God's Frying Pan follows one woman's journey back to God, along with defining her ideas of how he truly uses us in our own lives to learn his lessons. After being married to her "person" for nearly twenty years and having a beautiful son, Gemma believed her life was complete. All she and Scott had to do was continue to love and grow with each other through the rest of their lives. Moving to a new town for a promotion seemed like a great new chapter in their lives. However, things don't always turn out the way we expect. Embarking on the hardest season of her life so far, Gemma calls into question her long held beliefs about love, commitment, and marriage, while searching for meaning and rekindling her relationship with God. She keeps returning to the idea that God uses us as frying pans, giving us situations to help us learn to "cook," and it's up to us to learn how to "cook" them to perfection. Do they need to be flash fried (quick action)? Or is a slow simmer a better option (let things unfold naturally)? A rapid boil perhaps (constant attention)? Sometimes things are going to get burnt, other times remain undercooked, and that's okay. It's how we learn, if we are paying attention. Along the way, she experiences some powerful personal moments as she learns how to "cook" the various situations in her life to perfection.

From ancient myth to contemporary art and literature, a beguiling look at the many incarnations of the mischievous—and culturally immortal—god Pan, now in paperback. Pan—he of the cloven hoof and lustful grin, beckoning through the trees. From classical myth to modern literature, film, and music, the god Pan has long fascinated and terrified the western imagination. “Panic” is the name given to the peculiar feeling we experience in his presence. Still, the ways in which Pan has been imagined have varied wildly—fitting for a god whose very name the ancients confused with the Greek word meaning “all.” Part-goat, part-man, Pan bridges the divide between the human and animal worlds. In exquisite prose, Paul Robichaud explores how Pan has been imagined in mythology, art, literature, music, spirituality, and popular culture through the centuries. At times, Pan is a dangerous, destabilizing force; sometimes, a source of fertility and renewal. His portrayals reveal shifting anxieties about our own animal impulses and our relationship to nature. Always the outsider, he has been the god of choice for gay writers, occult practitioners, and New Age mystics. And although ancient sources announced his death, he has lived on through the work of Arthur Machen, Gustav Mahler, Kenneth Grahame, D. H. Lawrence, and countless others. Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return traces his intoxicating dance.

Before Abstract Expressionism of New York City was canonized as American postwar modernism, the United States was filled with localized manifestations of modern art. One such place where considerable modernist activity occurred was Texas, where artists absorbed and interpreted the latest, most radical formal lessons from Mexico, the East Coast, and Europe, while still responding to the state's dramatic history and geography. This barely known chapter in the story of American art is the focus of Midcentury Modern Art in Texas. Presenting new research and artwork that has never before been published, Katie Robinson Edwards examines the contributions of many modernist painters and sculptors in Texas, with an emphasis on the era's most abstract and compelling artists. Edwards looks first at the Dallas Nine and the 1936 Texas Centennial, which offered local artists a chance to take stock of who they were and where they stood within the national artistic setting. She then traces the modernist impulse through various manifestations, including the foundations of early Texas modernism in Houston; early practitioners of abstraction and non-objectivity; the Fort Worth Circle; artists at the University of Texas at Austin; Houston artists in the 1950s; sculpture in and around an influential Fort Worth studio; and, to see how some Texas artists fared on a national scale, the Museum of Modern Art's "Americans" exhibitions. The first full-length treatment of abstract art in Texas during this vital and canon-defining period, Midcentury Modern Art in Texas gives these artists their due place in American art, while also valuing the quality of Texan-ness that subtly undergirds much of their production.

The revived cult of Pan recognizes him as the god of fields, groves and wooded glens. This connects him to fertility and the season of spring, with his entourage of fauns and satyrs pursuing and copulating with woodland nymphs.The word panic also ultimately derives from the god's name. He is the eponymous Piper at the Gates of Dawn in The Wind in the Willows. In the late 19th century Pan became an increasingly common figure in literature and art. and there was an astonishing resurgence of interest in the Pan motif. He appears in poetry, in novels and children's books, and is referenced in the name of the character Peter Pan.The conception of Pan has continued to evolve. He is now seen by many as an eco-guardian, a protector of the landscape and natural resources from human depredations. He remains a relevant and vital figure.

Pan, the Greek god of forests, shepherds and fertility, has long represented the pagan gods in general. With the advent of the Christian church communication with the pagan gods was very heavily suppressed by priests who have a vested interest in eliminating religious competition, by any means required, including, but not limited to lying, stealing, cheating, murder, mayhem, extortion, torture and blackmail. As a result, general public attention to the pagan gods disappeared about 2,000 years ago. PAN-God of the Woods assumes that the pagan gods may still be active, living beings. If any of the ancient gods are still around in the 21st century, what are they doing now? If they are here now -- still watching, still powerful, still immortal -- where or how might we contact them? If Pan is still around which of us mortals could not use the helping hand of a friendly god once in awhile? -- Lawrence R. Spencer

Mischievous from the moment he emerges howling and screeching from his mother's womb, Pan, god of the wild, creates pandemonium wherever he goes. Noise and confusion follow him as he steals arrows from Artemis, conceives panic, tricks the moon into falling in love with him, and saves the world from the monster, Typhon. With panache and a wicked pair of horns, Pan spreads chaos and laughter on the way to becoming Mount Olympus's most lovable pest. From Mordicai Gerstein, Caldecott Medal-winning author of The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, comes an irresistible picture book about Greek mythology's wildest, wackiest god. Gerstein's high-spirited paintings and rollicking sense of humor create an accessible introduction to an unforgettably vivacious hero.