What a World: Amazing Stories from Around the Globe, is a six-book series that explores many fascinating topics from around the world and across history. The stories in What a World cover a diverse range of high-interest topics, from biographical pieces to exploration of cultures in various historical and contemporary periods. Features Words that Go Together activities highlight collocations -- words that are easier to learn together. Talking Notes activities challenge students to listen for main ideas and details in a short description of a person. place, or thing. Short Conversations ask students to infer tone, attitude, or the context of the speakers' conversation. Critical Thinking questions develop students' thinking skills. Language Focus activities draw on a grammatical structure from the listening and help students develop accuracy in speaking and writing. Pronunciation and Conversation activities help guide students to more accurate and conversational speech. Internet activities build students' Internet research skills. Self-Tests help students and teachers assess progress. What a World Reading -- a 3-level complementary series -- explores parallel themes to What a World Listening as it develops students' reading skills and vocabulary.

In this astonishing book, the author's purpose is to help transform individuals by fostering a spirit of holy listening that enriches faith and opens seekers to the fullness of God's presence and of the neighbor's need. The intent is to help the reader develop a faith that seeks understanding and makes real meaning in a world of chatter. In each chapter, a prominent work of art is interpreted, which serves as a focal point for demonstrating how the eyes and heart are integrally involved in hearing the Spirit of God. The book explores why holy listening is so difficult by examining key hermeneutical issues within the biblical text and by considering the nature of God, the journey of faith, and human limits. This illuminating book also examines the spiritual need for holy listening and analyzes critical questions of faith that lead to a greater awareness of self and the church in the mutual calling to be the incarnation of Jesus Christ in a postmodern world. Essential in the task of holy listening is an awareness of the importance of spiritual rest and the role of the Sabbath plays in providing an opportunity to participate in the redeeming work of God. In this regard, the book underscores the need for faith this is both a linear journey toward wholeness and an ability to make home and community along life's way. The need for holy listening is made even more acute by the reality of suffering that accompanies life's pilgrimage, and the book ponders the meaning of suffering and how it can open one to the presence of the divine. More than a theological analysis of suffering, the book addresses the author's effort to listen for redemptive meaning in light of his own daughter's struggle with juvenile diabetes. The book concludes with a discussion of the spiritual value of silence as the way to experience anew the story of Jesus who beckon those who listen to follow through a life of service and love.

The Hum of the World is an invitation to contemplate what would happen if we heard the world as attentively as we see it. Balancing big ideas, playful wit and lyrical prose, this imaginative volume identifies the role of sound in Western experience as the primary medium in which the presence and persistence of life acquires tangible form. The positive experience of aliveness is not merely in accord with sound, but inaccessible, even inconceivable, without it. Lawrence Kramer’s poetic book roves freely over music, media, language, philosophy, and science from the ancient world to the present, along the way revealing how life is apprehended through sounds ranging from pandemonium to the faint background hum of the world. This warm meditation on auditory culture uncovers the knowledge and pleasure waiting when we learn that the world is alive with sound.

What a World: Amazing Stories from Around the Globe, is a six-book series that explores many fascinating topics from around the world and across history. The stories in What a World cover a diverse range of high-interest topics, from biographical pieces to exploration of cultures in various historical and contemporary periods. Features Words that Go Together activities highlight collocations -- words that are easier to learn together. Talking Notes activities challenge students to listen for main ideas and details in a short description of a person. place, or thing. Short Conversations ask students to infer tone, attitude, or the context of the speakers' conversation. Critical Thinking questions develop students' thinking skills. Language Focus activities draw on a grammatical structure from the listening and help students develop accuracy in speaking and writing. Pronunciation and Conversation activities help guide students to more accurate and conversational speech. Internet activities build students' Internet research skills. Self-Tests help students and teachers assess progress. What a World Reading -- a 3-level complementary series -- explores parallel themes to What a World Listening as it develops students' reading skills and vocabulary.

Listening is an essential skill for healthy relationships, both with God and with other people. But it is more than that: listening is a way of life. Adam McHugh places listening at the heart of our spirituality, our relationships and our mission. Heed the call to the listening life, and hear what God is doing in you and the world.

The Listening Book is about rediscovering the power of listening as an instrument of self-discovery and personal transformation. By exploring our capacity for listening to sounds and for making music, we can awaken and release our full creative powers. Mathieu offers suggestions and encouragement on many aspects of music-making, and provides playful exercises to help readers appreciate the connection between sound, music, and everyday life.