The fellowship of Christians generally and the Black Church specifically have an obligation beyond the walls of the sanctuary. Our endangered communities are lost unless the churches in their midst help to provision the journey toward a new life. Personal salvation must be of a piece with social salvation...for only then is the Word made flesh. One day in the early 1950s, when Cecil Chip Murray was a young officer stationed at Oxnard Air Force Base in California, the warplane he was in caught fire after an aborted takeoff attempt. Murray tried to escape, but the glass canopy over his head failed to open. As flames began to consume the plane s nosecone, he heard a clear, steady voice guiding him to disentangle himself from his equipment and squeeze through a tiny hatch in the rear of the plane.  Four decades later, that same voice which had led him from the military to the pulpit of one of the most vibrant congregations in Los Angeles sent him into the streets as a prophet and peacemaker during six days of burning, rioting and looting that marked one of the most destructive episodes of urban violence in U.S. history. Twice Tested By Fire is Rev. Murray s chronicle of the inspiration as well as the challenges that shaped a ministry widely credited with helping to heal a fractured metropolis. His insights into the legacy of the Civil Rights era, faith-based community organizing and socially engaged Christianity provide timely instruction to a new generation rising to the task of ensuring that the American dream of equality and justice for all is not forgotten.

Twice Tested by Fire: A Memoir of Faith and Service

Cecil Murray

Figueroa Press

Global Income Convergence Among Nations in the 21st Century

Nake M. Kamrany

PHOTÕETRY is a riveting collection of poetry and photography from a city quite legendary for its ferocious magnetism. The process of creating this lyrical and visual testament to life in Los Angeles involves either creating photographs inspired by completed poems, or writing poems based on captivating pictures. The work found here is a collection of displayed images and poems from the 2007 and 2013 PHOTÕETRY Gallery show, featured in various art galleries throughout the western United States. Hiram Sims blends his words with amazing images from photographers Sam Bendall, Adam Tillm-Young, Ameer Espy, Kim Soria, and Charisse Sims to create a truly unparalleled compilation of work.

Photoetry: Poetry and Photography from South Central LA

Hiram Sims

Sam Bendall

Adam Tillman Young

Ameer Espy

Charisse Sims

Kim Soria

Thlink: Essays in Community

Aram Saroyan

Liddell Book of Poetry

Multiple-Authors

This is a book of haunting memoir vignettes written by 97 year old Elsie Kuchera Muske, chronicling the lives of the members of her family and people in the tiny town of Wyndmere, North Dakota, in the 1920's and 30's. Her parents were the children of immigrants - Czech, German, Norwegian - who farmed the rich black loam of North and South Dakota and prospered until the Great Drought and Depression struck. These restrained and poignant vignettes, composed in clear plain style, highlight human characters of such strength, will power and generosity that they are nearly unrecognizable to us in the 21st century. The power of their devotion to work, to family loyalty -- in bounty or adversity - their humor and understatement - light these pages. The author's mother, Frances Talich Kuchera, comes alive in beauty, vivacity and unforgettable strength. The introduction and after-word to the book are written by the author's daughter, Carol Muske-Dukes, USC professor, former poet laureate of California.

