Stories, examples, parables, metaphors, and humor support the sixty three reflections on bibilical texts from the Revised Common Lectionary. The author uses a "theme approach," addressing issues and questions sometimes overlooked in preaching, balancing private, personal spirituality with the social and corporate. Open-minded and ecumenical in tone, ULU reflects the theology of one firmly planted in the Wesleyan tradition, where scripture, tradition, experience, and reason insist upon openness to the new things that God is doing, and where believers seek to work actively for the transformation of creation according to the values and the vision of the realm of God. Twenty original monochrome photos by the author are distributed between chapters. AUTHOR´S INTRODUCTION "I ́m convinced that the Gospel enters our experience with the most sharpness and clarity at the points of the pain and passion of our life-encounters. As a comfortable middle-class, straight, white male American Christian, I ́ve had virtually everything to learn from the people to whom I ́ve been "sent." Experiences in the Philippines and Pacific Islands, those while working with the World Hunger Emphasis of The United Methodist Church, and while assigned to ecumenical organizations, have had profound impact upon my faith and my approach to Bible study and worship preparation. Serving as pastor of congregations that openly welcomed gay and lesbian persons into a full participation have extended this experience. "I ́m also convinced that the Gospel most powerfully enters the experience of those to whom we ́ve been sent when it speaks practical hope to vulnerabilities and pain. At their best, and as they were intended to be, ministries of service are a vital, integral part of the task of evangelization, which not only involves preaching Good News, but BEING Good News. Preaching and "reflecting" are meaningless without serious engagement with real life! "The simplest of traditional cultures to which I was introduced have helped me in my spiritual journey. As a Filipino anthropologist friend said after spending some weeks with the so-called "Lost Tribe," the Tasaday, in South Cotabato, "We ́ll not realize how much we have to learn from them until we admit to what we ourselves have lost." "My friends in traditional/indigenous cultures have made me more sensitive to deeper meanings in stories and parables. Perhaps they ́re more aware than we so-called "educated folk" that this is how we transmit our culture and values. It ́s in the stories where we find the greatest richness of the Bible, in both the old and New Testaments. Jesus constantly taught through story, parable, and metaphor. Taking a shallow, literal approach to these causes us to miss the many layers of meanings and themes which the writers intended to be addressed. While stories may not prove something, they illustrate something, and they carry their own conviction. It ́s up to us to incorporate them into our insight and understanding. "Hearing the stories of others has put me in closer touch with my own. May mine do the same for you!"

(This is the shorter 124 page "Home/Family Edition" which excludes lesson plans). This book provides families, teachers and community members with the basic tools and inspiration to connect children with nature and show them how to grow, prepare and eat healthy foods. Readers will find step-by-step lesson plans/curricula, hundreds of activity ideas, plant guides and nutritionist-approved, Hawai'i-based recipes. The book is divided into two main sections: Meet the Plants and Recipes. The Meet the Plants section is used to teach keiki about specific fruits, vegetables and herbs (includes 19 plants or plant families). Each page features a specific plant or plant family with a labeled photograph. These pages will increase readers knowledge about plants and give you ideas about how to use them in the classroom, kitchen and garden. The book includes 37 "'Ai Pono Recipes". These recipes are for adults to make with children, or children to make on their own. Make these recipes for taste tests, classroom/home cooking, snacks and meals. They are all nourishing foods that feature Hawai'i grown and raised ingredients. The book encourages adults to engage children in the entire cooking process: learning about the ingredients, gardening, harvesting, washing, cooking, eating and cleaning. These recipes are designed to keep children, families and teachers healthy, so readers are encouraged to make and eat these recipes often. This book is beautiful and features real foods and plants from Hawai'i.

This volume contributes to closing the unfortunate divide that still exists today between the so-called ‘practical’ and ‘classical’ disciplines in seminary curricula. It builds a bridge across a chasm that should not exist. The chapters reflect ‘working on the bridge’ through a collegial model of sustained conversation out of the contributors’ different disciplines within Bible and Practical Theology. The authors in this volume desire to break out of academic silos that too often lead to fragmented student learning and disjointed ministry practices, in the hope that the imaginations of students, scholars, and ministers may be stimulated in the service of holistic ministry. The book is divided into two sections, I: Theoretical Frameworks, in which the authors invite the reader to look more broadly at issues of method, context, geography, and culture as biblical texts and practical theology are brought into dialog, and II: Reading Biblical Texts, which explores biblical books or texts while wearing the lenses of practical theology to mine the intersections and complexities of the encounter across disciplines. Whether singly or jointly authored, these essays model a dynamic, interactive reading of human situations and biblical texts in order to reveal their multivalent complexities.

