Prayer is essential to the Christian life, bonding us to God. Yet we find it difficult in our frenetic world to keep our minds focused for long. All kinds of external noise and inner voices clamor for our attention. How can we slow down and quiet down so as to truly wait on the Lord? Nan Lewis Doerr and Virginia Stem Owens offer a solution that calls on the physical senses to break through to the spiritual -- praying with beads.

The use of prayer beads, which has a long history in practical spirituality, is now becoming more widespread among Protestants. Doerr and Owens here show...

To read the books of Virginia Stem Owens is to understand what Dylan Thomas once called ?the mystery of having been moved by words.? Her style is contemplative, ecstatic, tender ? always yearning for a purer vision of reality and grace. Wind River Winter is her account of watching the world die and be reborn in the desolate Wind River mountains of Wyoming. By attuning her mind to the enormous cadence of autumn and winter, she contemplates the balance of life and death?the world's and her own. Her writing, as beautiful as the best of Annie Dillard or John McPhee, will appeal to anyone who...

When a prisoner on death row is executed, it's not just the families of the murderer and the victim who feel the effects. The attorneys, the jury, the law enforcement officers, the prison guards, the wardens overseeing the execution, the chaplains and advisors, the technicians who prepare the syringe and prick the vein - all of these people are affected, and they all have powerful stories to tell, stories that are woven together in the riveting narrative of Living Next Door to the Death House. Authors Virginia Stem Owens and David Clinton Owens live in Huntsville, Texas, which has earned a...