Kirjahaku

In her compelling work, The Autobiography of Poverty: My Childhood in Poem, author, Doris Wellington interweaves graphic poetic narratives that open the portal to a symphonic expose in which those least expected battle and overcome the crucibles of poverty-one of the most devastating of all human experiences. Dramatic literary language extracts from the severity of her childhood reality and invites readers into a world of transparent vulnerabilities, challenges, and distresses.She is not afraid to confront what some attempt to paint and pass off as an irreversible affliction that disfigures an otherwise perfect society. However, the author points out that it is not the poor who are the stain on society; rather those who close their eyes, pull down their shutters in hopes that the poor will go away-forgetting that when we turn a deaf ear or a cold heart against human suffering-whatever the plight, we have become the affliction among the afflicted we hate-the evil that stains society with indifference. With her mother as her guiding force she reveals how she was taught to use faith in God and dreams with wings to overcome the perils of poverty and all of its pathogenic matter. And to understand without reservation that you might live among the relics and rituals of poverty, but you do not have to breath in its content as your stationary place in life. You can dream and achieve a better life if you don't give up working to that end.

Sleep, Dream, Become: Understanding the World You Dream is based on the author's independent study of dreams over forty years and is the companion guide to course studies in the Prophetic Path Dream Summit: A Course in Dreams, It is intended to aid dreamers and those studying the life of dreams and their relationship to the real world. It contains more than 300 concepts birthed out of the author's independent study and personal experience with the dream phenomenon to help shape, define and negotiate the complex journey of understanding the prophetic nature of dreams and how to apply them to our realities. This study is the product of the author's own gift to see and interpret dreams, but is not a "dream bible" as everyone's dream experience is different; rather, it is a dream guide to aid those with the gift of dreams across the Rubicon from here to there and from there back.

Prayer is a universal religious ritual and is offered in every language around the world to one deity or another. Simply put, prayer is talking to God or gods. And depending on the maharishi you're listening to; prayer is also God talking back. I've come to understand that without this faith principle I could not in any way succeed at Christianity. For me there has to be the inept belief that if I believe God exists; he cannot be less qualified to speak or listen than I am. He must not only be infinitely qualified to be God; he must be infinitely wiser and sensitive toward those of us who not only believe that God hears our prayers, but that he answers them. And of all the reasons we give for praying, the need for human interaction with something or someone greater than mere mortals ranks number one for me. Prayer 101 lists a litany of reasons we as humans lift up our faith to God in prayer; and particularly Christians believers. My belief is embodied in the narratives of the Gospel writers and their recorded relationship with Christ, which unfolds how he prayed, what he prayed for, who he prayed to and under what circumstances he prayed. In this experience of shadowing the relationship between Christ and his disciples, I also see what Christ taught about prayer and its power to transform lives, even situations sometimes deemed impossible through our eyes. It is in this context of faith and its relationship to prayer that I offer Prayer 101 in the hope that the life of someone reading these few pages will be transformed into a volume of evidentiary encounters with the God who hears and answers prayer.

A daughter praises the strength of her extraordinary mother who was not expected to survive an unknown illness at birth; yet, she not only survived, she went on to overcome tremendous, almost insurmountable odds, including, but not limited to a childhood of extreme poverty, abuse, child labor, alcoholic parents, the Great Depression, sharecropping with devious and unscrupulous landowners as well as the racism typical of the Jim Crow South, all to realize her dream of a better life. To escape the abuse of her father, who shot at her when she was fifteen, she dropped out of school and married along the side of the road. After domestic abuse and eleven children, she earned her GED, and obtained a college degree. She would later enter Howard University and be accepted into Spelman College at age seventy-three.In December, 2015, at eighty-four, twenty years after she began penning her autobiography, and surviving a massive stroke and breast cancer, Stokestown: Dreaming behind Closed Doors was released. In this we see the fierce and resilient spirit of a warrior general and a most unlikely champion birthed from the womb of mourning. It is in this vein of unwavering faith, that this memoir is written to my mother, Hattie Vance Wellington and affirms that dreams come true at any age if we just don't quit.

Pastor John H and Dodie Osteen started Lakewood Baptist Church in an "abandoned dusty fed store" in northeast Houston Texas, May 10, 1959. "Ballad of the Old Feed Shop" celebrates the vision to see into the realm of the unknown the possibilities of an idea and then formulates and builds that prophetic insight into a practical blueprint that sustains the vision for generations to come. Such was the vision of Pastor John Osteen when he started Lakewood Baptist Church in an old abandoned fed store. The life of that vision and the story of that old feed store have coalesced in a continuing legacy in the remarkable confluent vision of Pastor Joel and Victoria Osteen and the Lakewood family building Lakewood into an awesome and world transformative ministry. "Ballad of the Old Feed Shop" salutes the visionary spirit that proclaims in the midst of abandonment and neglect that "vision lies in the eye of the builder"

Feat Songs of Protest and National Pride is a classic epic poem that reveals the struggles and triumphs of the African American experience. It depicts in metaphoric and literary language the power of unity and collective faith, labor and partnerships that forged a new America at least in terms of the understanding that African Americans along with sympathizers and colaborers of their struggle to obtain freedom and equality would not allow such mistreatment of those who were a part of the fabric of this country. Feat Songs inserts historical names and events indigenous to the struggle of African Americans and seeks to not only protest the abuse and atrocities that held this country in the grips of one of its darkest hours, but to celebrate and hail that period in history as a testament to the collective strength and will of people who refuse to be passive in times that history calls for change. Feat is an anthem of conquest and victory for all who endeavor to be change agents rather than spectators in the arena of life.

Hung by the Lips speaks to the detriments of an unruly tongue in the life of a Christian. Because the tongue is the instrument God uses to activate and articulate the Gospel and his will to the body of Christ, it is essential to our prayer lives and spiritual growth. If we desire after the things of God, we will give strict attention to how we engage our tongues in conversation and communication that are contrary to our Christian professions. As Proverbs 18:21 points out, the tongue has the power to bless and curse, to be positive and negative, and to speak life and death. To safeguard our prayers and our spiritual growth, we are admonished in Psalm 34:13 to "Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile."