Coloring is no longer for kids only. Not only is it just as fun as it was when we were children, but it can also be a contemplative experience. It creates a quiet space in our busy lives, a space that opens us to new insights and intuition. Coloring is good for our brains-and for our souls. The images in this coloring book are taken from The Winged Man: The Good News According to Matthew, which is the first volume in Anamchara Books' Celtic Bible Commentary. Paired with each image is a short selection from the commentary, with a question to encourage a mental focal point as you color. There's an old proverb that says, "Knowledge is only a rumor until it lives in the body." Coloring-engaging eye and hand-allows new truths to become integrated with your life. It's a way to participate in a new view of reality.
I have a hidden meaning. I was portrayed in a thousand different ways in the past, and I keep sprouting again and again down through the centuries. Don't you want to know who I am? The Green Man is an ancient symbol that has gained new popularity, and yet his origins and meaning remain a mystery. Kenneth McIntosh, author of Water from an Ancient Well: Celtic Spirituality for Modern Life, offers a seldom-heard theory on the original significance of this leafy visage. With a wealth of photographs and drawings, the author traces the Green Man's family tree, revealing the deep spirituality embedded in this archetypal image, and concludes with the hope the Green Man offers us today in the twenty-first century.
Kenneth McIntosh liberates the Book of Revelation from magical thinking and apocalyptic predictions, showing us that it's a book for all ages, providing a pathway of hope and agency in times of chaos and confusion. McIntosh's vision gives authentic hope, challenges complacency, and inspires action in a time of rapid climate change, global pandemic, and social disruption. This text is a theological and spiritual goldmine for personal reflection and group study.-Bruce Epperly, author of Become Fire Guideposts for Interspiritual Pilgrims, God Online: The Mystics' Guide to the Internet, and Faith in a Time of Pandemic The Book of Revelation has been misunderstood as a book of future predictions and escape from the world-but it is actually a survival and transformation guide, written for people whose lives were threatened by the first-century system of domination. Kenneth McIntosh goes through the entire book, chapter by chapter, revealing Revelation's abundance of wisdom we can apply to the challenges we face in today's world. May these visions of transformation bring renewal to your inner self, giving hope for yourself and for the world that is struggling around you.
Using story, scripture, reflection, and prayer, this book offers readers a taste of the living water that refreshed the ancient Celts. The author invites readers to imitate the Celtic saints who were aware of God as a living presence in everybody and everything. This ancient perspective gives radical new alternatives to modern faith practices, ones that are both challenging and constructively positive. This is a Christianity big enough to embrace the entire world."This book offers profound insights into a very different way of living our Christianity. Kenneth McIntosh invites us to imitate the Celtic saints who were aware of God as a living presence in everybody and everything. If we were to take seriously what he offers us in this book, we would experience a paradigm shift in our approach to spirituality."-Dara Malloy, author, Celtic priest, and monk on Inis Mor in the Aran Islands, Ireland
Learn how the ancient Christian Celts read the Bible-and discover new ways to understand the sacred Scriptures today. The Celts' perspectives on the Bible were far less literal than many modern viewpoints, and yet at the same time, they treasured even deeper layers of meaning than are familiar to most twenty-first century readers. For the Celts, Scripture was a wondrous treasure trove of metaphor and meaning, stories and symbols, all pointing to the loving Mystery that weaves through all Reality."At certain points while reading this book, I could just nod my head, seeing in print things that I have felt deeply but had never put into words. At other points I was stopped in my tracks, reading something that seemed so simple, yet so profound. There were times I had to stop and re-read the same paragraph several times, not because it was too difficult to understand, but because there was so much packed into just a few sentences."-Steve Robinson, Wolf Mountain Books"A very good introduction to how the Celtic followers of Jesus read and saw the Bible. I highly recommend it. Ken's writing style is really easy to follow-which is saying a lot for such a vast and complex topic."-Jack Gillespie, Celtic priest in the Lindisfarne Community
"Kenneth McIntosh liberates the Book of Revelation from magical thinking and apocalyptic predictions, showing us that it's a book for all ages, providing a pathway of hope and agency in times of chaos and confusion. McIntosh's vision gives authentic hope, challenges complacency, and inspires action in a time of rapid climate change, global pandemic, and social disruption. This text is a theological and spiritual goldmine for personal reflection and group study."-Bruce Epperly, author of Become Fire Guideposts for Interspiritual Pilgrims, God Online: The Mystics' Guide to the Internet, and Faith in a Time of PandemicThe Book of Revelation has been misunderstood as a book of future predictions and escape from the world-but it is actually a survival and transformation guide, written for people whose lives were threatened by the first-century system of domination. Kenneth McIntosh goes through the entire book, chapter by chapter, revealing Revelation's abundance of wisdom we can apply to the challenges we face in today's world.May these visions of transformation bring renewal to your inner self, giving hope for yourself and for the world that is struggling around you.
