When Gary returned from Germany, visions of a white picket fence burned deep in his soul. He decided the first woman he had relations with would be his wife; they would have children and live happily ever after. Problem was, Gary made bad choices, and the white picket fence moved out of Gary’s reach. Travel with Gary T. Lucas as he fights his own demons and struggles through life to fix his broken world.

In all author Serena Lynn Estes’s life decisions, she had chosen to be unsettled to avoid her grief. She moved continuously, bought many homes, had four marriages, and could not seem to settle into herself. She got bored and chose continuous movement to keep herself from stopping, listening, and just being. Then, after Estes turned fifty, she chose to stop the madness. After moving to California, she received her Holy Yoga certification, learned to meditate, and conducted burning sessions to release the anxiety. The last of these entails writing down your feelings and the specific struggles you are currently experiencing and safely lighting the paper on fire in a safe place to watch it burn. A burning session can allow you to let go of the unwanted feelings and struggles and release them into God’s control. When Estes prepares for her burning sessions, it gives her peace and the feeling of surrendering her heartache and challenges into the hands of God. She still struggles, as we all do, but it is what we do with the anxiety within us that counts. Now she seeks to share the story of how she found peace and understanding and stopped searching for the “white picket fence” after making many wrong choices in relationships, friendships, and family issues. Set in Texas and California, this inspirational personal narrative tells the story of a woman who has endured many types of trauma and wants to share her tools for healing with others.

A Gentle Invitation into the Challenging Topic of Privilege The notion that some might have it better than others, for no good reason, offends our sensibilities. Yet, until we talk about privilege, we’ll never fully understand it or find our way forward. Amy Julia Becker welcomes us into her life, from the charm of her privileged southern childhood to her adult experience in the northeast, and the denials she has faced as the mother of a child with special needs. She shows how a life behind a white picket fence can restrict even as it protects, and how it can prevent us from loving our neighbors well. White Picket Fences invites us to respond to privilege with generosity, humility, and hope. It opens us to questions we are afraid to ask, so that we can walk further from fear and closer to love, in all its fragile and mysterious possibilities.

Explores how the suburban imaginary, composed of the built environment and imaginative texts, functions as a resource for living out the "good life"

This wide-ranging exploration of the spiritual and scientific dimensions of dreaming offers new connections between the ancient wisdom of the world's religious traditions, which have always taught that dreams reveal divine truths, and the recent findings of modern psychological research. Drawing upon philosophy, anthropology, sociology, neurology, literature, and film criticism, the book offers a better understanding of the mysterious complexity and startling creative powers of human dreaming experience. For those interested in gaining new perspectives on dreaming, the powers of the imagination, and the newest frontiers in the dialogue between religion and science, Visions of the Night promises to be a welcome resource.

An Angle of Vision is a compelling anthology that collects personal essays and memoir by a diverse group of gifted authors united by their poor or working-class roots in America. The contributors include Dorothy Alison, Joy Castro, Lisa D. Chavez, Mary Childers, Sandra Cisneros, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Teresa Dovalpage, Maureen Gibbon, Dwonna Goldstone, Joy Harjo, Lorraine M. Lpez, Karen Salyer McElmurray, Amelia Maria de la Luz Montes, Bich Minh Nguyen, Judy Owens, Lynn Pruett, Heather Sellers, and Angela Threatt.

Come home to Shelter Valley where love lasts and families matter.... Miranda Parsons is content with her life. She has a great job, a wonderful family, a lovely house. She has good friends. And she lives in a town where people know her, care about her. So what's missing? Passion--as she finds out when she meets Zack Foster. Zack's a veterinarian who's recently moved to Shelter Valley after the failure of a marriage he'd considered perfect. He still likes being with women, but now prefers his romances "short and sweet." Randi and Zack learn what it is to feel truly passionate about someone else--and they begin to want the passion they've discovered. But to get something, you have to give something up. Can they exchange contentment for happiness--even if greater happiness means greater risk?