A professor, mother, and Buddhist practitioner helps readers discover new ways of facing and experiencing life, death, and impermanence. “With my diagnosis of grade IV brain cancer, I no longer observe the truth of impermanence from a critical, analytical distance. I am crashing into it, or it into me.” Facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, Karen Derris—professor, mother, and Buddhist practitioner—turned to books. By reading ancient Buddhist stories with new questions and a new purpose—finding a way to live with her dying body—she discovers new ways to make them immediate and real. For instance, reading with her terminal prognosis, she becomes one of the four omens (the four signs of impermanence and suffering) the young Siddhartha sees in his excursions from the palace. What would it mean for her to be in the crowd, straining to see the prince with her own sick and impermanent body—to be pushed aside and out of sight by the palace minders, just as our society so often tries to brush aside anything uncomfortable, but to nonetheless be seen by the young bodhisattva? Or reading as a mother, maybe she shares something akin to what Queen Maya may have felt, knowing she was dying, giving her newborn son over to her sister’s care? What will it mean for her own children to be motherless? She follows the knotted threads connecting Milarepa’s angry, vengeful mother to Karen’s own mother, who physically abused her throughout a traumatic childhood. By placing herself into these stories, she turns them from distant and static narratives into companions, and from companions into guides. Storied Companions interweaves Karen’s memoir of her life of trauma and illness with stories from Buddhist literary traditions, sharing with the reader how she found ways to live with the reality that she won’t live as long as she wants and needs to. Honest, powerful, and insightful, Storied Companions itself becomes an invaluable companion, guiding the reader to discover new ways of facing and experiencing life, death, and impermanence.

Follows Sir Launcelot of the Round Table as he rescues Queen Guinevere, fights in the tournament at Astolat and pursues other adventures.

How did the dog become manÕs best friend? A celebrated anthropologist unearths the mysterious origins of the unique partnership that rewrote the history of both species. Dogs and humans have been inseparable for more than 40,000 years. The relationship has proved to be a pivotal development in our evolutionary history. The same is also true for our canine friends; our connection with them has had much to do with their essential nature and survival. How and why did humans and dogs find their futures together, and how have these close companions (literally) shaped each other? Award-winning anthropologist Pat Shipman finds answers in prehistory and the present day. In Our Oldest Companions, Shipman untangles the genetic and archaeological evidence of the first dogs. She follows the trail of the wolf-dog, neither prehistoric wolf nor modern dog, whose bones offer tantalizing clues about the earliest stages of domestication. She considers the enigma of the dingo, not quite domesticated yet not entirely wild, who has lived intimately with humans for thousands of years while actively resisting control or training. Shipman tells how scientists are shedding new light on the origins of the unique relationship between our two species, revealing how deep bonds formed between humans and canines as our guardians, playmates, shepherds, and hunters. Along the journey together, dogs have changed physically, behaviorally, and emotionally, as humans too have been transformed. DogsÕ labor dramatically expanded the range of human capability, altering our diets and habitats and contributing to our very survival. Shipman proves that we cannot understand our own history as a species without recognizing the central role that dogs have played in it.

When we quit sabotaging intimacy in our relationships by demanding unconditional love, we discover something much greater—the deeply satisfying, transformational love that is companionship. In these pages psychologist Kelly Flanagan shows how each of us has within ourselves, exactly the way we are, the gifts that are needed to cultivate the life-long relationships we are longing for, whether it is within marriage or friendship. He shows us how self-knowledge leads the way to growing in love for both God and others. He shows us how understanding our own loneliness can help us relieve the pressure on our companions. And he shows us how understanding our own psychological and emotional defenses can help us to make the choice to love more vulnerably. More than a marriage book, this is a companionship book. Anyone—from single young adults to elderly married couples, from the divorced to the widowed, from siblings to friends—can benefit from the wisdom it uncovers about what it means to be human and to be true companions. Groups, couples, and individuals can use the companion study guide for five sessions on how to show up in your most important relationships.

2020 The Gospel Coalition Book Award - Christian Living Have you experienced an ongoing trial that left you wrung out emotionally? Do you feel alone in your pain? Though suffering often leaves us feeling isolated, God invites us into the community of the Trinity and offers us many companions in Scripture. We experience loneliness alongside the exiled Israelites. We journey with David as he pleads to God for rescue. With Asaph we confess our unbelief. With Job we learn to lament. With Mary and Martha we learn to wait. In God's community, there is sweet fellowship, even in the hardest of circumstances. Journey in these pages with Wendy Alsup through her story of suffering, and more importantly, with the God who walks with us in the wilderness. This warm and contemplative book also includes a helpful appendix for those who companion a suffering loved one.

For more than two decades, McCullough has fascinated readers with portraits of exceptional men and women who not only have shaped the course of history but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition. From Harriet Beecher Stowe to a young Theodore Roosevelt, the subjects possess a sense of purpose that make for unforgettable reading.