This prayerbook offers a Nature-focused collection based on ancient Celtic prayers, weaving together words of hope and challenge. Each prayer is an opportunity to connect personal faith with environmental concerns. The prayers also work well as an opening or closing for gatherings and meetings, to remind those present to turn their hearts to the Earth. Using these Celtic patterns of prayer, readers become rooted in an ancient tradition that has always integrated spirituality with an awareness of the Earth. This Celtic form of "green spirituality" creates a desperately needed twenty-first-century pathway to greater spiritual and practical commitment to Nature.
This fantasy tells the story of a Scottish slave, his English master's daughter, and hordes of the Undead in the year 610. It combines themes of coming of age, horror, Merlin, Avalon, Celtic mythology, Dark Ages history, and young-adult romance. Suitable for readers age 13 to 103, it's a good pick for those who enjoy: Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain, and Jonathan Maberry's Rot & Ruin."A vivid account of seventh-century Britain ravaged by . . . ghouls Intelligent, fluent storytelling rich with details of Celtic culture and the common life of the Angles make."-A. A. Attanasio, author of Radix, The Dragon and the Unicorn, and other critically acclaimed fantasy novels
This new version has more than 150 pages of previously unpublished material, including illustrated guides to Celtic pilgrimage sites, study questions, and updated research.Using story, scripture, reflection, and prayer, Kenneth McIntosh offers us a taste of the living water that refreshed the ancient Celts, allowing them to perceive God as a living Presence in everybody and everything. This Earth-based and inclusive perspective suggests life-giving alternatives to modern faith practices, opening the door to a Christianity big enough to embrace the entire world."If you want to run away to paradise for a couple of days, and drink living water from a source unlike any other, read Kenneth McIntosh's deeply satisfying book." -Leonard Sweet, best-selling author of Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who's Already There and So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church"This book offers profound insights into a very different way of living our Christianity. If we were to take seriously what the author offers us in this book, we would experience a paradigm shift in our approach to spirituality." -Dara Malloy, Celtic priest and monk on Inis Mor in the Aran Islands, Ireland"McIntosh takes us to places made sacred by inspired believers, depicting their lives as a romance that proved itself in everyday things. He invites us to enter into a similar Divine love affair that involves the whole of life. This book could become a classic." -Ray Simpson, author of A Celtic Book of Days: Ancient Wisdom and Celtic Christianity: Deep Roots for a Modern Faith and Founding Guardian of the International Community of Aidan and Hilda
Imagine the Celtic saint Brigid and the great bodhisattva Guanyin sitting down together for a cup of tea. I certainly would want to listen in to their conversation Oak and Lotus takes us to a similar place. It's a beautiful, expansive book about the joyful integration of Eastern and Western wisdom, a resource I expect to return to again and again.- Carl McColman, author of The New Big Book of Christian Mysticism and Eternal Heart Oak and Lotus is a joy to read. Bringing Celtic Christianity into conversation with three major Eastern faith traditions-Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism-this book delights the heart again and again with parallels both uncanny and enlightening. Reader-friendly, it draws you in and won't let you go.- Rev. John R. Mabry, PhD, author of God as Nature Sees God: A Christian Reading of the Tao Te Ching and A Christian Walks in the Footsteps of the BuddhaKenneth McIntosh's book, Oak and Lotus, is a masterpiece of scholarship, insight, and wisdom itself, focusing on the mystic heart of Celtic Christian and three major spiritual traditions of Asia. I highly recommend this book for individuals as well as groups who want to deepen their spirituality.- Edward Sellner, professor emeritus of theology, spirituality, and animal theology, author of numerous books on Celtic spirituality, including Celtic Saints and Animal Stories: A Spiritual KinshipCritics may say, "This book is dangerous." My reply is: "Being born is dangerous. Live dangerously and find the Divine at the heart of the universe."