THE BOOKS
Spirit Care is an active and creative process of encouraging and healing persons to aspire, affirm, and transform into the full human beings we are meant to be. We are all made in the image of God, and Jesus Christ provides the model. His total being shows us the way, the truth, and the life. It is simple, and the only thing we need to do is to surrender to God’s love, as offered by Jesus as the Christ, and walk behind him as his disciples.
By surrendering to God’s love and following Jesus, individuals can experience transformation and fulfillment. This surrender involves acknowledging God’s presence in our lives and allowing his love to guide our actions and decisions. Walking as disciples of Jesus means learning from his teachings, emulating his virtues, and participating in his mission to bring about the kingdom of God on earth.
Spirit Care encourages nurturing the spiritual growth of oneself and others, recognizing the inherent dignity and worth of every individual, and aligning one’s life with the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.
A theopoetic haiku or senryu is a fusion of poetry and spirituality, using the traditional 5-7-5 haiku form to explore human experiences, divine insights, and the connection between the sacred and everyday life. Its simplicity distills complex emotions into brief, evocative lines that resonate deeply. While haiku traditionally focuses on nature and seasons, senryu, a related form, emphasizes human nature, humor, and irony. Both haiku and theopoetics, though distinct, share a profound ability to evoke the divine and human experience through minimal yet powerful language, embracing paradoxes of life and faith. Both forms invite the reader to see beyond the surface of words and into the deeper realities they point toward, whether through meditative reflection or humor.
Give Birth to a Dancing Star is Theopoetry. Theopoetry is a literary and spiritual expression that bridges the gap between doctrinal theology and poetry. It is an approach to articulating the Divine and the human experience of God through poetic language. Unlike traditional theological discourse, which relies on analytical and doctrinal precision, Theopoetry embraces metaphor, emotion, and imagination to delve into the mysteries of existence and transcendence. While most Theopoetry is serious, some reflects the humorous and confounding experiences of people in their everyday lives.
Theopoetry draws inspiration from sacred texts, liturgy, and religious tradition, reinterpreting them in ways that resonate with contemporary life. It can also incorporate modern philosophical and cultural influences, blending ancient truths with modern sensibilities. Theopoetry focuses on poetic exploration, such as the interplay of human suffering and Divine grace, as a way to engage with Divine mystery. It is less concerned with doctrinal precision and more with evoking a sense of the sacred. Theopoetry invites readers to experience theology as a living, dynamic encounter rather than a rigid framework. It seeks to move beyond dogma into the realm of shared human and Divine mystery, offering space for wonder, doubt, and the sacred imagination.
In a world where theological language can feel abstract or inaccessible, these daily theopoetic meditations provide a way to connect deeply and personally with spiritual truths. It honors the complexity of faith, the beauty of the Divine Spirit, and the richness of human experience, creating a space where imagination and theology meet.
The world is a sad and lost place full of violence and confusion. People are hungry for a spiritual leader, a mystic, a prophet, or perhaps even the return of a Messiah. Sometimes God’s anointed ones are right under our noses, but we don’t even see them. Sometimes they’re simply too small. Often they’re just anonymous, but spiritually endowed people who do great deeds of charity. The ancient sages say that a single person can lift the entire world out of its pit simply by doing small deeds of love.
That, in a nutshell, is Malchus One Ear. He claims he lost his ear in the Garden of Gethsemane when Peter cut it off, but Jesus healed it. Malchus is a physical anomaly, an intellectual enigma, and a spiritual paradox all rolled up in a psychotic mystery. He’s also God’s prophet and Messiah in waiting.
When a young woman conceives and gives birth to a son, she sees that he is a strange baby. When she can no longer hide the baby in her tenement, she sets him afloat on the East River in New York City. When he is discovered, he is taken to Bellevue Hospital. Who is Malchus and what does he mean to our world?
The Tao Te Ching is one of the oldest and most translated books in history. Over the past 2500 years, these eighty-one rudimentary verses have been translated, interpreted, and paraphrased innumerable times—probably almost as much as the Bible.
The true beauty of the Tao Te Ching lies in its simplicity and general lack of law, codes, or dogma. The Tao Te Ching says that true wisdom cannot simply be written in words or symbols—it must be lived and experienced. And, he who is truly wise does not even know how wise he is.
The sage, the prophet, or enlightened one, is simply called The Person. The Person understands and appreciates his impermanence and unrelenting move to complete union with the ETERNAL SOURCE.
The Person who is ultimately concerned about his relationship with God or ultimate reality and the possibility of reunion and centering within that source has already been grasped by the ETERNAL SOURCE. This act of grace is available to all. There is no need to ask any further questions or do anything: no words, no actions, no worship, no sacrifice. Anything additional would only distort reality. The Person who is centered within the ETERNAL SOURCE simply lives the truth, reveals the truth and is the truth.
Carolyn Todd is the young, self-assured vice president of the Jacobsen Institute, a biotechnology research organization in New York City. Her mentor is the brilliant Dr. Dan Jacobsen. Dan calls her, a real shiner—bright, attractive, but prone to getting burned. Carolyn is plagued by poor eyesight and her vision always seems to be fuzzy and a little out of focus. Her world is full of illusions and mirages, especially when it comes to men. She loves hot-tempered, heavy-drinking Eric Wheeler, a high-powered city commissioner, but she also dreams about Michael, Eric’s sensitive and caring brother. She looks at the two brothers and wants to meld them into one person: Michael, the gentle intellectual and Eric, the passionate lover. And then there’s Buck Ryan the charming college professor whom Carolyn toys with. But when Nicky Wheeler enters the picture all hell breaks loose and Carolyn is forced to see all her men in a new light.
Life is difficult and complicated for Rachel McCord. She’s trying to finish her doctoral dissertation, teach at a major southern college, take care of her disabled brother, Jeff, and still find time to be with her three favorite men. Rachel is a take-charge kind of woman—young, attractive, smart, and no easy pushover. She’s determined to get her Ph.D., but there are so many things getting in her way: Jeff’s quickly declining health, Cameron’s drunkenness and hypnotic control, Tom’s insistence that their relationship is destiny, and Tony’s powerful and complete grip on her heart.
