Ordinary Goodness

Ordinary Goodness
Author: Mr. Edward Viljoen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0399183914

A call to action to live a life full of goodness and purpose People often struggle to find a life filled with passion, happiness—and just plain goodness. This struggle drives many to depression and addictive tendencies. Author and New Thought minister Edward Viljoen argues that the struggle need not be an arduous or painful one—that through everyday acts of kindness, faith, and compassion we can create peaceful and contented lives. Using personal stories, practical tips, and exercises, this book shows us that regardless of our circumstances, we can create meaning and beauty in our lives and in the world. Viljoen offers deep insights, showing: - How caring about ordinary things leads to meaningful and extraordinary life experiences - How society's messages about perfection distract us from our ordinary goodness - How faith is a muscle that must be exercised People are always striving to live happy and fulfilled lives. This book reassures us that this is attainable—nothing extraordinary is required.

Ordinary Goodness

Ordinary Goodness
Author: Mr. Edward Viljoen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0399183922

A call to action to live a life full of goodness and purpose People often struggle to find a life filled with passion, happiness—and just plain goodness. This struggle drives many to depression and addictive tendencies. Author and New Thought minister Edward Viljoen argues that the struggle need not be an arduous or painful one—that through everyday acts of kindness, faith, and compassion we can create peaceful and contented lives. Using personal stories, practical tips, and exercises, this book shows us that regardless of our circumstances, we can create meaning and beauty in our lives and in the world. Viljoen offers deep insights, showing: - How caring about ordinary things leads to meaningful and extraordinary life experiences - How society's messages about perfection distract us from our ordinary goodness - How faith is a muscle that must be exercised People are always striving to live happy and fulfilled lives. This book reassures us that this is attainable—nothing extraordinary is required.

The Ministry of Ordinary Places

The Ministry of Ordinary Places
Author: Shannan Martin
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0718077490

Find your life and true calling by losing yourself in the ordinary rhythms of life with the people God has placed around you. Popular blogger, Shannan Martin offers Christians who are longing for a more meaningful life a simple starting point: learn what it is to love and be loved right where God has placed you. What does it look like to live lives of meaning? And how do we do it between loads of laundry and reimagining leftovers? Where do we even begin? For Christ-followers living in an increasingly complicated world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to live a life of intention and meaning. But in The Ministry of Ordinary Places, speaker and writer Shannan Martin offers a surprisingly simple answer: it’s about being with people, the ones right next door. As she walks you through her own story she challenges you to see your community through a wider lens of love, following in the footsteps of a Savior who came as an everyday man and spent his life circled up with regular folks just like us. Along the way, she shares discoveries about the vital importance of showing up and committing for the long haul, despite the inevitable encounters with brokenness and uncertainty. With transparency, humor, heart-tugging storytelling, and more than a little personal confession, Martin shows us that no matter where we live or how much we have, as we learn what it is to be with people as Jesus was, we'll find our very lives. The details will look quiet and ordinary, and the call will both exhaust and exhilarate us. But it will be the most worth-it adventure we will ever take and The Ministry of Ordinary Places will help guide you along the path.

Ordinary Blessings

Ordinary Blessings
Author: Meta Herrick Carlson
Publisher: Fortress Press
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1506450628

The ordinary moments of life can be sacred, if we simply take a moment to notice. This collection of prayers, poems, and meditations offers a brief respite from the hectic, harried pace of our days. Open it when the spirit moves you or when the spirit feels distant--the words will be here to inspire, calm, and encourage you either way. From gifted poet and empathetic pastor Meta Herrick Carlson, Ordinary Blessings collects blessings for loving yourself, enduring hard things, authenticity, living with others, and the rhythms of each day. Pause, take a deep breath, and open these pages to find that you've been standing on holy ground all along.

The Vast Fields of Ordinary

The Vast Fields of Ordinary
Author: Nick Burd
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2009
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780803733404

The summer after graduating from an Iowa high school, eighteen-year-old Dade Hamilton watches his parents' marriage disintegrate, ends his long-term, secret relationship, comes out of the closet, and savors first love.

The Good and the Good Book

The Good and the Good Book
Author: Samuel Fleischacker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2015
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198733070

Religions that center around a revelation--or a 'good book', which is seen as God's word--are widely regarded as irrational and dangerous, based on outdated science and conducive to illiberal, inhumane moral attitudes. Samuel Fleischacker offers a powerful defense of revealed religion, and reconciles it with science and liberal morality.