- Ray Simpson, author of many books on Celtic Christianity, including The Celtic Book of Day, Brendan's Return Voyage: A New American Dream-Indigenous, Post-Colonial and Celtic Theology, and Celtic Christianity and Climate CrisisKenneth McIntosh's Oak and Lotus takes you on a holy adventure in which you set sail on your coracle in companionship with Celtic pilgrims, Buddhist monks, Hindu sages, and Taoist wanderers. On your journey, you may catch a glimpse and receive guidance from Brigid of Kildare, St. Brendan, Gautama Buddha, and Lao Tzu. McIntosh describes a spiritual path, and more than that, he provides tools and practices for spiritual transformation. When you read this book, you take a voyage of discovery and venture toward far horizons. This is one of the most inspirational books you will read on interspirituality and the universal wisdom of the Celtic sages.- Bruce Epperly, author of Jesus - 343 Mystic, Healer, and Pilgrim and The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational Theology and Religious Pluralism
I have a hidden meaning. I was portrayed in a thousand different ways in the past, and I keep sprouting again and again down through the centuries. Don't you want to know who I am? The Green Man is an ancient symbol that has gained new popularity, and yet his origins and meaning remain a mystery. Kenneth McIntosh, author of Water from an Ancient Well: Celtic Spirituality for Modern Life, offers a seldom-heard theory on the original significance of this leafy visage. With a wealth of drawings, the author traces the Green Man's family tree, revealing the deep spirituality embedded in this archetypal image, and concludes with the hope the Green Man offers us today in the twenty-first century. "Ken McIntosh's new book, The Secret of the Green Man's Soul, is a joyful romp through the Celtic countryside, playing hide and seek with the illusive Green Man in all his forms. Part history, part spiritual journey, part memoir, Ken takes us face to face with the soul of Nature expressed through ancient carvings hidden in the architecture of the Celtic landscape. For anyone with a love of Celtic history, nature, and spirituality, whether it be Christian or Pagan, this book is a must read "- Lilly Weichberger, co-author of Brigid's Mantle: A Celtic Dialogue Between Pagan and Christian"In this beautifully presented book with hand-drawn illustrations, author Ken McIntosh graciously invites the reader to join him on his pilgrimage to discover the Green Man throughout history. McIntosh unpacks this elusive figure and shares his own thoughts and findings in ways that will capture your imagination and inspire you."- David Cole, author of Celtic Prayers & Practices and The Mystic Path of Meditation"Art, architecture, folklore, and spirituality converge in the powerful archetypal image of the Green Man. This delightfully written and lavishly illustrated book can help you appreciate the Green Man in all these ways."- Carl McColman, author of An Invitation to Celtic Wisdom
After reading that the great poets say that poetry makes truth more real and seeing so much poetry God used in the Bible, I became convinced that it must be true that verse makes truth more real. In 1996, I began writing Poetry from a Biblical Perspective with the goal of making the truth of the Bible more real. For the next twenty years, I wrote 230 carefully crafted poems drawn from the veracity and wisdom of God's word.It's my suggestion that when you feel discouraged and need hope, comfort, and guidance, go to this book to pick some poems that hopefully will give you fresh hope, encouragement, and guidance.The Bible says God in his divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness. It is my hope and prayer that you will discover something through the poetry that touches the heart, moves the imagination, and makes truth more real.
After reading that the great poets say that poetry makes truth more real and seeing so much poetry God used in the Bible, I became convinced that it must be true that verse makes truth more real. In 1996, I began writing Poetry from a Biblical Perspective with the goal of making the truth of the Bible more real. For the next twenty years, I wrote 230 carefully crafted poems drawn from the veracity and wisdom of God's word.It's my suggestion that when you feel discouraged and need hope, comfort, and guidance, go to this book to pick some poems that hopefully will give you fresh hope, encouragement, and guidance.The Bible says God in his divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness. It is my hope and prayer that you will discover something through the poetry that touches the heart, moves the imagination, and makes truth more real.
