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| Spirituality | Return to Book Categories |
These are some of the titles we have available in our store. To order these or other titles, please contact us at gtreusch@saintmarks.org or (206) 323-1040.
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Have a Little Faith: A True Story
What if our beliefs were not what divided us, but what pulled us together? In Have a Little Faith, Mitch Albom (perhaps best known as the author of Tuesdays with Morrie) offers a beautifully written story of a remarkable eight-year journey between two worlds—two men, two faiths, two communities—that will inspire readers everywhere. This true story begins with an unusual request: an eighty-two-year-old rabbi from Albom’s old hometown asks him to deliver his eulogy. Meanwhile, closer to his current home, Albom becomes involved with a Detroit pastor—a reformed drug dealer and convict—who preaches to the poor and homeless in a decaying church with a hole in its roof. Moving between their worlds, Christian and Jewish, African-American and white, impoverished and well-to-do, Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat. Have a Little Faith is a book about a life’s purpose; about losing belief and finding it again; about the divine spark inside us all. It is one man’s journey, but it is everyone’s story. Ten percent of the profits from this book will go to charity, including The Hole In The Roof Foundation, which helps refurbish places of worship that aid the homeless. |
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40 Day Journey with Parker Palmer
Few Protestant writers today can match the influence of Parker Palmer on American spirituality, contemplative practice, and Quaker values. Palmer, who is founder and senior partner of the Center for Courage & Renewal, a non-profit organization that provides support for people in the service professions, has published dozens of poems, essays, and seven books, including the bestselling A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey toward an Undivided Life. 40-Day Journey with Parker J. Palmer opens with a short introduction to the life of Parker Palmer and then offers forty chapters, each of which includes a reading from his writings, related Scripture passages, questions to ponder, journal-reflection exercises, and a prayer. |
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Autumn: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Autumn is a season of fruition and reaping, of thanksgiving and celebration of abundance and goodness of the earth. But it is also a season that starkly and realistically encourages us to see our own limitations and see the passage of time more clearly. Warm and stirring pieces by E. B. White, Anne Lamott, P. D. James, Julian of Norwich, May Sarton, Kimiko Hahn, and many others rejoice in autumn as a time of preparation and reflection, when the results of hard labor are ripe for harvest.
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Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. . . . I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened." In Donald Miller's early years, he was vaguely familiar with a distant God. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, he pursued the Christian life with great zeal. Within a few years he had a successful ministry that ultimately left him feeling empty, burned out, and, once again, far away from God. In this intimate, soul-searching account, Miller describes his remarkable journey back to a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.
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Food and Faith: Justice, Joy, and Daily Bread
From the creator of the bestseller Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective comes Food & Faith. This new collection of reflections by Wendell Berry, Bill McKibben, Elizabeth Johnson, Alan Durning and others helps you start thinking about the moral, spiritual and economic implications of eating. Readings focus on the enjoyment and spirituality of good food, ways in which eating connects us to the land and to each other, and on the economic, environmental and cultural impacts of daily food choices. Food & Faith includes an eight-week study guide for groups or individuals, which leads to action: setting a table that is healthy, joyful and just. |
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The Good Doctor is Naked: Finding the Human Beneath My Mask
Despite the outward signs of success, long-time Saint Mark’s parishioner, Robert Hardy Barnes, spent many years yearning for inner peace. Since the age of ten, Bob had lived with the terrible secret of his father’s suicide, unable to tell a soul about it for fear that people would reject him. It took an unexpected turn of events for him to discover himself and realize the true meaning of his life. We highly recommend this autobiographical story of stepping out from behind the façade. In Bob’s words, “We all experience losses and suffer, we all wear masks and costumes to hide our secrets & shame but there is always hope, and reconciliation brings peace.” Hear Dr. Barnes discuss his life and his book in an interview with Megan Sukys on 94.9 KUOW: Seattle's NPR News and Information Station, by clicking here. |
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Money and Faith: The Search for Enough
Talking about money in a personal way remains more of a taboo than sex or politics. This seems odd within a Christian context, since Jesus addressed topics of money, poverty, and wealth more than any other concerns. On a personal level, Money & Faith opens up issues of scarcity and abundance, idolatry and freedom; on a societal level, it invites exploration of greater equity and sustainability. On both levels, it empowers individuals and groups to apply their faith’s values in practical ways while taking pastoral and prophetic stances. The author suggests we need to experience the nurturing companionship of a wise, compassionate pastor or spiritual guide in our relationship to money, while also needing to experience the power, strength, anger, and call to repentance of an Old Testament prophet. Includes a comprehensive study guide within the book for groups and individuals. |
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Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective
Editor Michael Schut presents a rare collection of voices — Henri Nouwen, Cecile Andrews, Richard Foster and others — as they explore our use of money, the practice of simplicity, listening to our lives, widening our circle of community, and other topics at the core of how we live out our faith in our homes and workplaces. A study guide is included. |
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Spring: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
As winter fades and we notice the first signs of vigor and life returning to the world, we find our spirits bolstered and are reminded of the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. With each successive spring, it seems, we cherish the promise of renewed life more and more. These thoughtfully chosen writings, poems and meditations — from Robert Frost, Lisa Couturier, William Blake and Lady Sarashina to the eighth-century Chinese poet Tu Fu — both celebrate spring’s re-emergence of life and evoke the season’s delicate balance of growth and decay, youth and maturity, innocence and experience. |
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Summer: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Explore the vibrancy of summer and reflect on how nature teaches us to value time and fully experience the richness and bountiful spirituality of the season. Contributors include writers such as Anne Lamott, Luci Shaw, Ray Bradbury, Mary Oliver, Denise Levertov, Walt Whitman, Barbara Kingsolver, and Carl Sandburg. |
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Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season
Explore how the dormancy and difficulty of winter can be a time of spiritual preparation and transformation. Examining our retreat and hibernation from the world, and our ultimate breaking free from icy paralysis, these thirty inspiring selections — from translated Sanskrit and Hebrew poems to Henry David Thoreau and Basho, Jane Kenyon, John Updike, Kathleen Norris, and Annie Dillard — help us express and understand our own personal reaction to wintertime while showing us the way from the cold of this season to the warmth of the human soul. |