DIVINE SPARKS
Interfaith Wisdom for a Postmodern World
Divine Sparks presents practical and inspiring wisdom from the world’s great religious traditions. It offers guidance to men and women of all faiths or none. It does not propose any dogma or doctrine but encourages inner exploration by readers so they can come to fully know their own hearts and minds.
Divine Sparks is organized along twelve themes: mindfulness and meditation, simplicity, forgiveness, creativity, beauty, the true self, Mother Earth, gratitude, embodied spirit, solitude and community, joy, and prayer.
The themes spring out of millennia of homo sapiens seeking to make sense of their world. They remain starkly relevant concerns for our times. This longing to pursue lives of meaning and consequence is part of our nature.
How to do so with the greatest compassion and wisdom is the work of contemporary inter-spirituality. Divine Sparks embraces this quest as it presents transformative insights and practices from a variety of sources for readers’ consideration. Each chapter concludes with questions for reflection, suggestions for creative activities, and a prayer or meditation.
Divine Sparks serves equally well as a personal spiritual companion or a guide for study groups or book clubs. Beyond general readership, it is a text that offers practical support to clergy, spiritual directors, and others working in multi-faith communities.
The inner work of all seekers is a lifelong process as our circumstances change and we change with them. Because of this fluid nature of our interior world, Divine Sparks promises to be a continuing source of guidance for readers over many years.
Visiting Thich Nhất Hanh: An American in Plum Village
Visiting Thich Nhất Hanh: An American in Plum Village is the journal of Starr Regan DiCiurcio’s stay in that community in the winter of 2000. As a new practitioner of Buddhism, Starr shared all her impressions of life in the Plum Village monastery. She shared her growing love of the teachings, her deep respect for Thich Nhất Hanh and all the ups and downs of adjusting to life in a new community.