Ordinary Hazards

Ordinary Hazards
Author: Nikki Grimes
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1635925622

Michael L. Printz Honor Book Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book Boston Globe/Horn Book Nonfiction Honor Book Arnold Adoff Poetry Award for Teens Six Starred Reviews—★Booklist ★BCCB ★The Horn Book ★Publishers Weekly ★School Library Connection ★Shelf Awareness A Booklist Best Book for Youth * A BCCB Blue Ribbon * A Horn Book Fanfare Book * A Shelf Awareness Best Children's Book * Recommended on NPR's "Morning Edition" by Kwame Alexander "This powerful story, told with the music of poetry and the blade of truth, will help your heart grow."–Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak and Shout "[A] testimony and a triumph."–Jason Reynolds, author of Long Way Down In her own voice, acclaimed author and poet Nikki Grimes explores the truth of a harrowing childhood in a compelling and moving memoir in verse. Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir that will resonate with young readers and adults alike, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

The Unexpected Joy of the Ordinary

The Unexpected Joy of the Ordinary
Author: Catherine Gray
Publisher: Aster
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2019-12-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1783253649

**From the Sunday Times Bestselling Author** Life-affirming - THE TELEGRAPH Wonderful - INDEPENDENT She made it her mission to learn how to be default happy rather than default disgruntled - RADIO 4 - WOMAN'S HOUR Take a leaf out of Gray's book and be kinder to yourself by appreciating life just as it is - IRISH TIMES This book came to me in an hour of need - during lockdown when I had to focus on the positive, appreciate simple things, not lose my shit, and value each day. It was a pure joy for me and held my hand - SADIE FROST Interesting and joyful. Lights a path that could help us to build resilience against society's urging to compare life milestones with peers - LANCET PSYCHIATRY Underwhelmed by your ordinary existence? Disillusioned with your middlin' wage, average body, 'bijou' living situation and imperfect loved ones? Welcome to the club. There are billions of us. The 'default disenchanted'. But, it's not us being brats. Two deeply inconvenient psychological phenomenons conspire against our satisfaction. We have negatively-biased brains, which zoom like doom-drones in on what's wrong with our day, rather than what's right. (Back in the mists of time, this negative bias saved our skins, but now it just makes us anxious). Also, something called the 'hedonic treadmill' means we eternally quest for better, faster, more, like someone stuck on a dystopian, never-ending treadmill. Thankfully, there are scientifically-proven ways in which we can train our brains to be more positive-seeking. And to take a rest from this tireless pursuit. Whew. Catherine Gray knits together illuminating science and hilarious storytelling, unveiling captivating research showing that big bucks don't mean big happiness, extraordinary experiences have a 'comedown' and budget weddings predict a lower chance of divorce. She reminds us what an average body actually is, reveals that exercising for weight loss means we do less exercise, and explores the modern tendency to not just try to keep up with the Murphys, but keep up with the Mega-Murphies (see: the social media elite). Come on in to this soulful and life-affirming read, to discover why an ordinary life may well be the most satisfying one of all.

What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day

What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day
Author: Pearl Cleage
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2009-03-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0061807176

This New York Times–bestselling novel is “lively, topical, and fantasy filled. Watch out, Terry McMillian. Cleage is on your tail” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). After a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living with the Atlanta brothers and sisters with the best clothes and biggest dreams, Ava Johnson has temporarily returned home to Idlewild—her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits by cold reality. But what she imagines to be the end is, instead, a beginning. Because, in the ten-plus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city have come to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away; and she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Besides which, that one unthinkable, unmistakable thing is now happening to her: Ava Johnson is falling in love. Acclaimed playwright, essayist, New York Times–bestselling author, and columnist Pearl Cleage has created a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding, in a remarkable novel that sizzles with sensuality, hums with gritty truth, and sings and crackles with life-affirming energy. “Very funny and charming . . . Following Cleage’s twists and turns of the human spirit, readers may find themselves on a very inspired and uplifted plane well before the last page.” —Washington Post Book World “Cleage . . . delivers a work of intelligence and integrity. . . . [A] memorable tale.” —-Publishers Weekly, starred review

Everyday Graces

Everyday Graces
Author: Karen Santorum
Publisher: ISI Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2003-04-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781932236095

The National Bestseller, Featuring a Brand-New Introduction by Karen Santorum As a mother, Karen Santorum grew frustrated by her inability to find a book of manners that instructed through engaging stories and poems rather than by dull lists of dos and don'ts. She set out to solve the problem. The result is this wonderfully rich and instructive anthology. A national bestseller, Everyday Graces has become a beloved feature in homes, schools, churches, and libraries across America. It speaks to the fact that manners are seldom discussed anymore—and are practiced even less. Good manners are a prerequisite for the growth of moral character; they are the habits of conduct by which we express in the most ordinary circumstances our fundamental respect for others, whether parents, friends, colleagues, or strangers. Under such headings as "Honor Your Mother and Father," "Please, Thank You, and Other Kind Words," "Be Considerate at the Table," "Good Sportsmanship," and "Respecting Our Country," Everyday Graces gathers stories and poems that will develop and enrich the moral imagination. This marvelous anthology features classic selections from such well-known authors as Hans Christian Andersen, Beatrix Potter, Mark Twain, Frances Hodgson Burnett, C. S. Lewis, Max Lucado, and Arnold Lobel, as well as forgotten gems that deserve a new hearing. Find out why Everyday Graces has struck a chord with tens of thousands of families. Both inviting and informative, this book helps instill good manners in our children—and takes a stand against the decline in civility and the coarsening of our common life.