Pilgrimage on the Path of Love is the story of a woman on the spiritual path who travels alone to India. Arriving in New Delhi, expecting to be her publisher's guest, she finds herself instead in a Buddhist guest house with lamas from Ladakh. There she is introduced to Tibetan Buddhism and befriends a lama. Traveling to a Himalayan hill station to write, and living very simply, she meets people from all over the world who share their wisdom of life. While living in a Buddhist monastery, she experiences a deepening of faith in the eternal harmony of creation. Finally, she embarks on a momentous journey to Ladakh, The Last Shangri-La, to await the lama she loves. There, her faith is severely tested, but in the end, she emerges as a fuller human being with a more mature understanding of the true nature of life and love.

Egan describes her journey from grief to faith in this candid, spiritually profound account of her pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, the medieval pilgrim route through Northern Spain. A story of overcoming anger and sadness and finding joy and redemption, "Fumbling" illuminates the power of grief to enhance our relationship with God.

As Christians, we gain the knowledge of God through catechetical instruction, sermons, and Bible study groups. It is quite another thing to have an intimate and experiential relationship with God and truly know him as we would a friend. Contemporary medical research and the great spiritual traditions concur that we are wired to connect and experience God on our lifes journey, and this connection has a transformative effect on our lives. How do we bridge the gap between belief and the reality or the experience of God? Drawing on insights from the early Christian monks and their contributions to the contemplative prayer tradition, the reader is invited to embark upon a pilgrimage to the heart on his or her personal quest to find God.

" . . . will be of interest not only to those concerned with Pakistan and the new Muslim presence in Europe, but also to those interested in an anthropological study of religion." —Barbara Metcalf, University of California, Davis Pnina Werbner traces the development of a Sufi Naqshbandi order founded by a living saint, Zindapir, whose cult originated in Pakistan and has extended globally to Britain, Europe, the Middle East, and southern Africa. Drawing on 12 years of fieldwork in Pakistan and Great Britain, she elucidates the complex organization of Sufi orders as regional and transnational cults, and examines how such cults are manifested through ritual action and embodied in sacred mythology and global diasporas. A focus of the study is the key event in the order's annual ritual cycle, a celebration in which tens of thousands of people gather at the saint's lodge in Pakistan and in the streets of Britain. Werbner challenges accepted anthropological and sociological truths about Islam and modernity, and reflects on her own role as ethnographic observer. Pilgrims of Love is a major contribution to our understanding of disaporic Islamic practices, highlighting the vitality of Sufi orders in the postcolonial world.

Research and common sense indicate that engaged couples will eventually have stronger, more successful marriages if they get good premarital counseling. Many churches now require such counseling, yet many Christian couples still enter marriage without that preparation. Countdown for Couples will fill that void. It will help couples learn about each other, and themselves individually, as well as their relational skills and compatibility as a couple.