Photo © David Coleman |
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A couple of golden oldies |
Dazzling Darkness is a true story about searching for one’s authentic self in the company of the Living God. Rachel Mann has died many ‘deaths’ in the process, not the least of which was a change of sex, as well as coming to terms with chronic illness and disability. Through these experiences she has discovered that darkness is as much a positive place as a negative one, inhabited by the Living God – the Dark God, the Hidden God. This is the God that many of us, because we try to make our lives safe and comfortable, are too afraid to meet. This is the God who is most alive in those things we commonly associate with the Dark – failure, loss and brokenness. The Christian church has legitimated certain ways of talking about God – male, fatherly, monarchical and so on. Many believe these descriptors tell the exhaustive truth about God. In accepting the complexity of her sexuality and identity, Rachel Mann has been able to explore with a greater freedom what God might look like to an ‘unconventional creature’ like her. This passionate and nuanced book brings together poetry, feminist theology, and philosophy, and explores them through one person’s hunger for wholeness, self-knowledge and God. Rachel Mann is an Anglican priest, a poet and a feminist theologian. She was Resident Poet at Manchester Cathedral for several years and her work has been widely published in magazines, anthologies and newsprint. |
A book of poems from the edge. They belong to particular places: a village by the side of a single-track road in the West of Scotland; the Separation Barrier between the West Bank and Israel; the crowded, lonely streets of London, during a protest about world poverty; the huge empty shores of the Isle of Mull. With down-to-earth detail, they celebrate the beauty, uniqueness, mystery of this world which we share and the courage of people who, confronted by injustice, hold on to their humanity. Songs for those who are also sojourners, passing through: whether walking thoughtfully alone or cheerfully meeting the challenges of community. They speak to those who – finding it profoundly unsettling – still try to live the Gospel. Jan Sutch Pickard is a member of the Iona Community. She was vice-president of the Methodist Conference from 1996 to 1997, and on the island of Iona was Deputy Warden and Warden of Iona Abbey for several years until 2004. |
A call for contributions |
We are looking for contributions for downloads relating to mental health. If you have any prayers, blessings, liturgies, reflections or other material that you would like to contribute to this project, please contact neil@ionabooks.com and use the subject-line Mental health. Deadline is September 1st. Thank you. |
Recently added |
In over 30 years of ministry Thom Shuman had taught studies on just about every book in the Bible and had gone through the cycle of Sunday readings many times. He’d spent a lot of ‘professional’ time in the Bible, but realised he’d never really read the Bible from beginning to end to feed his spiritual life. So that’s what he did, each day discovering a word, phrase or verse which spoke to him, letting it play around in his mind, and then writing a short prayer or ‘nudge’. At the end of the year, he had 365 of them, which are shared with you here.. |
A new collection of poems from Joy Mead – ‘a book of moments, illuminated moments, those times when joy breaks through, when beauty amazes and goes some way towards healing.’ Joy’s poems celebrate what it is to be alive and also, perhaps, what it is to contemplate death. ‘… a poet of great sensitivity, a deeply religious poet, without being a Religious Poet. Her spirituality is grounded in the depths of ‘ordinary’ life – the extraordinary life.’ |
A glass and ceramic bead bracelet providing a practical method of helping the mind attain a state of stillness, meditation and prayer. This is the new version of the bracelet, where one of the three – originally white – Mystery Pearls has been replaced by a green pearl. Each of the ‘pearls’ helps us to focus on a particular kind of situation in life. Included is a small multi-language leaflet with a basic explanation of the pearls. Can be used in conjunction with the new Pearls of Life book. |
This new, hardback version of the book Pearls of Life (published in English by Verbum Sweden) reflects on the meaning of the pearls and suggests how to use them. It relates to the new version of the Pearls of Life bracelet. The book is both an introduction to the Pearls for those who have never encountered them before and a deepening for those who use them already. It also includes an interview with Martin Lönnebo and the stories of four users of the Pearls. 96pp |
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Wild Goose Publications is the publishing house of The Iona Community, a charity registered in Scotland. |