Vestige of Eden, Image of Eternity: Common Experience, the Hierarchy of Being, and Modern Science proffers a Catholic worldview of creation and the universe and shows that it is reasonable in the light of the best of 0human experience, both modern and pre-modern. The Catholic worldview maintains that the Liturgy of the Church - the image of eternity - is the?blueprint? for material and immaterial reality. This liturgical structure is manifested in the natural world through the hierarchy of being - the vestige of Eden - evident to human knowledge, and as such provides a framework that easily subsumes and makes sense of the data of modern scholarship and science. It also leaves them open to understanding in the light of realties beyond matter. Proposing a novel framework for understanding reality to modern ears, yet old in the history of human thought, 0Vestigeof Eden will be of interest to general readers and college students, while proving profitable for the academic as well.

Two sides. Two hearts. And a gulf between them as deep and wide as eternity. "This tale brings a turbulent time to life with nuance and sensitivity." JOCELYN GREEN, award-winning author of the Heroines Behind the Lines Civil War series Virginia, 1861 After being forced to use a pistol against invaders, Evelyn Mapleton is no longer the timid girl her extended family expects. The more her aunt and cousin resent her new independence, the more Evelyn is determined she'll make her missing father proud by taking up his cause and aiding Confederate soldiers--even if she has to outmaneuver the Yankees guarding her home to do it. Samuel Flynn's life is consumed with two priorities: learning to become a proper guardian for the young orphans he's adopted and obtaining his physicians license. When his final testing sends him to a Federal Army field hospital, the last thing he expects is to be entranced by a mysterious woman. But when Evelyn's misguided exploits put her life in danger, will he risk everything he's worked for to save a woman he thinks is his enemy? Based on first-hand accounts from the Civil War and with a strong romantic thread, this is a tale of faith, espionage, hope, and courage historical fiction fans won't want to miss. Don't miss these other titles from Bestselling Christian author Stephenia H. McGee Ironwood Plantation Family Saga The Whistle Walk Heir of Hope Missing Mercy The Accidental Spy Series *previously The Liberator Series An Accidental Spy A Dangerous Performance A Daring Pursuit Stand Alone Historical In His Eyes Eternity Between Us The Heart of Home The Secrets of Emberwild Stand Alone Time Travel Her Place in Time The Hope of Christmas Past The Back Inn Time Series A Wagon Train Weekend Falling for the Fifties A Colonial Courtship A Castle for Christmas Contemporary The Cedar Key (2021 Faith, Hope, and Love Award Winner)

"An accessible and engaging exploration of the mysteries of time." -Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe Twenty years ago, Stephen Hawking tried to explain time by understanding the Big Bang. Now, Sean Carroll says we need to be more ambitious. One of the leading theoretical physicists of his generation, Carroll delivers a dazzling and paradigm-shifting theory of time's arrow that embraces subjects from entropy to quantum mechanics to time travel to information theory and the meaning of life. From Eternity to Here is no less than the next step toward understanding how we came to exist, and a fantastically approachable read that will appeal to a broad audience of armchair physicists, and anyone who ponders the nature of our world.

A New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller “Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.” —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry—especially chemical embalming—and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.

Plato’s Timaeus is the most comprehensive argument in history for a universe devised and created by God; yet, paradoxically, it is probably the least understood of all the creation stories. No doubt this is because much of the argument is composed in mathematical and geometric terms that are cryptic and extremely difficult to follow. Still, Timaeus has been widely read and is much admired to this day, though it is still fraught with considerable difficulties of interpretation and understanding. In this book, the author provides detailed insights into Timaeus’s mathematics and geometry, and finds in them a unified plan that underlies all of creation. This plan not only provides for the design of the universe, but it also guides its operations to this day. Thus, the plan is eternal and fundamental to the continued functioning of the universe, and it is something that can readily be discerned in our daily lives, from our measures of time and distance to our concepts of harmony and beauty—all of which have their roots in mathematics and geometry.

Icons in Time, Persons in Eternity presents a critical, interdisciplinary examination of contemporary theological and philosophical studies of the Christian image and redefines this within the Orthodox tradition by exploring the ontological and aesthetic implications of Orthodox ascetic and mystical theology. It finds Modernist interest in the aesthetic peculiarity of icons significant, and essential for re-evaluating their relationship to non-representational art. Drawing on classical Greek art criticism, Byzantine ekphraseis and hymnography, and the theologies of St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas, the author argues that the ancient Greek concept of enargeia best conveys the expression of theophany and theosis in art. The qualities that define enargeia - inherent liveliness, expressive autonomy and self-subsisting form - are identified in exemplary Greek and Russian icons and considered in the context of the hesychastic theology that lies at the heart of Orthodox Christianity. An Orthodox aesthetics is thus outlined that recognizes the transcendent being of art and is open to dialogue with diverse pictorial and iconographic traditions. An examination of Ch’an (Zen) art theory and a comparison of icons with paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko and Marc Chagall, and by Japanese artists influenced by Zen Buddhism, reveal intriguing points of convergence and difference. The reader will find in these pages reasons to reconcile Modernism with the Christian image and Orthodox tradition with creative form in art.