enslaved people who escaped to Union lines were declared free. The Emancipation Proclamation, a military order of the president, undermined slavery across the South. It led to abolition by six slave states, which then joined the coalition to affect what Lincoln called the "King’s cure": state ratification of the constitutional amendment that in 1865 finally abolished slavery.