The Bible's prophesies about the end-times can baffle even the most voracious Bible scholars and theologians. Their surreal symbolic imagery and convoluted timelines cause many Christians to make the appalling decision to avoid reading them all together, wrongly believing that they cannot be understood and/or don't apply to them. Rapture Fusion highlights the critical importance that every Christian read and understand end-times prophesy, as it does apply to every believer and can be systematically dissected to reveal a consistent and coherent timeline and description of future events. If you want to understand the most common schools of thought on the end-times and what the Bible really has to say concerning the tribulation, rapture, second-coming, millennium, and more, this thorough and scripture-based exploration of end-times prophesy is for you.

Lurianics tells the story of a youngish man – one Isaac Luria (namesake of one of the world's great Kabbalists) – who seeks to create a "true work" which will give his life a meaning that is uniquely beyond label. Set on Manhattan's Upper West Side, the novel anatomizes this unlikely hero's ambivalence-racked relationships with a veritable cast of thousands, all of whom have one thing in common – a craving to derail his every attempt to get on with the job. They include: a smugly go-getting kid brother, a hyper-articulate mystery woman, and assorted bosses, co-workers, composers and filmmakers living and dead, ballet stars, murdered doormen, stuff-strutting sparrows, and honey locusts about to bloom. But chaos does not always reign supreme and in the end every encounter plays its part in forcing Luria to confront the ultimate question: Does he have the guts not just to erect his Valhalla (any fool can do that) but to erect it with the only building blocks worth a damn, i.e., the very things befouling the path?

Gleanings is a gathering of hitherto uncollected essays written by Christine Downing during the quarter century since the publication in 1981 of her seminal book, The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine. Many of the essays continue her exploration of Greek goddess traditions and other aspects of Greek mythology. Others grow out of her ongoing involvement with the thought of both Freud and Jung. The interrelationship between polis and psyche, city and soul, is a central theme of several of these papers, including those that focus on the Holocaust. Various facets of lesbian and gay experience are also examined.

This book is a careful attempt to explore and “fill in the picture” of the eschatological puzzle using the entire Biblical Scripture cohesively within a conceptual framework of two peoples, Jew and Christian, who are His people of the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31; Matt. 2:28) united under one Messiah as “one new man” (Eph. 2:15). Using solid hermeneutical practices, the author attempts to disprove some major aspects of the Pretribulational “Rapture” theory because it produces a distorted picture of future events regarding the relationship between Jews and Christians. She has organized prophetic past, present, and future events into a logical and coherent sequence that more closely resembles historical reality and God’s eternal plans. At the end, she highlights some of the similarities between Christian and Jewish eschatologies, and then describes the final outcome of God’s purposes with mankind while offering some suggestions as to what Christians can do as they await victoriously for the converging of both eschatologies and the fulfillment of all things.

"Ecstasy is a force to be reckoned with--sometimes creative, sometimes destructive. Eigen argues that there is an ecstasy that comes through the ever-necessary confrontation of our psychic cores with suffering and degradation and he shows that when we can learn to be present with these feelings, they add to the tone and texture of our lives, and help us to feel real."--Page 4 of cover.

This comprehensive volume on the blood-gas barrier (BGB) among vertebrates covers its structure and composition along with aspects of evolution, bioengineering, and morphometry. The book also discusses the embryological development of the BGB, including chronology of events and molecular control in vertebrates; modulation of the barrier function, including cyclic stretch-induced increases in alveolar epithelial permeability; mechanisms of lung vascular/epithelial permeability; transport mechanisms of the BGB, including sodium transport channels; factors affecting trans-barrier traffic of fluids, such as chronic elevation of pulmonary microvascular pressure; stress failure; regulation and repair in acute lung injury; chronic lung disease; and lung transportation. Ten authoritative chapters approach the blood-gas barrier holistically, from basic structure and development to pathology and treatment. Properties of the BGB are discussed in the earlier chapters, followed by prenatal and post-natal development and mechanisms of the healthy BGB. The latter half of the book delves into the pathology of the BGB, analyzing common afflictions and exploring options for treatment, including its alterations during lung transplantation. Intuitively structured and comprehensive, The Vertebrate Blood-Gas Barrier in Health and Disease is ideal for researchers and clinicians interested in pneumology and angiology.

When Maria leaves Italy on a ship to America, she has no idea she is about to meet the only man she will ever love. Michael is enraged by Nathan Hawkins' unjust treatment of immigrant coal miners, and is aboard the same ship to uncover information to end Hawkins' reign of terror. But when destiny brings Michael and Maria together, neither can foresee that Maria would be Hawkins' next pawn.