Showing 33–48 of 69 results

Just As We Were

$19.95

When a Texas debutante bows her forehead to the floor in the famous “Texas dip,” society columnists all across the country speculate interminably over what it is that sets Texas women apart. But really, how could they know? Even women born and bred in Texas can’t always answer that question.

Prudence Mackintosh comes very close to an answer, though, in this endlessly entertaining book. Writing with both a wry sense of humor and an insider’s compassion, she offers us a fascinating look into the world of privileged, educated, well-married, well-connected, and mostly wealthy white Texas women.

What really sets these women apart, Ms. Mackintosh tells us, is the comfortable yet demanding path they follow from their idyllic girlhoods to prominent positions in society. In thirteen essays, some of which originally appeared in Texas Monthly magazine, she charts the way stations that mark this path: summer camps in the Texas Hill Country, exclusive private schools like Dallas’ Hockaday, sorority membership, and acceptance into the Junior League.

Prudence Mackintosh has been both an outsider and an insider in this privileged world, and her observations are shot through with wit and real insight. Just As We Were may not be the final word on elite Texas women, but no other book has described their world with greater irony or accuracy.

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Light to the Darkness

$18.00

These are stories of human beings who lived in “the temporal element,” but who understood something of the divine drama, of the eternal — people like Abraham and Isaiah, like Elizabeth and Mary of Nazareth, who were all convinced that God was a personal God. These are stories that matter to people like us… This is another way to look at the same stories and hear anew the carols that serve as the eternal Yes to the truth that the stories reveal to us. – From Light to the Darkness

 

Of all the ancient traditions that surround Advent — as Christians joyfully wait for the birth of Christ — perhaps none is so well loved as the service of Lessons and Carols. In scripture and song, believers gather together to tell the story of who they are and what their faith calls them to be.

In this fresh new interpretation of lessons and carols, Katerina Whitley retells the stories in the form of dramatic monologue and dialogue, helping listeners to hear them as if for the very first time. With music suggestions that range from the traditional to the unexpected, Light to the Darkness is a resource for churches planning meaningful Advent services — and for individuals seeking a new way to mark the days of this holy season.

 

Katerina Katsarka was born in Thessaloniki, Greece. “I long for what is good and whole in humanity, even though I am quite aware of the darkness. Jesus expects us to be the light of the world and I try to remember this always. Writing, for me, is a response to the Light.”

The same is true with teaching, Katerina says. She has taught children and adults of all ages, but her favorite groups are the college students she has been teaching at Appalachian State University as a communication adjunct since 2001.

She is the author of several books, including Speaking for Ourselves: Voices of Biblical Women and Walking the Way of Sorrows: Stations of the Cross.

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Love is the Way

$27.00

As the descendant of slaves and the son of a civil rights activist, Bishop Michael Curry’s life illustrates massive changes in our times. Much of the world met Bishop Curry when he delivered his sermon on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Here, he expands on his message of hope in an inspirational road map for living the way of love, illuminated with moving lessons from his own life. Through the prism of his faith, ancestry, and personal journey, Love Is the Way shows us how America came this far and, more important, how to go a whole lot further.

The way of love is essential for addressing the seemingly insurmountable challenges facing the world today: poverty, racism, selfishness, deep ideological divisions, competing claims to speak for God. This book will lead readers to discover the gifts they need in order to live the way of love: deep reservoirs of hope and resilience, simple wisdom, the discipline of nonviolence, and unshakable regard for human dignity.

 

The Most Reverend Michael B. Curry is the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church. Elected in 2015, he is the first African-American to lead the denomination. He was previously bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. A noted advocate for human rights and author of several books, Bishop Curry is recognized as one of the most popular preachers in the English language. He and his wife Sharon Curry have two daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth. They live in North Carolina.

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Manhattan Beach Memoir: Artist Gary Sweeney Says Goodbye to His Childhood Home

$35.00

 

In 2016, Gary Sweeney created a site-specific installation, A Manhattan Beach Memoir: 1945-2015. This book documents the installation at 320 35th Street, made as a tribute to his family, the Manhattan Beach of his youth, and the Southern California house that his family owned for over 70 years. A house is like a pictorial frame delimiting the lives lived within it; Sweeney’s memoir is an homage to this frame, this sheltered space, made resonant by the role it played in his family’s life.

 

Sweeney’s art is a celebration not just of a bygone era and a particular family’s life, but of a specific landscape and a use of photography that is also disappearing into the past. As his humble beach cottage gets replaced by townhouse, and the city succumbs to an ever-growing homogenous suburbia, Sweeney’s art is both an endearing tribute and a wry social commentary.

