This anthology, arriving in Tennessee's bicentennial year, is a bountiful showcase of the state's rich literary output. Like its predecessor, the widely read Homewords, published in 1986 for Tennessee's Homecoming, this new volume feature fiction, poetry, and nonfiction by living writers - from senior literati such as Shelby Foote, John Egerton, and Nikki Giovanni to numerous newly emerging talents, including Ann Patchett, Steve Womack, and Jerome Wilson. The writings contained here are of such rich and marvelous variety that they elude easy reduction to a set of common themes or concerns....

"Every generation has its hot-button issue," writes David P. Gushee, "For us, it's the LGBT issue." In Changing Our Mind, Gushee takes the reader along his personal and theological journey as he changes his mind about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inclusion in the Church. "For decades now, David Gushee has earned the reputation as America's leading evangelical ethicist. In this book, he admits that he has been wrong on the LGBT issue." writes Brian D. McLaren, author and theologian.

Description: ""As it is written, 'Our God is a consuming fire' (Heb. 12:29); so we also must kindle the divine fire in ourselves through tears and hard work."" --Amma Syncletica, fourth century. What could be more natural and timely than ... Spiritual wisdom drawn from a woman's world; word paintings expressed in the poetry of mother-daughter dialogue? Home and hearth lessons in eternal truth, firmly grounded in day-to-day experience? Small scenarios of inquiry and response, deep questioning and fledgling faith, that reverberate with quiet insight? Dialogues that reflect modern levels of...

In the 1930s, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer anticipated the restoration of the church after the coming second world war through a new kind of monasticism, a way of life of uncompromising adherence to the Sermon on the Mount in imitation of Christ. Since then, the renewal of Christian monasticism has become a great spiritual movement. Imbued with a love for God and neighbor, and with a healthy self-love, people are going to monasteries to deepen their relationship with God, to pray, and to find peace. While some monastic institutions are suffering a decline in traditional vocations,...