In this powerful book Martin Lowenthal leads a journey to the very heart of spirituality, a journey of acceptance and aliveness through affirmation. By affirming what is in our hearts, writes Lowenthal, we embrace our aliveness and the reality of life in the moment. And only through acceptance, openness, and affirmation can we ever really be present and complete. Embrace Yes is divided into five parts, each presenting affirmations responding to a different aspect of spirituality, which Lowenthal calls the "Five Faces of God": Yes as Presence: God as Reality Yes as Openness and Wonder: God as Essence Yes as Celebration and Service: God as Creation Yes as Love: God as Beloved Yes as Learning and Dedication: God as Wisdom Poetry, fables, and religious teachings drawn from many different traditions are presented in short sections designed to give readers the opportunity to meditate and reflect on the wonderful aliveness of affirming reality as it is now, and living with an attitude of Yes.

Personal acceptance can be difficult, especially when you have to overcome family troubles, personal traumas, and tests. Dealing with low self-esteem, not having any self-worth, and living without an understanding of Gods love is a recipe for mediocrity and settling for the crumbs instead of pressing into the fullness of Gods blessingsbecause God has so much in store for those who love, trust, and obey him. In Embrace, author Olympia Pringle takes you through her own personal journey of struggle to embrace herself, what God says about her, and all that he has in store for her. Olympias story is a story of mental transformation, heart purification, and walking in revelation, and she shows you how even though it is difficult to pull yourself out of the pit, God always holds out his hand to pull you up and out. In order to live a life of fullness, we have to embrace the pain of the past, the chaos or the mundaneness of the present, and the uncertainty of the futureand in God we can do these things confidently and boldly. He will help us to overcome doubt, shame, guilt, and fear. And as we walk daily with the Lord and continue to surrender, He will give us the courage and boldness to live the life He promised for us.

“Reading this courageous book feels like the beginning of a social and personal awakening...I can’t stop thinking about it.”—Brené Brown, PhD, author of Atlas of the Heart For readers of Emergent Strategy and Dare to Lead, an activist's roadmap to long-term social justice impact through four simple shifts. We need a fundamental shift in our values--a pivot in how we think, act, work, and connect. Despite what we’ve been told, the most critical mainspring of social change isn’t coalition building or problem analysis. It’s healing: deep, whole, and systemic, inside and out. Here, Shawn Ginwright, PhD, breaks down the common myths of social movements--a set of deeply ingrained beliefs that actually hold us back from healing and achieving sustainable systemic change. He shows us why these frames don’t work, proposing instead four revolutionary pivots for better activism and collective leadership: Awareness: from lens to mirror Connection: from transactional to transformative relationships Vision: from problem-fixing to possibility-creating Presence: from hustle to flow Supplemented with reflections, prompts, cutting-edge research, and the author’s own insights and lived experience as an African American social scientist, professor, and movement builder, The Four Pivots helps us uncover our obstruction points. It shows us how to discover new lenses and boldly assert our need for connection, transformation, trust, wholeness, and healing. It gives us permission to create a better future--to acknowledge that a broken system has been predefining our dreams and limiting what we allow ourselves to imagine, but that it doesn’t have to be that way at all. Are you ready to pivot?

In this powerful book, we are led on a journey to the very heart of acceptance and aliveness through affirmation. Drawing on poetry, fables, and religious teachings from many different traditions, Embrace Yes gives us the opportunity to meditate and reflect on the aliveness of affirming reality -- and to live with an attitude of Yes. Book jacket.