In this eloquent account of her current struggle with physical pain, Joni Eareckson Tada offers her perspective on divine healing, God’s purposes, and what it means to live with joy. Over four decades ago, a diving accident left Joni a quadriplegic. Today, she faces a new battle: unrelenting pain. The ongoing urgency of this season in her life has caused Joni to return to foundational questions about suffering and God’s will. A Place of Healing is not an ivory-tower treatise on suffering. It’s an intimate look into the life of a mature woman of God. Whether readers are enduring physical pain, financial loss, or relational grief, Joni invites them to process their suffering with her. Together, they will navigate the distance between God’s magnificent yes and heartbreaking no—and find new hope for thriving in-between.

Wil Gesler examines how different environments affect physical, mental, spiritual, social, and emotional components of healing.

“Esther Sternberg is a rare writer—a physician who healed herself...With her scientific expertise and crystal clear prose, she illuminates how intimately the brain and the immune system talk to each other, and how we can use place and space, sunlight and music, to reboot our brains and move from illness to health.”—Gail Sheehy, author of Passages Does the world make you sick? If the distractions and distortions around you, the jarring colors and sounds, could shake up the healing chemistry of your mind, might your surroundings also have the power to heal you? This is the question Esther Sternberg explores in Healing Spaces, a look at the marvelously rich nexus of mind and body, perception and place. Sternberg immerses us in the discoveries that have revealed a complicated working relationship between the senses, the emotions, and the immune system. First among these is the story of the researcher who, in the 1980s, found that hospital patients with a view of nature healed faster than those without. How could a pleasant view speed healing? The author pursues this question through a series of places and situations that explore the neurobiology of the senses. The book shows how a Disney theme park or a Frank Gehry concert hall, a labyrinth or a garden can trigger or reduce stress, induce anxiety or instill peace. If our senses can lead us to a “place of healing,” it is no surprise that our place in nature is of critical importance in Sternberg’s account. The health of the environment is closely linked to personal health. The discoveries this book describes point to possibilities for designing hospitals, communities, and neighborhoods that promote healing and health for all.

“France’s conversion is deeply touching . . . This is religious discovery for a postmodern generation.” —Philip Zaleski, Los Angeles Times The tiny, arid Greek island of Patmos is one of the most sacred places in the Christian world—a place of bewitching power, where people come for a brief summer visit and end up returning, year after year, for the rest of their lives. They respond to an unexplainable force that they can find nowhere else. Perhaps it is the invigorating “Greek light” that infuses the Holy Island’s rocks and hills with a breathtaking sharpness and clarity, dating back to the time when Zeus raised the island from the bed of the sea. Or perhaps it is Patmos’s incredible history. Almost two thousand years ago, Saint John was exiled here, and lived as a hermit in the cave of Revelation, where he experienced a vision that led to the most famous piece of apocalyptic literature, the Book of Revelation. In A Place of Healing for the Soul, BBC commentator Peter France—who arrived on the island a hardened skeptic—tells how he came to change his life perspective. Learning from the island’s gregarious inhabitants and its religious eccentrics—hermits, ascetics, monks, and nuns—he discovered the pleasure and security of living simply and doing without, in a timeless realm where history, myth, and spirituality are endlessly alive. “France, an erudite and amiable companion, who spices his writing with self-deprecating wit and thoughtful commentary on the eternal mysteries of the universe, has created a delight for open, even if skeptical, minds.” —Booklist

Revised to incorporate the changes in opinions and attitudes since its first publication, the second edition of 'Places of the Soul' has brought Christopher Day's classic text into the 21st century. This new edition of the seminal text reminds us that true sustainable design does not simply mean energy efficient building. Sustainable buildings must provide for the 'soul'. For Christopher Day architecture is not just about a building's appearance, but how the building is experienced. 'Places of the Soul' presents buildings as environment, intrinsic to their surroundings, and offers design principles that will open the eyes of the architecture student and professional alike, presenting ideas quite different to the orthodoxy of modern architectural education. Christopher Day's experience as an architect, self-builder, professor and sculptor have all added to the development of his ideas that encompass issues of economic and social sustainability, commercial pressures and consensus design. This book presents these ideas and outlines universal principles that will be of interest and value to architects, builders, planners and developers alike.

An interactive book to help children and families express their feelings, ask questions, and explore their memories about a loved one who has passed away.