Blessed Anastacia describes how popular Christianity confronts everyday racism and contributes to the formation of racial identity. The author concludes... that if organizers of the black consciousness movement were to recognize the profound racial meaning inherent in this area of popular religiosity, they might be more successful in bridging the gap with its poor and working-class constituency.

This book offers a powerful and searching meditation on the lives of the saints and the images of them painted by Renaissance artists in Italy. Robert... Kiely, a distinguished scholar of modernist literature and a historian and critic of exceptional sensibility, has a keen eye and uncanny ability to capture details of significance and to prompt the reader to look again and to see with fresh eyes that the lives of saints and the Renaissance depictions of them are anything but dull, uniform, or narrowly orthodox. His beautifully written and thoughtful book treats saints seriously as human religious figures (not icons of perfection), brought to life by great Italian paintings in dialogue with scripture, legend, and poetry.Wise, learned, and readable, and offering a rare combination of insight into religion, literature, and art, this ravishingly illustrated and vividly written volume should be by your side whenever you pick up a classic text, look at a Renaissance painting, or spend a few moments in private meditation or prayer.

In an America where the rich and fortunate have free rein to do as they please, can the ideal of liberty and justice for all be anything but an empty... slogan? Many Americans are doubtful, and have withdrawn into apathy and cynicism. But thousands of others are not ready to give up on democracy just yet. Working outside the notice of the national media, ordinary citizens across the nation are meeting in living rooms, church basements, synagogues, and schools to identify shared concerns, select and cultivate leaders, and take action. Their goal is to hold big government and big business accountable. In this important new book, Jeffrey Stout bears witness to the successes and failures of progressive grassroots organizing, and the daunting forces now arrayed against it. Stout tells vivid stories of people fighting entrenched economic and political interests around the country. From parents and teachers striving to overcome gang violence in South Central Los Angeles, to a Latino priest north of the Rio Grande who brings his parish into a citizens' organization, to the New Orleans residents who get out the vote by taking a jazz band through streets devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Stout describes how these ordinary people conceive of citizenship, how they acquire and exercise power, and how religious ideas and institutions contribute to their successes. The most important book on organizing and grassroots democracy in a generation, Blessed Are the Organized is a passionate and hopeful account of how our endangered democratic principles can be put into action.

For two thousand years, artists, social and cultural activists, politicians and philosophers, humanists and devoted spiritual seekers have all looked to... the sayings of Jesus for inspiration and instruction. Unfortunately, on occasions too frequent and destructive to enumerate, the teachings of Christ have been either ignored or distorted by the very people calling themselves Christian. Today, we see a vigorous movement in America fueled by a politicized and engaged portion of the electorate involved in just such ignorance and distortion. Whether directed towards social intolerance or attitudes of warlike aggression, these right-wing citizens have claimed a power of influence that far exceeds their numbers.This small book collects the sayings of Jesus, selected by Mr. Berry, who has contributed an essay of introduction. Here is a way of peace as described and directed by the greatest spiritual teacher in the West. This is a book of inspiration and prayerful compassion, and we may hope a ringing call to action at a time when our country and the world it once led stand at a dangerous crossroads.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is arguably the most important written document of the civil rights protest era and a widely... read modern literary classic. Personally addressed to eight white Birmingham clergymen who sought to avoid violence by publicly discouraging King's civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, the nationally published "Letter" captured the essence of the struggle for racial equality and provided a blistering critique of the gradualist approach to racial justice. It soon became part of American folklore, and the image of King penning his epistle from a prison cell remains among the most moving of the era. Yet as S. Jonathan Bass explains in the first comprehensive history of King's "Letter," this image and the piece's literary appeal conceal a much more complex tale.

