Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Here, in one of his most popular of his more than thirty books, Thomas Merton provides further meditations on the spiritual life in sixteen thoughtful essays, beginning with his classic treatise "Love Can Be Kept Only by Being Given Away." This sequel to Seeds of Contemplation provides fresh insight into Merton's favorite topics of silence and solitude, while also underscoring the importance of community and... (more)

New Seeds of Contemplation (Shambhala Library)

New Seeds of Contemplation (Shambhala Library)

by Thomas Merton

A much-enlarged and revised version of Seeds of Contemplation--one of the late Father Merton's most widely-read and best-loved works--New Seeds of Contemplation seeks to awaken the dormant inner depths of the spirit so long neglected by Western man and to nurture a deeply contemplative and mystical dimension in our spiritual lives.

The Showings of Julian of Norwich (Norton Critical Editions)

The Showings of Julian of Norwich (Norton Critical Editions)

by Julian

Julian of Norwich is among the most intriguing religious visionaries in Christian history. Carefully edited for the undergraduate reader, this Norton Critical Edition includes an informed introduction, focusing on Julian's theology and preparing students to understand the complex, controversial themes of the text, particularly Julian's solution to the problem of evil in Revelation XIII and XIV. Paragraph divisions... (more)

Radical Wisdom: A Feminist Mystical Theology

Radical Wisdom: A Feminist Mystical Theology

by Beverly Lanzetta

Lanzetta illuminates the transformative potential of the classical tradition of women mystics, especially in light of contemporary violence against women around the world. Focusing on the contemplative process as women’s journey from oppression to liberation, Lanzetta draws especially on the mysticism of Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila. She lays out the contemplative techniques used by mystics to ... (more)

Harry Potter: Book 7

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

by J. K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. It chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Secrets of God: Writings of Hildegard of Bingen

Secrets of God: Writings of Hildegard of Bingen

by Hildegard

A collection of the writings of the twelfth-century mystic, poet, theologian, healer, musician, and naturalist shares the Rhineland nun's thoughts on her visions, cosmology and anthropology, nature, poetry, natural medicine, and more. Original. 15,000 first printing.

God Is Red : A Native View of Religion

by Jr. Deloria, Vine, Vine Deloria

Deloria, a prominent Native American educator, lawyer, and philosopher, has updated his classic work on native religion. In God is Red Deloria argues convincingly that Christianity has failed today's society, and describes basic tenets that underlie Native religions. His other works include Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties and Custer Died for Your Sins.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own : An American Pilgrimage

The Life You Save May Be Your Own : An American Pilgrimage

by Paul Elie

The story of four modern American Catholics who made literature out of their search for God In the mid-twentieth century four American Catholics came to believe that the best way to explore the questions of religious faith was to write about them-in works that readers of all kinds could admire. The Life You Save May Be Your Own is their story-a vivid and enthralling account of great writers and their power... (more)

Boudica: Dreaming the Eagle

by Manda Scott

In AD 60, Boudica, war leader of the Eceni, led her people in a final bloody revolt against the occupying armies of Rome. It was the culmination of nearly twenty years of resistance against an occupying force that sought to crush a vibrant, complex civilization and replace it with the laws, taxes and slavery of the Roman Empire. Gloriously imagined, BOUDICA: DREAMING THE EAGLE recreates the beginnings of a story... (more)

Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age

Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age

by Fiona Maddocks

The twelfth-century German abbess Hildegard of Bingen would have been remarkable in any age. Today, her growing reputation as a composer of religious music has overshadowed the astonishing variety of her accomplishments and her part in the scientific, cultural, and theological revolution of the pre-Renaissance, from religion and mysticism to medicine and sex. Scivias , her book of apocalyptic visions, with its... (more)