Wyndmere Wind-Rows: Memories of Growing up on the Dakota Plains

Elsie Kuchera Muske

About the Author Varun Soni is the Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California, where he is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Religion and a University Fellow at the Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy. A prolific public speaker and scholar of religions, he holds degrees in religion from Tufts University, Harvard University, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of Cape Town, as well as a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. Product Description Natural Mystics explores the prophetic lives, lyrics, and legacies of the virtuoso musicians Bob Marley and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. As Third World superstars, their biographies are intimately intertwined with the post-colonial narratives of Jamaica and Pakistan, and over time, they have come to symbolize and embody their Rastafarian and Sufi faith traditions. More than just musical and cultural icons, they were also significant religious figures utilizing new technology to spread new messages to new communities. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of their religiosity, Natural Mystics reveals Bob Marley as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan as musical mystics and spiritual geniuses of this day and age. Review "Two of the most influential musicians of the last century are brought together in this incredible book about prophecy and pop culture, media, and mysticism. By focusing on the spiritual power permeating the music of Bob Marley and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Varun Soni has put his finger on something new and utterly unique. This is a book unlike any I've read in a long time." --Reza Aslan, author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth"In Natural Mystics, Varun Soni develops an original comparative framework for understanding two great musicians, Bob Marley and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, as prophetic mediators of religion, politics, and popular culture. As a result of his research, we can hear the music in new ways as sacred politics." --David Chidester, author of Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular CultureNatural Mystics breaks exciting new ground in revealing the myriad links between Sufi music, and one of its prime exponents, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and the most famous musical mystic of the twentieth century, Bob Marley. Both had profound prophetic gifts, and Varun Soni has a unique understanding of their place in musical immortality. His book is a must-read! --Roger Steffens, author of One Love: Life with Bob Marley and the Wailers

Natural Mystics: The Prophetic Lives of Bob Marley and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Varun Soni

Being a leader is today considered synonymous with being a winner. This book punctures that misguided myth and it will liberate you from others' expectations and from your own illusions about success. This book is a practical manual for leading the right way and for the right reasons. It explores how to identify and overcome the blind spots that may be hurting your career; whether you have the right mindset for the kind of success that you're seeking; how to develop just the right amount of healthy ego to make an impact; and how to make an impact on the world in a way that's true to who you are (be forewarned, this might involve a completely different path than your current one). This book will take you on a journey, showing you famous figures from history and the present some who got it right, and some who didn't. You'll look at seven roads to hell within the world of leadership, and seven roads out of hell, to guide you safely to a meaningful legacy. All royalties support the University of Southern California's Neighborhood Academic Initiative to prepare local urban schoolchildren for college.

Leadership is Hell: How to Manage Well - And Escape with your Soul

Rob Asghar

Ada Oates is fifteen years old. She's stuck in Suburbia with the memory of her deceased mother, a father who's dating, and a grandmother who's obsessed with faux french and facelifts. Ada not only dreams of a better name but also of a loftier life; the life of an idealized writer from the past.  Enter Emily Dickinson, a frustrated fashionista and mischievous muse. Bored with her infamous long white dess, Emily D. invades Ada's closet and also her world.  When Emily starts texting about everything including Ada's boyfriend Jack, Ada wonders if having her own BFF superstar poet is all it's cracked up to be.  Written with humor, a sprinkling of poetry and surprise literary cameo appearances, Emily D. and Me reflects on the challenges, the joys, and the commitment of a writer's life.

Emily D. and Me

Lucinda Smith

In a revealing new book, Reagan insider and former adviser, Thomas Reed gives us the definitive treatise on Reagan's mind. Reed, who managed and worked closely with Reagan during the complex leader's politically formative years, reveals untold tales that bring new clarity to understanding Reagan. The Reagan Enigma takes students of politics one step closer to understanding the emergence of a great leader. 
 On the golden anniversary of Reagan's A Time for Choosing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign, which launched Reagan s political career, this groundbreaking book reveals: 
 Reagan's mind was focused and decisive. He was a political grand master, a dozen moves ahead of every opponent at every turn. His mind was lightning-fast, with an immense capacity for facts and history. Reagan was more than an actor; he was a master of the stage. 
 Reagan's conversion, from FDR-supporting Democrat to Eisenhower Republican had multiple roots: WW-II experiences; threats of violence from communist Screen Actors Guild infiltrators; the war in Korea; to name a few. 
 Reagan was not ambitious for high office. Yet whatever he did in his life, he had to be the best at it. The idea of having power or being the President was entertaining, but it was Nancy who provided the burning ambition. At the same time, as Mike Deaver noted, Reagan was the fiercest competitor I ever knew. A strange divergence. 
 Why Robert Kennedy was the supreme villain in Reagan's life. 
 Now is the right time to open my archives, to collect the insights of my surviving peers, and to weave all of this into an unexpected but accurate explanation of Reagan's mind, Reed said. What follows may provide the perspective that many have sought but few have found.

The Reagan Enigma: 1964-1980

Thomas C. Reed

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