The Still Point Dhammapada: Living the Buddha's Essential Teachings author: Geri Larkin rating: asin: 0060513705 binding: Hardcover list price: $21.95 USD amazon price: $17.56 USD

This book is a beautiful place to start you exploration of Buddhism, or a sincere study if you already have a deep practice. It offers an account of the work of Geri Larkin, who setup and runs the Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple in Detroit, Michigan.

She offers practical witnessing to a life of daily spiritual devotion which is accessible and useful to anyone enduring the challenges of modern, urban times.

When God is Silent (Lyman Beecher Lectures, 1997.) author: Barbara Brown Taylor rating: asin: 1561011576 binding: Paperback amazon price: $10.95 USD

In this set of three essays, "Famine," "Silence," and "Restraint," Barbara Brown Taylor interprets the apparent silence of God and our own anxiety around that silence. She encourages those who would "speak for" God--ministers, writers, teachers--to avoid platitudes and easy answers, to say nothing rather than to lie. Taylor's writing about these topics is fresh, provocative, and insightful.

The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages (Crossroad Spiritual Legacy Series) author: Sister Joan Chittister OSB rating: asin: 0824525035 binding: Paperback list price: $16.95 USD amazon price: $11.53 USD

I will use Joan Chittister's own words to describe the value of this book: "The basic contentions of this book are two: First Benedictine spirituality is the spirituality of the twenty-first century because it deals with the issues that are facing us now--stewardship, relationships, authority, community, balance, work, simplicity, prayer, and spiritual and psychological development. Second, its currency lies in the fact that Benedictine spirituality offers more a way of life and an attitude of mind than it does a set of religious prescriptions." Chittister goes chapter by chapter through the actual text of The Rule of Benedict, interspersing it with her own commentary.

Joan Chittister is a Benedictine Sister, a feminist, a reformer--someone who has been unwilling to leave her church even though she feels it desperately change and grow. She is an international peace advocate as well.

She is an author to read if you are looking for vigorous encouragement to live a vital life of faith, in deeds and not just words.

The Sacred Depths of Nature author: Ursula Goodenough rating: asin: 0195126130 binding: Hardcover list price: $55.00 USD amazon price: $55.00 USD

Goodenough is a professor of biology at Washington University. She describes her book thus: "It is the goal of this book to present an accessible account of our scientific understanding of nature and then suggest ways that this account can call forth appealing and abiding religious responses--an approach that can be called religious naturalism." She is trying to identify components of a "global ethos," not tied to any one religious tradition, but arising out of the "truths" that evolutionary processes point to. The book is written along the same pattern as a devotional, with a scientific essay (topics such as "Origins of the Earth," "Origins of Life," "How an Organism Works," etc.) followed by a spiritual meditation on that scientific theme. The meditations include texts from the Bible, from Lao Tzu, from native American chants, from poets, from hymns.