Jonathan Foiles weaves together psychology and public policy, exploring the trauma underlying urbanization in a book Kirkus Reviews calls an "urgent call for reform." When Jonathan Foiles was a graduate studen

When Jonathan Foiles was a graduate student in social work, he had to choose between a mental health or policy track. But once he began working, he found it impossible to tell the two apart. While helping poor patients from the South and West sides of Chicago, he realized individual therapy could not take into account the importance unemployment, poverty, lack of affordable housing and other policy decisions that impact the well-beings of both individuals and communities. It is easy to be depressed if you live in a neighborhood that has few supportive resources available, or is marred by gun violence. We are able to diagnose people with depression, but how does one heal a neighborhood? This City Is Killing Me: Community Trauma and Toxic Stress in Urban America, brings policy and psychology together. Through a remarkable set of case studies, Foiles opens up his therapy door to allow us to overhear the stories of Jacqueline, Frida, Robert, Luis, Anthony, and other poor Chicagoans. As we listen, Foiles teaches us how he diagnoses, explains how therapists before him would analyze these patients, and, through statistics and the example of Chicago, teaches us how policy decisions have contributed to these individuals' suffering. The result is a remarkable, unique work with an urgent political call to action at its core.

In eleven linked stories, prize-winning novelist John Weir brings his wit and compassion to the question of how a gay white guy from New Jersey lived through fifty years of the twin crises of global AIDS and toxic masculinity in America.

On the Red Horse, Peter and Paul is Helena Peričić's brave, utterly open-hearted and open-minded testimony of her private and intellectual experience of living and surviving the Homeland War in Croatia during the ’90. This edition is bilingual and includes both the English translation and the original text in Croatian.

The Christian life is actually a kind of death. We die to ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. Dying in Christ, however, is an opportunity—to experience the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit as we spread the Good News of a God who loves us enough to save us and remake us in his image. Efrem Smith helps us see that Christian discipleship is a counterintuitive life. In a world turned upside down by sin, God carefully and lovingly strips us of worldly values and turns us right-side up as good citizens and ambassadors of his Kingdom.

If we can agree on anything, it's that we are not okay. Our culture is reeling from the ravages of a global pandemic, a precipitous rise in depression and anxiety, suffocating debt, white supremacy, hypercapitalism, and a virulent political animus--to name a few. But what if it's not us? What if it's . . . well, everything? What if trying to conform to a sick culture is actually making us sick? It's Not You, It's Everything is a timely and incisive inquiry into the anxious pursuit of happiness at all costs. Psychotherapist and former pastor Eric Minton claims that the pernicious melding of capitalism and Christianity means a world of competition, perfection, and scarcity disguised as self-help and self-care. Rather than shaming, silencing, or medicating away our disappointment at not having obtained the happiness we were promised, however, Minton posits a radical alternative. In an impertinent, droll, yet pastoral voice, Minton suggests that our "not-okayness" will require rethinking everything we thought we knew about God, depression, the economy, culture, education, technology, and happiness. Our angst--and that of our children and teenagers--is telling us the truth about the kind of world we've created. By naming all the ways we're not okay, we move away from fear and shame and toward love, and trust, and trustworthiness. We'll need nothing less than hip-hop, Mr. Rogers, liberation theology, and Jesus to get us there. But on the other side of our pain is a radical "okayness" that might just set us free.

This book is made from love and completely out of sustainable and recycled materials. Treat it with care, Pass it on, donate, gift, and reuse with thought. So much care and energy has been put into each poem, each artwork, and each word. I would like to thank my family and friends for always being so supportive and encouraging in everything I do. A special thank you to my dearest Mother. You are a gift from the Heavens and I am so thankful and privileged to have you as a mother. From all the great decisions I have made, to the spontaneous life choices, and even through all the really bad decisions; you have stuck by me (aside from all our cat and dog fights). This book is broken into five chapters; Life, Healing, Beloved, New Love, and Create . I have incorporated some of my art work which I hope you also enjoy. Happy Reading