ACTIVE HOPE
by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
New World Library, 2012
THE EMPOWERMENT MANUAL: A GUIDE FOR COLLABORATIVE GROUPS
by Starhawk
New Society Publishers, 2011
BEYOND RELIGION: ETHICS FOR A WHOLE WORLD
by Dalai Lama
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011
HAPPINESS
by Joan Chittister
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2011
These are four very different books. Yet Macy and Johnstone’s attempt to teach “how to face the mess we’re in without going crazy,” Starhawk’s guide for collaborative groups, the Dalai Lama’s “ethics for a whole world,” and Joan Chittister’s attempt to show the variety of paths to happiness all have this in common: they are filled with wisdom that would, if studied together, empower many and give wise guidance on living fulfilling lives in a dysfunctional and deformed world. Pop psychology manuals often simply repeat the latest slogans of New Age spirituality. None of these books falls into that trap—each represents the mature thinking of a spiritually sophisticated consciousness.
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(To return to the Summer 2012 Table of Contents, click here.)