 

Writers Wendy Weil Atwell and Neil Fauerso discuss the social and economic factor that shaped Sweeney’s childhood, the astronomical increase in real estate values, the meaning of home, photography’s role in society, and the Southern California art movements that inspired and influenced Sweeney’s art.

 

Gary Sweeney is a contemporary artist who lives with his wife, Janet, in San Antonio, Texas. Born in 1952, Sweeney was raised in Southern California during the euphoric post-World War II atmosphere. His house in Manhattan Beach was just a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, where Sweeney surfed and soaked in the California sun before graduating in 1975 with a Degree in Fine Arts from UC Irvine. Influenced by both Pop art and California artists such as John Baldessari, Sweeney’s art ranges from neon signs, billboards, and murals to rug making, book art, and video. To support his artistic career, Sweeney worked as an airline baggage handler for 35 years.

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Marvelously Made

$14.95

 

Each chapter in Marvelously Made focuses on a vital part of the body, the heart, the lungs, the brain, the joints. For each section, Mary provides reader-friendly information about the wonders of the organ or body part, and offers a prayer and a set of gratitude practices in the form of a physical and spiritual meditation exercise to deepen your appreciation of the body.

 

“A beautiful resource for those of us who want to enter more deeply into a prayerful experience of the body. Through a series of thoughtful contemplative practices that bring us to a deepened sense of our own grace, Earle leads the reader gently to a renewed sense of wonder, amazement, and profound gratitude for the gift of being in a body. Highly recommended.” – Christine Valters Paintner, author of The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom

 

“Mary Earle helps us see that our bodies are marvelously made, a ‘sacred space,’ where God’s wondrous and mysterious ways can be appreciated contemplatively, with gratitude. But she also takes gratitude to its next step, in suggesting ways of serving others’ bodily needs with compassion and conviction.” – Brian C. Taylor, author of Becoming Christ: Transformation Through Contemplation

 

Mary C. Earle is an Episcopal priest, poet, author, spiritual director and retreat leader. Until her retirement, she taught classes in spirituality for the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas. Mary has authored nine books; the subjects include the spirituality of living with illness, rule of life, Celtic Christian spirituality, the Desert Mothers, and Julian of Norwich. Mary has offered presentations and retreats in a variety of ecumenical settings, including conferences of the Academy for Spiritual Formation, Spiritual Directors International, the International Thomas Merton Society and hospice organizations. She has written articles for a variety of journals, including Presence: the Journal of Spiritual Directors International, Radical Grace, Reflections, and The Lutheran. She was included in the Living Spiritual Teachers project of Spirituality and Practice.

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Poetry Combo Deal

$37.95

Get both Mary Earle and Christine Valters Paintner’s poetry books here.

Did You Sing Your Song? by Mary Earle

A lifetime of poetry about the land, memories of West Texas, family, and sacredness of life.

When she was a little girl, Mary Earle’s maternal grandmother taught her to listen to the garden in her yard, the creek on the Texas hill country land, the wind in the trees and the stars. Her mother, Mary Colbert, started reading to her as soon as she could sit up, and her mother loved to read poetry out loud. The poems in this book are an offering that comes from years of listening to what the Irish call “the music of what happens.” Mary says, “My hope is that the poems will invite the reader to listen along with me to that music.”

 

Wisdom of Wild Grace by Christine Valters Paintner

At the core of this collection are 30 poems inspired by the stories of kinship between saints and animals. They come mostly from the early Christian desert and Celtic traditions, but also feature later medieval saints like St. Francis of Assisi and St. Julian of Norwich. These stories point to a reverence for a different way of knowing and being in the world, one our world is hungry for. Each poem in this collection is meant to be a doorway to intimacy with our inner wilderness, a call to sit and be present to what we discover beyond the borders of our neatly controlled worlds.

 

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE is the online Abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery and global, ecumenical community integrating contemplative practice and creative expression. She is a Benedictine oblate living on the west coast of Ireland with her husband John. Together they lead pilgrimages and retreats in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and Austria. Christine is the author of twelve books on spirituality, monastic wisdom, creativity, and the arts including The Artist’s Rule and The Soul’s Slow Ripening.  Her poems have been published in journals in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, and the UK.

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Prayer Beads and An Altar In Your Heart book COMBO

$38.00

Greek and Russian/Eastern Orthodox and other Christian groups use prayer counters, usually a knotted rope but sometimes strings of beads. Prayer ropes can consist of 33, 50, 100 or even 300 knots or beads.

These prayer beads are a circle of 33 prayer beads, to commemorate the number of years Jesus was on the earth; they are not divided into decades. On each bead, the Jesus Prayer can be prayed: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

A simple and powerful form of meditating, a daily practice can bring deep peace and faith.

The beads are natural, authentic tigers eye, sturdily strung and a brown tassel. Listing includes a handwoven from Mexico zipper bag (colors will vary).

