2021 Catholic Media Association Award second place award in liturgy 2021 Catholic Media Association Award honorable mention award in gender issues - inclusion in the church For years, religious leaders and communities around the world have turned to the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER) for feminist liturgies for justice. Now—in celebration of the organization’s thirty-fifth anniversary—Stirring Waters gathers fifty-two of these beautiful liturgies, ready-made to help your community venerate powerful women of faith, develop a richer and deeper spirituality, and take real action for justice. Use the liturgies in this book as a resource to nourish the souls and focus the passions of the people you serve. Help them reflect on great women like the prophetess Miriam and Julian of Norwich; provoke and disturb them on occasions like Earth Day and World Water Day; energize them on International Women’s Day and Black History Month; and rejuvenate drooping spirits with liturgies of healing and gratitude. Never again will you scramble or struggle to provide community prayer that is worthwhile, nourishing, and even electrifying.

In Stirring Waters, Brenner and Purintun tackle a host of questions surrounding the traditional understandings of Christian beliefs and present a variety of perspectives on the key topics of Bible, God, Yeshua, spirit, and more. They go beyond the “why” to asking, “so what.” Through questions and discussion starters, Stirring Waters offers a fresh way of making sense of faith and church. It wrestles with the ambiguities, uncertainties, and risks of this age and discusses the possibilities the authors have discovered for making sense of life and death. It delves into a conversation about faith and understanding of those mysteries Christians often associate with God and the religious life. I can’t tell you what kind of book this is—theology, spiritual autobiography, memoir, practical guide. It is all of these and none of these. Probably, it is a category that has not been invented until this moment. I can tell you that this book did for me today what Marcus Borg and Dom Crosson did for me at the end of the last century.” [From the Preface by Dr. David R. Sawyer]

This spiritual self-help book is an friendly guide for readers of all faiths seeking a more satisfying and spiritually rich life. Whether you're a seasoned writer or just write an occasional journal entry, Stirring the Waters will enrich your life. With a poet's insight and deft touch, author Janell Moon leads you along a path that helps you to know yourself and thrive spiritually. She provides nine weeks of exercises that will guide you to answer the essential but sometimes impenetrable questions, "Who am I, and what am I doing here?" Moon's innovative methods will encourage you to develop a new perspective. "Streaming," one of the many exercises included in Stirring the Waters, involves brainstorming, even doodling, across the page. Another exercise, "clustering," shows you how to discover the hidden ideas related to a theme. Moon also introduces other unique thought-provoking techniques such as "gazing into the waters" and "dialoguing" to help you develop a wise new spirit. As you read and write you way through the exercises of Stirring the Waters, you will discover a clarified vision of yourself, and find the way to the you you you were meant to be.

"A collection of fifty-two feminist liturgies for justice from the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER), ready-made to help communities venerate powerful women of faith, develop a richer and deeper spirituality, and take real action for justice"--

This edited volume represents the depth and breadth of Clay's contributions to education.

In this “captivating” (Harper’s Bazaar) and lyrical debut novel—perfect for fans of The Water Dancer and the Legacy of Orïsha series—the Yoruba deity of the sea, Yemaya, is brought to vivid life as she discovers the power of Black resilience, love, and feminine strength in antebellum America. Shallow Waters imagines Yemaya, an Orïsha—a deity in the religion of Africa’s Yoruba people—cast into mid-1800s America. We meet Yemaya as a young woman, still in the care of her mother and not yet fully aware of the spectacular power she possesses to protect herself and those she holds dear. The journey laid out in Shallow Waters sees Yemaya confront the greatest evils of this era; transcend time and place in search of Obatala, a man who sacrifices his own freedom for the chance at hers; and grow into the powerful woman she was destined to become. We travel alongside Yemaya from her native Africa and on to the “New World,” with vivid pictures of life for those left on the outskirts of power in the nascent Americas. Yemaya realizes the fighter within, travels the Underground Railroad in search of the mysterious stranger Obatala, and crosses paths with icons of our history on the road to freedom. Shallow Waters is a “riveting and heartbreaking” (Publishers Weekly) work of ritual storytelling from promising debut author Anita Kopacz.

In these nine evocative essays, Barbara Hurd explores the seductive allure of bogs, swamps, and wetlands. Hurd's forays into the land of carnivorous plants, swamp gas, and bog men provide fertile ground for rich thoughts about mythology, literature, Eastern spirituality, and human longing. In her observations of these muddy environments, she finds ample metaphor for human creativity, 9imagination, and fear.