Nomads on Pilgrimage: Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940 is a social history of the Mongols’ pilgrimages to Wutaishan in late imperial and Republican times. In this period of economic crisis and rise of nationalism and anticlericalism in Mongolia and China, this great Buddhist mountain of China became a unique place of intercultural exchanges, mutual borrowings, and competition between different ethnic groups. Based on a variety of written and visual sources, including a rich corpus of more than 340 Mongolian stone inscriptions, it documents why and how Wutaishan became one of the holiest sites for Mongols, who eventually reshaped its physical and spiritual landscape by their rites and strategies of appropriation.

In The Practicing Congregation (Alban, 2004), Diana Butler Bass explored the phenomenon of "intentional congregations," an emerging style of congregational vitality in which churches creatively and intentionally re-appropriate traditional Christian practices such as hospitality, discernment, contemplative prayer, and testimony. Against the steady flow of stories highlighting "mainline decline," The Practicing Congregation suggested that there is a new and often overlooked renaissance occurring in mainline Protestant churches. The success of The Practicing Congregation made it clear that the next step was to provide examples that would illustrate the concepts laid out in that initial work. In From Nomads to Pilgrims, the editors continue to build this narrative, gathering specific stories of congregational vitality and transformation from participants in their research at the Project on Congregations of Intentional Practice, a Lilly Endowment Inc. funded study at Virginia Theological Seminary. Including stories from a variety of faith traditions across the U.S., From Nomads to Pilgrims explores: how intentional congregations develop ; how they negotiate the demands of interpreting traditional Christian practices in a postmodern culture ; how these practices lead to congregational and personal transformation. Each chapter is an instructive case study, illustrating a unique expression of the vitality experienced by a congregation that intentionally reclaims a traditional Christian practice. The pastors who have been involved in these congregations’ stories share their practical wisdom gained through the experience of leading these churches. - how intentional congregations develop - how they negotiate the demands of interpreting traditional Christian practices in a postmodern culture - how these practices lead to congregational and personal transformation.

"Collection of stories from pastors and congregations that have been on a pilgrimage to vitality, retrieving and reworking Christian pratice, tradition and narrative. In these pages, readers are invited to ... listen as these ministers share their pilgrimage tales. ... Against the steady flow of stories highlighting 'mainline decline' these stories tell us that a new and often overlooked renaissance is occuring in mainline Protestant churches" -- Back cover.

On Literature, New Places, and the Sacred Sacred travel guide. First published in 1998 and updated with a new preface by the author, The Art of Pilgrimage is a sacred travel guide full of inspiration for the spiritual traveler. Not just for pilgrims. We are descendants of nomads. And although we no longer partake in this nomadic life, the instinct to travel remains. Whether we’re planning a trip or buying a secondhand copy of Siddhartha, we’re always searching for a journey, a pilgrimage. With remarkable stories from famous travelers, poets, and modern-day pilgrims, The Art of Pilgrimage is for the mindful traveler who longs for something more than diversion and escape. Rick Steves with a literary twist. Through literary travel stories and meditations, award-winning writer, filmmaker and host of the acclaimed Global Spirits series, Phil Cousineau, sets out to show readers that travel is worthy of mindfulness and spiritual examination. Learn to approach travel with a desire for spiritual risk and renewal, practicing intentionality and being present. Inside find: • Stories, myths, parables, and quotes from many travelers and many faiths • How to see with the “eyes of the heart” • More than 70 illustrations Spiritual travel for the soul. If you’re looking for reasons to travel, this is it. Whether traveling to Mecca or Memphis, Stonehenge or Cooperstown, one’s journey becomes meaningful when the traveler’s heart and imagination are open to experiencing the sacred. The Art of Pilgrimage shows that there is something sacred waiting to be discovered around us. If you enjoyed books like The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho or Unlikely Pilgrim, Zen on the Trail, and Pilgrimage─The Sacred Art, then The Art of Pilgrimage is a travel companion you’ll love having with you.

By exploring lived ecological experiences across seven Buddhist worlds from ancient India to the contemporary West, Roaming Free Like a Deer provides a comprehensive, critical, and innovative examination of the theories, practices, and real-world results of Buddhist environmental ethics. Daniel Capper clarifies crucial contours of Buddhist vegetarianism or meat eating, nature mysticism, and cultural speculations about spirituality in nonhuman animals. Buddhist environmental ethics often are touted as useful weapons in the fight against climate change. However, two formidable but often overlooked problems with this perspective exist. First, much of the literature on Buddhist environmental ethics uncritically embraces Buddhist ideals without examining the real-world impacts of those ideals, thereby sometimes ignoring difficulties in terms of practical applications. Moreover, for some understandable but still troublesome reasons, Buddhists from different schools follow their own environmental ideals without conversing with other Buddhists, thereby minimizing the abilities of Buddhists to act in concert on issues such as climate change that demand coordinated large-scale human responses. With its accessible style and personhood ethics orientation, Roaming Free Like a Deer should appeal to anyone who is concerned with how human beings interact with the nonhuman environment.

A standout contribution to post-secular IR theory, this book addresses issues of global politics, from cooperation to conflict, and shows how a religious metaphor, the pilgrim, can help us to rethink our concepts of self, agency, and community in a time of changing world order.