Paired with the book by Rev. Robert Hibbs, An Altar in Your Heart: Meditations on the Jesus Prayer, this set makes a great gift for yourself or others. Using straightforward and direct language, Rev. Hibbs explains how and what a daily Jesus Prayer practice is like, and the deep and abiding peace and faith it can bring. A beautifully done hardcover book, it includes a CD of excerpts of Rev. Hibbs’ Jesus Prayer retreat.

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Prayer Cards by John Philip Newell

$12.50

Perfect for congregations, this prayer card is double-sided with John Philip Newell’s prayers “The Blessings of Jesus”, and “The Song of Mary”.

Price is for a pack of 25 cards.

For larger quantities, please email us directly at jen@materialmedia.com.

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Praying With the Earth

$18.00

Morning and evening prayers for the peace of the whole world. Following the pattern of his popular Celtic Benediction, Philip Newell provides lyrical and theologically profound prayers for morning and evening each day of the week. These devotions celebrate the spiritual legacy shared by Jews, Christians, and Muslims and articulate the longings for peace that are closer to the heart of these spiritual traditions than their divisions. Ideal for personal devotions, this book also provides a versatile liturgical resource appropriate for Christian or interfaith use. Each devotion features:

  • A Beatitude
  • A Prayer of Awareness
  • Meditative Readings from the Psalms, the Gospel of Matthew, and the Qu’ran
  • A Prayer for the Life of the World
  • A Prayer of Blessing
  • Rich full-color illustrations drawn from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic art.

 

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PRE-ORDER | Earth and Soul

$26.99

* This listing is to pre-order John Philip Newell’s upcoming book. Release date is July 2021

 

A leading spiritual teacher reveals how Celtic spirituality—listening to the sacred around us and inside of us—can help us heal the earth, overcome our conflicts, and reconnect with ourselves.

John Philip Newell shares the long, hidden tradition of Celtic Christianity, explaining how this earth-based spirituality can help us rediscover the natural rhythms of life and deepen our spiritual connection with God, with each other, and with the earth. Newell introduces some of Celtic Christianity’s leading practitioners, both saints and pioneers of faith, whose timeless wisdom is more necessary than ever, including:

Pelagius, who shows us how to look beyond sin to affirm our sacredness as part of all God’s creation, and courageously stand up for our principles in the face of oppression.

Brigid of Kildare, who illuminates the interrelationship of all things and reminds us of the power of the sacred feminine to overcome those seeking to control us.

John Muir, who encourages us to see the holiness and beauty of wilderness and what we must do to protect these gifts.

Teilhard de Chardin, who inspires us to see how science, faith, and our future tell one universal story that begins with sacredness.

By embracing the wisdom of Celtic Christianity, we can learn how to listen to the sacred and see the divine in all of creation and within each of us. Human beings are inherently spiritual creatures who intuitively see the sacred in nature and within one another, but our cultures—and at times even our faiths—have made us forget what each of us already know deep in our souls but have learned to suppress. Earth and Soul offers a new spiritual foundation for our lives, once centered on encouragement, guidance, and hope for creating a better world.

Release Date: July 6, 2021

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Raymundo Gonzalez: Magical Realism in Mexico

$55.00

Cuernavaca, the “City of Eternal Springtime” serves as Raymundo Gonzalez’s blank canvas from which he paints and draws what he sees: a mix of Spanish and Indian cultures, fiestas, traditions, myths, and colors. His art captures these cultural images beautifully, giving the viewer a taste of both reality and fantasy. Gonzalez depicts the real side of Mexican culture with energy and life, yet manages to keep from stifling the viewer’s own imagination. This book is certainly a bright and rich addition to anyone’s home and will carry the hearts and minds of viewers into a playful and yet meaningful journey through a magical Mexico.

Raymundo Gonzalez was born in Guadalajara, Mexico on February 4, 1951. As a child he was exposed to the rich supply of architectural, cultural, and artistic displays that were part of his hometown. Borrowing from the influences of Guadalajara, it’s no surprise that Gonzalez pursued a life and career in the arts. Soon after receiving a degree in Art at the Academy of Art in Veracruz, Gonzalez graduated from the Autonomous University of Morelos’ School of Architecture. He began practicing architecture but continued painting and drawing all the while and ultimately made the transition from architect to full-time artist. Gonzalez currently lives and works in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He has participated in a number of exhibits in Mexico, Ireland, Holland and the United States. He has a permanent collection in Puerto Vallarta. For more information:
www.quetelate.com

GONZALEZ — November 2014
Art / hardback / 160 pages / 12.25×9.25×0.75 inches
ISBN 978-0-98108007-2 / $55.00

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RealLivePreacher.com

$12.00

 

 

Gordon Atkinson was the pastor of a small church in San Antonio, Texas. But he is more widely known to a large online readership simply as “The Preacher,” having posted many honest, witty, probing reflections on the blog called RealLivePreacher.com. Within months of the blog’s start in late 2002, thousands of people were coming to read Atkinson’s latest postings.

