This book wrestles with quandaries of pastoral ministry in what psychotherapist Mary Pipher calls "the age of overwhelm." Drawing especially from the wisdom of Jesus' own teaching and healing ministries as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke, it offers an intimate narrative introduction to pastoral theology for guiding bewildering tasks of pastoral care and counseling. These essays encourage seminarians and ministers to embrace their role as agents of healing by exploring their own debilitating shame and daring to speak what in childhood could not be spoken; by revealing their discoveries to a trusted confidant so as to feel less loathsome or lonely; by attending to even minute individual differences, in self and others, that fuel social isolation; and by believing in those persons who first believed in them.

“An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” —Los Angeles Times From the award-winning author of Orwell's Roses, a stimulating exploration of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown Written as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Rebecca Solnit's life to explore issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and place. Solnit is interested in the stories we use to navigate our way through the world, and the places we traverse, from wilderness to cities, in finding ourselves, or losing ourselves. While deeply personal, her own stories link up to larger stories, from captivity narratives of early Americans to the use of the color blue in Renaissance painting, not to mention encounters with tortoises, monks, punk rockers, mountains, deserts, and the movie Vertigo. The result is a distinctive, stimulating voyage of discovery.

One of Canada's hippest, smartest cultural critics takes on the West's defining value. We live in a world increasingly dominated by the fake, the prepackaged, the artificial: fast food, scripted reality TV shows, Facebook "friends," and fraudulent memoirs. But people everywhere are demanding the exact opposite, heralding "authenticity" as the cure for isolated individualism and shallow consumerism. Restaurants promote the authenticity of their cuisine, while condo developers promote authentic loft living and book reviewers regularly praise the authenticity of a new writer's voice. International bestselling author Andrew Potter brilliantly unpacks our modern obsession with authenticity. In this perceptive and thought-provoking blend of pop culture, history, and philosophy, he finds that far from serving as a refuge from modern living, the search for authenticity often creates the very problems it's meant to solve.

Academic philosophy may have lost its audience, but the traditional subjects of philosophy—love, death, justice, knowledge, and faith—remain as compelling as ever. To reach a new generation, Paul W. Kahn argues that philosophy must take up these fundamental concerns as we find them in contemporary culture. He demonstrates how this can be achieved through a turn to popular film. Discussing such well-known movies as Forrest Gump (1994), The American President (1995), The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), The History of Violence (2005), Gran Torino (2008), The Dark Knight (2008), The Road (2009), and Avatar (2009), Kahn explores powerful archetypes and their hold on us. His inquiry proceeds in two parts. First, he uses film to explore the nature of action and interpretation, arguing that narrative is the critical concept for understanding both. Second, he explores the narratives of politics, family, and faith as they appear in popular films. Engaging with genres as diverse as romantic comedy, slasher film, and pornography, Kahn explores the social imaginary through which we create and maintain a meaningful world. He finds in popular films a new setting for a philosophical inquiry into the timeless themes of sacrifice, innocence, rebirth, law, and love.

An eloquent book that explores the impact on one's life of losing a parent as an adult, and the effect it has on families, careers, and friendships -- now in paperback. Losing a parent is an event that happens, sooner or later, to nearly everyone. Yet seldom has the impact of parental death on the identities of adult offspring been examined. This book fills that gap. Backed by her original study and filled with compelling case histories, Secunda's book explores what happens to men and women when they are on their own in ways they have never been before. She addresses myriad issues, including: What does it mean to be living without parents to please or rebel against? How does adult "orphanhood" alter relationships with one's siblings, partner, friends, children, or one's career choices? How does it reshape one's sense of self? Losing Your Parents, Finding Your Self offers the assurance that out of loss can come unforeseen gain -- that on the other side of sorrow, we can discover new hope, wisdom, and strength.

In Finding Myself Lost in Louisiana, author Keagan LeJeune brilliantly weaves the unusual folklore, landscape, and history of Louisiana along with his own family lineage that begins in 1760 to trace the trajectory of people’s lives in the Bayou State. His account confronts the challenging environmental record evident in Louisiana’s landscapes. LeJeune also celebrates and memorializes traditions of some underrepresented communities in Louisiana, communities that are vanishing or have vanished—communities including the author’s own. Each section in the memoir is a journey to a fascinating place, but it’s also a search for LeJeune’s own sense of belonging. The book is an adventure and a pilgrimage across Louisiana to explore its future and to reckon with feelings of loss and anxiety accompanying climate disasters. LeJeune travels to Louisiana’s geographic center to learn what waits there. He chases the ghosts of Hot Wells, a shuttered healing resort, and he kneels at the tomb of folk saint Charlene Richard. With every adventure, every memory, he ends up much closer to home.

Early in 2013 Neil Hayward was at a crossroads. He didn't want to open a bakery or whatever else executives do when they quit a lucrative but unfulfilling job. He didn't want to think about his failed relationship with “the one” or his potential for ruining a new relationship with “the next one.” And he almost certainly didn't want to think about turning forty. And so instead he went birding. Birding was a lifelong passion. It was only among the birds that Neil found a calm that had eluded him in the confusing world of humans. But this time he also found competition. His growing list of species reluctantly catapulted him into a Big Year--a race to find the most birds in one year. His peregrinations across twenty-eight states and six provinces in search of exotic species took him to a hoarfrost-covered forest in Massachusetts to find a Fieldfare; to Lake Havasu, Arizona, to see a rare Nutting's Flycatcher; and to Vancouver for the Red-flanked Bluetail. Neil's Big Year was as unplanned as it was accidental: It was the perfect distraction to life. Neil shocked the birding world by finding 749 species of bird and breaking the long-standing Big Year record. He also surprised himself: During his time among the hummingbirds, tanagers, and boobies, he found a renewed sense of confidence and hope about the world and his place in it.