When his family comes to live on his grandfather's farm in Pennsylvania while his father is out of work, eleven-year-old Will must deal with his father's distant behavior, his grandfather's heart attack, and caring for a goose he has shot.

WE LIVE IN A CULTURE THAT IS DESPERATE TO AVOID LOSS. We choose to fight it because we assume that it has come only to unfairly steal and inflict terrible pain. Loss is seen as the rogue enemy and heartless foe, rather than an opportunity for immense and improbable growth. It’s in loss that some of the richest and rarest of life’s lessons lay buried, eagerly waiting to be deeply mined and unearthed. In the deepest pain God does the deepest work. An Autumn’s Journey – Deep Growth in the Grief and Loss of Life’s Seasons does not loosely gloss over loss or provide shallow prescriptions and weak formulas for our grieving. Rather, it aggressively embraces both grief and loss, bringing fresh eyes to these times in our lives in order to draw out of them the marvelous riches that we all too often miss.

" ... Examines the natural and biological phenomena of fall."--Cover.

This is a beginner's guide to contemplation for anyone in the second half of life and also a love story. Autumn Years describes the practice of contemplation as part of a strategy of successful aging. Recognizing that there is no single contemplative path, it includes: sitting meditation, centering prayer, walking meditation, and loving-kindness meditation. It also looks at other practices as well: yoga, lectio divina, koan study, music meditation, dream work, and even travel as pilgrimage. 'Shows that marriage is as much a spiritual journey as monasticism... youth only the beginning of the human exploration of wonder, divine passion, and holiness.' Laurence Freeman, O.S.B., director of the World Community of Christian Meditation