This book takes you on a lively, sometimes light-hearted, journey through nine Buddhist practices that can bring "blessed relief" to a wide range of... human suffering--and teaches you the skills to reduce suffering in the long term for yourself and others: The practices include: Three-Minute Breathing Space-a breathing practice to loosen the grip of suffering The Work--a way to engage and question limiting views, thoughts, and opinions The Practice of Inquiry--a practice to deconstruct ten common assumptions The Sacred Breath--a way to be present in each moment Working with RAIN--an acronym that can help you come through emotional storms Nonviolent Communication (NVC)--four steps to more peaceful communication The Practice of Beginning Anew--a ritual to deepen communication with your partner The Five Remembrances--a meditation on mortality and the preciousness of life Compassion Practice--a guided meditation to cultivate compassion As you read the chapters and engage in each practice, you will work with your own stories of suffering--stories in which you have felt abandoned, deprived, subjugated, defective, excluded, or vulnerable--and you will learn how to release yourself from suffering by investigating it with curiosity and kindness.

The New York Times bestselling examination of the worldwide movement for social and environmental change Paul Hawken has spent more than a decade... researching organizations dedicated to restoring the environment and fostering social justice. From billion-dollar nonprofits to single-person dot.causes, these groups collectively comprise the largest movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader, or location and that has gone largely ignored by politicians and the media. Blessed Unrest explores the diversity of the movement, its brilliant ideas, innovative strategies, and centuries of hidden history. A culmination of Hawken?s many years of leadership in the environmental and social justice fields, it will inspire all who despair of the world?s fate, and its conclusions will surprise even those within the movement itself.

Stories filled with wonder and the haunting beauty of his culture have helped make Rudolfo Anaya the father of Chicano literature in English, and his... tales fairly shimmer with the lyric richness of his prose. Acclaimed in both Spanish and English, Anaya is perhaps best loved for his classic bestseller ... Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima comes to stay with his family in New Mexico. She is a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic. Under her wise wing, Tony will test the bonds that tie him to his people, and discover himself in the pagan past, in his father's wisdom, and in his mother's Catholicism. And at each life turn there is Ultima, who delivered Tony into the world-and will nurture the birth of his soul.

From Library Journal
Besides winning the Premio Quinto Sol national Chicano literary award, this novel of a young boy in New Mexico in the 1940s has... sold more than 300,000 copies in paperback since its 1973 debut. Here, however, the book gets the hardcover treatment, with a few illustrations added for color. LJ's reviewer asserted that "the novel has warmth and feeling" (LJ 2/1/73) and a place in all fiction collections, especially those serving Chicano populations.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. About the Author
Rudolfo Anaya is professor emeritus of English at the University of New Mexico. He was one of the first winners of the Premio Quinto Sol National Chicano literary award. Winner of the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction for his novel Alburquerque , he is best-loved for his classic bestseller Bless Me, Ultima . His other works include Zia Summer, Rio Grande Fall, Jalamanta, Tortuga, Heart of Aztlan , and The Anaya Reader . He has also written numerous short stories, essays, and children's books, including The Farolitos of Christmas and Maya's Children .

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. An alienated New Mexico boy seeks answers to his questions about life through his relationship with Ultima, a... magical healer.

In Bligh, the story of the most notorious of all Pacific explorers is told through a new lens as a key episode in the history of the world, rather than... simply of the West. Award-winning anthropologist Anne Salmond recounts with a fresh perspective the triumphs and disasters of William Bligh's life in a riveting narrative that for the first time portrays the Pacific islanders as players. Beginning in 1777, when Bligh, at twenty-two, first arrived in Tahiti with Captain Cook, Salmond charts Bligh's three Pacific voyages--and tells how they transformed lives on the islands as well as on board the ships and back in Europe. She sheds new insight into the mutiny aboard the Bounty--and on Bligh's remarkable 3,000-mile journey across the Pacific in a small boat--through revelations from the raw, unguarded letters between him and his wife Betsy. This beautifully told story reveals Bligh for the first time, as an important ethnographer adding to the paradoxical legacy of this famed seaman, and it captures more definitively than ever the excitement, drama, and terror of these events.