This book gathers the finest of Atkinson’s electronic essays (reworked for print publication), together with nine new writings never posted online. As veteran blog readers already know, Atkinson’s mind skews here and there, commenting on the stars, children, and tamales as often as he considers the foibles of life and faith. Readers will meet Earl the gravedigger; the little blue shoes girl; Elliot, whose birth was called Advent; and George, a deacon whose legacy lives in a rock embedded in a church wall. These are all real people, and the make up just part of the fascinating world of RealLivePreacher.com

Anyone wondering about the spiritual side of Atkinson’s writing can expect challenges. One of his aims is “to find God in the seams and transitions of life, especially at the places where sacred meets secular.” He’s not afraid to explore the full spectrum of life, including the disturbing. No matter the subject, however, the common thread running through these essays is the search for God in it all.

Artwork created by Steve Erspamer used by permission of Liturgical Training Publication.

“All in all, the most fascinating aspect of RealLivePreacher.com is its striking honesty. [Gordon]…shows us how God works faith in each and every one of us, no matter how broken, lost or thoroughly screwed up we are. This is Good News indeed.” —Cindy Appel

 

 

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Retreads

$18.00

Retreads tells the middle of the story begun in Thundering Sneakers and concluded in Sneaking Out. In this collection of essays, Prudence Mackintosh follows her sons through the “tween” years between little boyhood and adolescence. Vividly portraying the chaos that descends on a house full of active children, she also records the many first times and last times that give poignancy to the middle years of motherhood.

A contributing editor of Texas Monthly magazine, Prudence Mackintosh is a popular author and public speaker, whose commentary on family life, schooling, Texas women, and Dallas architecture has also appeared in such magazines and newspapers as McCall’s, Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, D Magazine, Parenting, and the Dallas Morning News. She lives in Dallas with her husband, John A. Mackintosh, Jr., with whom she looks forward to completing the conversations interrupted by their sons thirty years ago.

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Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in Our Busy Lives

$18.00

In today’s world, with its relentless emphasis on success and productivity, we have lost the necessary rhythm of life, the balance between work and rest. Constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance. We long for time with friends and family, we long for a moment to ourselves.

Millennia ago, the tradition of Sabbath created an oasis of sacred time within a life of unceasing labor. Now, in a book that can heal our harried lives, Wayne Muller, author of the spiritual classic How, Then, Shall We Live?, shows us how to create a special time of rest, delight, and renewal–a refuge for our souls.

We need not even schedule an entire day each week. Sabbath time can be a Sabbath afternoon, a Sabbath hour, a Sabbath walk. With wonderful stories, poems, and suggestions for practice, Muller teaches us how we can use this time of sacred rest to refresh our bodies and minds, restore our creativity, and regain our birthright of inner happiness.

Praise for Sabbath

“Muller’s insights are applicable within a broad spectrum of faiths and will appeal to a wide range of readers.”—Publishers Weekly

“One of the best spiritual books of the year.”—Spirituality and Health

“Wayne Muller’s call to remember the Sabbath is not only rich, wise and poetic, it may well be the only salvation for body and soul in a world gone crazy with busyness and stress.”—Joan Borysenko, author ofMinding the Body, Mending the Mind and A Woman’s Book of Life

“This is a book that may save your life. Sabbath offers a surprising direction for healing to anyone who has ever glimpsed emptiness at the heart of a busy and productive life.”—Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom

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Seeing for Ourselves

$14.00

Katerina Whitley’s first book of biblical monologues, Speaking for Ourselves, has been received with enthusiastic praise. Now, in Seeing for Ourselves, Whitley gives powerful voice to the New Testament women who met Jesus both before and after the resurrection.

 

Included in this collection are: the woman at the well; the adulterous woman who was nearly stoned to death; Cleopas’s wife, whom Jesus may have met on the road to Emmaus; the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak in order to be healed; Mary and Martha; Phoebe; Prisca; Pilate’s wife; the bride at the wedding of Cana, and others.

 

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Katerina Katsarka came to the U. S. at 16 years of age to enter college. Her education focused on music and English literature and later on theology. She married Rudy Whitley and together they were confirmed in the Episcopal Church. In the four decades of her involvement with the church, Katerina has worked as diocesan and national church journalist as writer, photographer, and editor. She is the author of five books of biblical monologues and one Greek cookbook. She has taught children and adults of all ages and continues her ministry in leading retreats and in speaking to churches. She has two daughters and four grandchildren. She lives in Louisville, KY.

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