Never before has a family so desperately needed to gather. Just months ago they were on the brink of marital disaster, now Max and Claire Beaumont are blissfully planning their re-wedding ceremony. But gathering the support of their children has been tough. Instead, Max and Claire are watching their children suffer hidden heartache. One is missing her soldier husband, another is drinking way too much, and another steadfastly hides her pain away. Claire has no choice but to fall to her knees in prayer. She daily reminds herself that "God is good," something her beloved mother-in-law taught her to do. And starting fresh at the Hacienda Hideaway is perfect--there Claire and Max fortify their strength to rebuild the family. Then, in the midst of this deeply personal journey, two strangers enter their world unexpectedly, changing all they knew and trusted about each other. Whether they embrace or reject these women will impact their family bond forever.

How do people link the past to the present, marking continuity in the face of the fundamental discontinuities of history? A Time to Gather argues that historical records took on potent value in modern Jewish life as both sources of history and anchors of memory because archives presented oneway of transmitting Jewish culture and history from one generation to another as well as making claims of access to an "authentic" Jewish culture. Indeed, both before the Holocaust and in its aftermath, Jewish leaders around the world felt a shared imperative to muster the forces and resources ofJewish life and culture. It was a "time to gather," a feverish era of collecting and conflict in which archive making was both a response to the ruptures of modernity and a mechanism for communities to express their cultural hegemony.Jason Lustig explores these themes across the arc of the twentieth century by excavating three distinctive archival traditions, that of the Cairo Genizah (and its transfer to Cambridge in the 1890s), folkloristic efforts like those of YIVO, and the Gesamtarchiv der deutschen Juden (Central or TotalArchive of the German Jews) formed in Berlin in 1905. Lustig presents archive-making as an organizing principle of twentieth-century Jewish culture, as a metaphor of great power and broad symbolic meaning with the dispersion and gathering of documents falling in the context of the Jews' longdiasporic history. In this light, creating archives was just as much about the future as it was about the past.

We gather together to ask the Lords blessing. Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today. The word gather is found more than 450 times in the Bible. There are some fifteen different Greek and Hebrew forms that translate into the English word gather. Little wonder, then, that it finds its way into so much of our liturgical language. A Time to Gather seems an appropriate title and theme for this third book of brief worship services. Gathering is a community word. It is my hope that when groups gather in a community of faith and worship, this resource will be of help. The notion of gathering as a worshipping community has been in the background of the writing throughout. It is written to follow the usual pastoral year, beginning with services that relate to September events. There is a service for each week of the year, followed by four special occasion services. Worship leaders will find that my suggestions serve best if read over beforehand. Then choices of hymns and scripture passages can be modified to meet local needs, and the meditation can be shortened to an allotted time or augmented by the thoughts of the celebrant. I also urge you to become familiar with the help that is available in the appendices. I have been pleased by the number of people who have indicated that my previous two volumes, A Present Help and Fire in the Bones, have been helpful to them as a resource for private devotion. I have had this in mind in preparing the present work. I hope that it too will help in gathering the thoughts of those who use it in this way. Once again, with leaders of group worship in mind, I have avoided making the references as personal as I might in a more autobiographical work or in my own preaching. The aim is to prevent any confusion about the voice behind the material. Again, I wish to thank my editors, Peter Gordon White and Elizabeth Phinney, for their guidance, enthusiasm, and support in this project. Above all, I am pleased to acknowledge the invaluable aid of my wife Gwynneth, who has made valuable suggestions about the material from the start and has read over each page (Yeah, even until the fourth and fifth draft) and has been critic and proofreader. I dedicate this volume to her.

Essays discuss attempts to save Russia's remaining literary and cultural monuments from ruin, the degradation of Russia's environment, and the fate of Russian Orthodoxy under communist rule.

Goddess Wheel of the Year invites each of you to explore the many ways to enrich your spiritual life in ritual celebration of yourself and the Goddess. Learn to match your own developmental, psychological, and spiritual needs with specific Goddess aspects of the Maiden, Mother, Crone and Dark Goddess. Explore ways to celebrate at Solar and Lunar rites, as well as learn how to creatively re-imagine rites of antiquity or develop a unique year of celebration that reflects your own revelation of the Goddess. Whether you are new to the Goddess path or have been a life-long practitioner, you’ll find ample ideas to inspire you and reinvigorate your life.

Imagine yourself sitting at the feet of a master teacher who is about to share with you the fruits of almost fifty years of being in the classroom. She has in fact been a teacher for most of her life, and everything she knows about teaching she has learned from the young people she taught.