A Creative Journey for CaregiversHave you ever had one of those days when the fabric of your life, everything around you, seems to be in pieces?Your heart breaking, stressed, torn apart, caring for a loved one who doesn't even remember you as daughter or son, much less remember your name? Sometimes, you forget who you are! Your creativity is stifled!I know that when you assume the duties of care giving, as you may have experienced, you realize it is a full-time job. It's a whirl-pool requiring special effort to juggle business, family, the many doctor appointments, scheduling home-care personnel, plus managing the day-to-day activities. It's a special effort for you to stay afloat!I'm experiencing the upsets of being a caregiver. I'm familiar with the many challenges of a care givers life. I'm an artist, and a caregiver. I work from home creating Shimoda Accessories - Art for the Soul. I use the ancient art and craft traditions of hand stringing and knotting beads and semi-precious stones into fine jewelry and textile art; connecting cloth together by hand-stitching pieces of fabric into a whole cloth. I live with my husband and we take care of my 95 year-old mother. Mom has Alzheimer's disease. In addition, I also care for another family member who lives elsewhere. Thankfully, she is a breast-cancer survivor. However, she is now experiencing memory lapses.

Break open this ancient contemplative practice of listening deeply for God's voice in sacred texts. Drawing on her own experience as a monk in the world, Christine Valters Paintner introduces the foundations for a practice of lectio divina. She closely examines each of the four movements of lectio divina as well as the rhythm they create when practiced as a process.

In The Way of Beauty, David Clayton describes how a true Catholic education is both a program of liturgical catechesis and an inculturation that aims for the supernatural transformation of the person so that he can in turn transfigure the whole culture through the divine beauty of his daily action. There is no human activity, no matter how mundane, that cannot be enhanced by this formation in beauty. Such enhanced activity then resonates in harmony with the common good and, through its beauty, draws all people to the Church--and ultimately to the worship of God in the Sacred Liturgy. The Way of Beauty will be of profound interest not only to artists, architects, and composers, but also to educators, who can apply its principles in home and classroom for the formation and education of children and students of all ages and at all levels--family, homeschooling, high school, college, and university. "Since the good, the true, and the beautiful are a manifestation of the Trinity, it is always a grievous fault to leave beauty out of any discussion of the relationship between faith and reason. This being so, I am thrilled at the way David Clayton illustrates how beauty stands in eternal communion with the good and the true."--JOSEPH PEARCE, Aquinas College "In spite of the great proclamation that the sacred liturgy is the font and apex of all we are about as Catholics, fifty years after the Council we still seem far from seeing and living this truth in all its fullness. Drawing upon years of experience as artist and teacher, David Clayton thoroughly unpacks this truth and shows, with an impressive range of examples, how it can and should play out every day in our schools, academic curricula, cultural endeavors, and practice of the fine arts. His treatment of the ways in which architecture, liturgy, and music reflect the mathematical ordering of the cosmos and the hierarchy of created being is illuminating and exciting. The Way of Beauty is a manifesto for the re-integration of the truth laid hold of in intellectual disciplines, the beauty aspired to in art and worship, and the good embodied in morals and manners. Ambitiously integrative yet highly practical, this book ought to be in the hands of every Catholic educator, pastor, and artist."--PETER KWASNIEWSKI, Wyoming Catholic College "In The Way of Beauty, David Clayton offers us a mini-liberal arts education. The book is a counter-offensive against a culture that so often seems to have capitulated to a 'will to ugliness.' He shows us the power in beauty not just where we might expect it--in the visual arts and music--but in domains as diverse as math, theology, morality, physics, astronomy, cosmology, and liturgy. But more than that, his study of beauty makes clear the connection between liturgy, culture, and evangelization, and offers a way to reinvigorate our commitment to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in the twenty-first century. I am grateful for this book and hope many will take its lessons to heart."--JAY W. RICHARDS, Catholic University of America "Every pope who has promoted the new evangelization has spoken about how essential 'the way of beauty' is in engaging the modern world with the Gospel. What is it about the experience of beauty that can arrest the heart, crack it open, and stir its deepest longings, leading us on a pilgrimage to God? David Clayton's book provides compelling answers."--CHRISTOPHER WEST, Founder and President of The Cor Project DAVID CLAYTON is an internationally acclaimed Catholic artist, teacher, and published writer on sacred art, liturgy, and culture. He was Fellow and Artist in Residence at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire from 2009 until May 2015 and is the founder of the Way of Beauty program, which has been taught for college credit, featured on television, and is now presented in this book.

This beautifully illustrated book presents a history of our relationship with nature, beginning with the civilisations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, when gardens served as ‘the dwelling place of the gods’. Tracing this history through subsequent epochs, the author shows how human awareness of the divine presence in nature was gradually eclipsed. As nature came to be viewed primarily as a physical resource to be controlled and exploited by us, this was reflected in the ordered, rational designs imposed on such gardens as Versailles. More recently, gardening has come to be seen less as an instrument of control than as an art in its own right, enhancing nature’s inherent beauty. Jeremy Naydler suggests that the future of gardening lies not simply in its being regarded as an art but as a sacred art, which once again honours and works with the spiritual dimension intrinsic to nature. ‘This thoughtful book challenges the gardener in us to work as an artist and experience the sacred presence around us by becoming creatively engaged with the hidden formative forces of Nature.’ – Network Review ‘The main thrust of this profound and inspiring volume is to remind us that gardens are essentially sacred spaces in which we may work together with Nature in order that we may help her – and ourselves in the process – express more fully the divine presence hidden within the heart of her outward beauty.’ – Resurgence ‘An exceptionally well-referenced, delightfully illustrated and informative work.’ – New View ‘In his beautifully illustrated book, [Naydler] re-sounds the call of the garden as a “necessary counterbalance and corrective”. It’s a welcome message towards re-sanctifying our world.’ – Nexus Magazine ‘Gardeners will love this book. Occasionally you look down the garden you have worked all day … and you have that peace, that sense of the numinous that cannot be understood except by somehow knowing that it is vital. Our author has been so kind as to declare it for us: gardening is a sacred art.’ – Derek Cunningham, Self and Society

The concept of a completely profane world -- of a cosmos wholly desacralized -- is a fairly recent invention of the Western mind, and only now are we beginning to realize the appalling consequences of trying to order and mold our social, personal, and creative life in obedience to its dictates. This book attempts to clarify what is demanded of us if we are to have any chance of avoiding the impending catastrophe. It examines the nature and significance of the sacred itself and focuses on the ever-present, timeless qualities of beauty, love, and miracle through which we can be renewed and transformed whatever the condition of the world in which we live.

An original account of the tortuous and revealing relationship between two seminal figures of modern painting, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

A Glasgow bank heist turns into an unlikely meet-cute for a disgruntled female cop in this hilarious crime novel by the master of tartan noir. Their eyes met across a crowded room. It was a room crowded with hostages and armed bank-robbers, and Zal’s eyes were the only part of him that Angelique could see behind his mask. Officer Angelique de Xavia already had enough to be upset about before she’s taken hostage by the most bizarrely unorthodox crooks ever to set foot in Glasgow. Disillusioned, disaffected and chronically single, she’s starting to take stock of the sacrifices she’s made for a job that’s given her back nothing but grief. So when her erstwhile captor has the chutzpah to phone her at work and ask her out on a date, Angelique finds herself in no great hurry to turn him in. She’s long since learned that the cops will never love her back. But maybe one of the robbers will.