50 Ways to Pray: Practices from Many Traditions And Times

50 Ways to Pray: Practices from Many Traditions And Times

by Teresa Blythe

A book of prayer helps and exercises designed to invite readers into new ways of being with God. Intended for all of us who thought we knew only one way to pray, the book presents a wide variety of prayer types, gleaned from centuries-old practices of Christian spiritual leaders and mystics, and updated for easy use by modern readers. Each of the 50 exercises includes step-by-step instructions; some background,... (more)

Disputed Questions

by Thomas Merton

These essays explore the coming together of the active and the contemplative life and the relationship of individuals to society. Merton’s writing is both lively and profound as he leads the reader through the hard questions of modern existence. “Merton was...one of the most prophetic Catholic writers of our time” (New Republic). Preface by Father M. Louis.

Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet

by Luther E. Smith

This book is meant to stimulate scholarship on Thurman's significance as a major religious figure. It is valuable for interpreting Thurman's thoughts. Any reader or student of Howard Thurman, or anyone curious to know Thurman, will want this book.

Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works: With Letters and Songs

Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works: With Letters and Songs

by Hildegard, Matthew Fox

As revealed in these writings, Hildegard's mystical ordering of the universe involves a profound connection between the divine and the material planes, serving to reunite with science in a dynamic, holistic cosmology.

Howard Thurman: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series)

Howard Thurman: Essential Writings (Modern Spiritual Masters Series)

by Howard Thurman

"Thurman's best contribution was his ability, before many other people were doing it in our culture, to bring together the inner life, the life of passion, the life of fire, with the external life, the life of politics." -- Martin E. Marty, University of Chicago

Hildegard of Bingen: Selections from Her Writings (HarperCollins Spiritual Classics Series)

Hildegard of Bingen: Selections from Her Writings (HarperCollins Spiritual Classics Series)

by Hildegard of Bingen

The astonishing freshness and variety of this selection from the work of Hildegard of Bingen demonstrates triumphantly why this twelfth-century Benedictine mystic has come to be reconized as one of the most remarkable and versatile women of the middle ages.

The Abbey of Gethsemani: Place of Peace and Paradox

The Abbey of Gethsemani: Place of Peace and Paradox

by Dianne Aprile

150th Anniversary history of the oldest Trappist Monastery in America.

Bread in the Wilderness

by Thomas Merton

The Psalms, which Thomas Merton called "one of the most valid forms of prayer for men of all time," are the most significant and influential collection of religious poems ever written, summing up the theology of the Old Testament and serving as daily nourishment for the devout. Bread in the Wilderness sets forth Merton's belief that "the Psalms acquire, for those who know how to enter into them, a surprising... (more)

Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of the Feminine

Hildegard of Bingen and Her Vision of the Feminine

by Nancy Fierro

Hildegard scholar Nancy Fierro transports listeners through space and time, to the medieval cloisters where Hildegard struggled to express her spirituality. How she succeeded in a world open only to men holds lessons for every woman in every age. This moving portrait brings Hildegard's world into focus as it never has been before.

The Wisdom of Julian of Norwich (The Wisdom Series)Julian of Norwich

The Wisdom of Julian of Norwich (The Wisdom Series)

by Monica Furlong, Julian

Julian of Norwich, the most popular of the English mystics, described her vision of God in "Revelations of Divine Love". Although afflicted by a long illness, Julian was given an intense experience of God's overflowing love - an experience she recounts in prose, and often in unusual images. She saw that in the life and death of Jesus Christ, God had entered fully into the suffering of Creation, and that by... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: mystics and mysticism

by Thomas Merton

by Thomas Merton

by Julian

by Beverly Lanzetta

by J. K. Rowling

by Hildegard

by Jr. Deloria, Vine, Vine Deloria

by Paul Elie

by Manda Scott

by Fiona Maddocks

by Teresa Blythe

by Thomas Merton

by Luther E. Smith

by Hildegard, Matthew Fox

by Howard Thurman

by Hildegard of Bingen

by Dianne Aprile

by Thomas Merton

by Nancy Fierro

by Monica Furlong, Julian