How do we foster a friendship with God and remain in it forever? It’s a difficult enough proposition for many people to believe that God—eternal, unchanging, all-knowing—could actually desire a relationship with them. But once they’ve accepted the premise that God indeed does want their friendship, it can be even more challenging to think about how to actually engage in that friendship, foster it, and remain anchored in it when life’s storms toss them about. In Here’s My Heart, Here’s My Hand, veteran spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, helps us understand how we can experience a personal, lasting relationship with God and what effects that close relationship will have on our lives. Written in a warm, conversational tone, this book is a collection of nearly twenty of the finest previously published articles Fr. Barry has written on the subject of friendship with God. The selections are diverse in their overall themes—from discerning God’s will for our lives to forgiving as Jesus forgives—but each one shares the common thread of helping us see prayer as the way to a conscious, lifelong relationship with God.

What does it mean to have a relationship with God? Why do so many of us avoid a relationship with God at all costs? What examples from Scripture might guide us in developing a close, prayerful relationship with God? In Seek My Face, William A. Barry, SJ, provides thoughtful and easy-to-understand answers that can help anyone draw closer to God.Throughout the book, Fr. Barry introduces situations and personalities from both the Old and New Testaments to show readers the various ways in which people in the Bible—Abraham, Moses, Peter, Jesus—drew closer to God, and how we can use their examples to develop a closer relationship with God ourselves.

Developing a friendship with God may be the starting point for the spiritual journey, but how can that important internal relationship move us to make an impact on—and even transform—the world around us? In Changed Heart, Changed World, renowned spiritual director William A. Barry, SJ, delves into such topics as how friendship with God impacts our role in society, how to see forgiveness as a way of life, and how compassion can make its mark on the world. Throughout the book, Fr. Barry provides many practical ways to integrate the inner life, where we experience a relationship with God, with the outer life, where we live in relationship with our world. Above all else, Changed Heart, Changed World reminds us that God has a dream for his creation here and now—a dream that can only be realized by our becoming “other Christs in this world.”

Interest in craniosacral therapy has exploded in recent years—not surprising given its gentle, effective approach to working on the spine and the skull and its cranial sutures, diaphragms, and fascias. The treatment focuses on the 92 percent of the human body composed of living water, rather than the eight percent that most therapies address. Building on the previous books, which explored underlying principles, differentiating the components of the practice, and combining theory and practice, this volume illustrates the evolution of craniosacral therapy over the past 30 years. More than 50 hand positions are presented in detailed photographs—many with multiple views—each of which can be used immediately and effectively. Additional chapters focus on the correct use and boundaries of the therapist’s hands, a precise sequence to follow when practicing biodynamically, and working with the therapist’s perception of the therapeutic process. Written for practitioners in the fields of massage, mental health, complementary and alternative medicine, and chiropractics, this book, like the others in the series, is equally useful read on its own or in sequence.

This heartwarming picture book reassures children that a parent’s love never lets go—based on the poignant lyrics of JJ Heller’s beloved lullaby “Hand to Hold.” “May the living light inside you be the compass as you go / May you always know you have my hand to hold.” With delightful illustrations and an engaging rhyme scheme, this book offers the promise of security and love every child’s heart longs to know. From skipping stones and counting stars to climbing trees and telling stories, every moment is wrapped snugly in the certain warmth of a parent’s presence and God’s blessing. With poignancy and joy, this bedtime read captures the unconditional love parents want their children to know but so often fail to express amid the chaos of daily life.

Reprint. Originally published: New York: Columbia University Press, 1960.