Despite increasing consumer demand and an imminent production surge in breadfruit, a number of barriers must be overcome in order to increase the market availability, distribution, and commercial competitiveness of breadfruit. Many growers have limited understanding of when a fruit is ready to harvest and how to best harvest and handle the fruit to ensure a high quality product is delivered to market. As with any perishable crop-producers must learn proper handling of breadfruit to optimize its value to consumers, and therefore its commercial value. Similarly, chefs and consumers also need essential information on handling and preparation of breadfruit. This comprehensive 36-page guide will help growers ensure that the existing and future breadfruit crop will be used on farm, in the marketplace, or in the consumer's kitchen. This second edition adds kitchen handling tips, nutritional information, and descriptions for three important breadfruit varieties.

Breadfruit has been cultivated by people for thousands of years in highly productive plantings together with numerous other crops. This book was written for commercial and home growers looking to combine modern horticultural techniques with traditional growing methods similar to those successfully employed by Pacific Islanders over many centuries. This groundbreaking guide is being released as the prolific Pacific Island staple breadfruit enjoys a resurgence in planting and growing across Hawai'i and around the tropical world. Noted for its high nutritional value, gluten-free status, and moderate glycemic index, breadfruit (called 'ulu in Hawaiian) can be prepared similarly to a potato or yam but has greater versatility and qualities well suited for main dishes, desserts, baked goods, and even beverages. Breadfruit trees are abundant producers and require far less labor compared with other starchy crops such as taro and sweet potato. The guide presents techniques that can sustain productivity for long periods of time, while regenerating land degraded by erosion, compaction, overgrazing, and loss of organic matter. It covers subjects that include recognizing breadfruit varieties; agroforest planning, planting, and maintenance; selection of suitable accompanying crops; value-added products; and economic evaluation. The guide provides a range of growing scenarios from backyard gardens to large farms in the tropics. Using detailed design examples, species tables, and design descriptions and 95 photos and illustrations, this handbook breaks new ground in showing growers how to plan and implement agroforestry that emphasizes breadfruit production. In so doing, growers can design their production to be resilient to changes in weather and market prices-and build a stronger local food system in the process.

“Dunne’s bravura plotting asserts an exhilarating mastery.” —The New York Times Book Review. In John Gregory Dunne’s celebrated third novel, Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney Dutch Shea, Jr. struggles to keep from falling apart after an act of terrorist violence strikes his family, the loss pushing him towards a confrontation with his past and into a mystery involving the death of his father, a felon who died in prison. Set in L.A. and Dunne’s hometown of Hartford, Connecticut, the novel follows Shea into a labyrinth of deception, corruption, and criminal malice. Fighting to keep a host of disturbing memories tamped down, Shea plunges into his legal work, one embedding him in a world of scammers and burglars, pimps and prostitutes, corrupt cops and shady private eyes. With unrivaled detail and pitch-black humor, Dunne takes us into police precincts and criminal courtrooms, judge’s chambers and city morgues. The novel’s deft noir touches will remind readers of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, while Dunne’s command of legal dynamics and police procedures anticipates fiction by Scott Turow, John Grisham and Michael Connelly. Introducing a sweeping cast of two dozen vivid characters, including Shea’s sometime girlfriend, a judge who packs a pistol under her robe, Dutch Shea, Jr. - a Zola e-book exclusive - is a gripping, bleakly funny exploration of a fallen world through which its past-haunted hero weaves, beset from within and without, for a series of fraught days.

Eight-year-old Margaret Pokiak has set her sights on learning to read, even though it means leaving her village in the high Arctic. Faced with unceasing pressure, her father finally agrees to let her make the five-day journey to attend school, but he warns Margaret of the terrors of residential schools. At school Margaret soon encounters the Raven, a black-cloaked nun with a hooked nose and bony fingers that resemble claws. She immediately dislikes the strong-willed young Margaret. Intending to humiliate her, the heartless Raven gives gray stockings to all the girls — all except Margaret, who gets red ones. In an instant Margaret is the laughingstock of the entire school. In the face of such cruelty, Margaret refuses to be intimidated and bravely gets rid of the stockings. Although a sympathetic nun stands up for Margaret, in the end it is this brave young girl who gives the Raven a lesson in the power of human dignity. Complemented by archival photos from Margaret Pokiak-Fenton’s collection and striking artworks from Liz Amini-Holmes, this inspiring first-person account of a plucky girl’s determination to confront her tormentor will linger with young readers.