Self Fidelity

Working life can feel like a never-ending masterclass on how to fit in. Comparing ourselves to others and to standards that are not our own, we strive to prove, mould and 'fix' ourselves. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed, depleted and inadequate. But what if true success and vitality flows from being who we are, not changing who we are? What if everything we need is already inside of us? What if we just need to release the things that weigh us down? This is book is for anyone who: Believes that work can be life-enhancing, not soul-destroying Is sick and tired of trying to 'fix', mould and prove themselves Wants to experience greater fulfillment, success and vitality Beneath all the layers of conditioning, under the masks and armour, we all want the same things. We want to live and work in a way that honours the truth of who we are. We want to feel seen, really seen. John Mellencamp sang, 'Life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone' but it does not have to be this way. The practice of self-fidelity lifts us out of a half-dead existence to rediscover the thrill of living - through our work. This practice supports us to wake up and reconnect to our true nature and to our abundant inner natural resources. Self-Fidelity is a simple, yet powerful practice of remembrance and reconnection. We can all empower ourselves to reimagine our working lives. As we restore our faith in ourselves, we restore our faith in each other.

We live in a time when marital fidelity is under assault. Driven by the forces of relativism, our society attacks sexual faithfulness on numerous fronts. The push for homosexual marriages, for example, comes at the end of the fall into perversion, not the beginning. Faithless husbands began the fall long ago, and our culture, with all its washed-out self-help books, fails to address the real problem -- sin. Addressed to men, Fidelity hits hard, using clear language and focusing on specific sins with specific solutions: adultery, divorce, polygamy, celibacy, pornography, and more. But in the end, the antidote to all sexual temptation is simple -- the godly honoring of the marriage bed: "Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge" (Heb. 13:4).

What does healthy intimacy look like? How we do we keep the energy and passion alive in long-term relationships? What practices can help us forgive our partner when he or she has hurt us? How can we get a new relationship off to a strong and stable start? What do we do if we feel restless in a relationship or attracted to someone outside of our partner? These are just some of the questions Zen master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh has been asked by practitioners and readers alike. Deeply moved by the suffering that can be caused by these issues, he offers concrete guidance in his first ever writings on intimacy and healthy sexuality. Fidelity guides the reader to an understanding about how we can maintain our relationships; keep them fresh, and accepting and loving our partner for who they are. Fidelity gives concrete advice on how to stay attentive and nourishing of each other amidst the many responsibilities and pressures of daily life. Readers will learn how to foster open communication, dealing with anger and other strong emotions, learning to forgive, and practicing gratitude and appreciation. Fidelity is written for both couples in a committed relationship wanting to further develop a spiritual dimension in their lives together, and for those where infidelity or hurt may have occurred, and there is a need for best practices to re-weave the net of love and understanding. In addition to addressing everyday occurrences and challenges, Thich Nhat Hanh shows how traditional Buddhist teachings on attachment, deep listening, and loving speech can help energize and restore our relationships. Written in a clear and accessible style, and filled with personal stories, simple practices and exercises,Fidelity is for couples at all stage of relationships. It the guide book for anyone looking to create long-lasting and healthy intimacy.

Finalist for the 2022 Reading the West Debut Fiction Award Finalist for the 2022 Colorado Book Award for Literary Fiction Longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection Set in the western sagebrush steppe, Site Fidelity is a vivid, intimate, and deeply human exploration of life on the shifting terrain of our changing planet. Firmly rooted in the modern American West, Site Fidelity follows women and families who feel the instinctual, inexplicable pull of a home they must work to protect from the effects of economic inequity and climate catastrophe. A seventy-four-year-old nun turns to eco-sabotage to stop a fracking project. A woman delivers her own baby in a Nevada ghost town. A young farmer hides her chicken flock from the government during a bird flu epidemic. An ornithologist returns home to care for her rancher father and gets caught up trying to protect a breeding group of endangered Gunnison sage grouse. In lean, lyrical prose, Claire Boyles evokes the bleakness and beauty of our threatened western landscapes. Spanning the decades from the 1970s to a plausible near future, this knockout debut introduces unforgettable characters who must confront the challenges of caregiving and loss alongside the very practical impacts of fracking, water rights law, and other agricultural policies. Site Fidelity is a vivid, intimate, and deeply human exploration of life on the shifting terrain of our changing planet.

Eco-Justice—The Unfinished Journey links ecological sustainability and social justice from an ethical and often theological perspective. Eco-justice, defined as the well-being of all humankind on a thriving earth, began as a movement during the 1970s, responding to massive, sobering evidence that nature imposes limits—limits to production and consumption, with profound implications for distributive justice, and limits to the human numbers sustainable by habitat earth. This collection includes contributions from the leading interpreters of the eco-justice movement as it recounts the evolution of the Eco-Justice Project, initiated by campus ministries in Rochester and Ithaca, New York. Most of these essays were originally published in the organization's journal, and they address many themes, including environmental justice, hunger, economics, and lifestyle.

Modern culture is obsessed with identity. Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends—and yet, no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of self. In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman carefully analyzes the roots and development of the sexual revolution as a symptom, rather than the cause, of the human search for identity. This timely exploration of the history of thought behind the sexual revolution teaches readers about the past, brings clarity to the present, and gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate the culture's ever-changing search for identity.

A wise and hilarious novel about love, heartbreak, and rock and roll from the bestselling author of About a Boy and Dickens and Prince Now a Hulu series starring Zoë Kravitz! "I've always loved Nick Hornby, and the way he writes characters and the way he thinks. It's funny and heartbreaking all at the same time."—Zoë Kravitz Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? Rob seeks refuge in the company of the offbeat clerks at his store, who endlessly review their top five films; top five Elvis Costello songs; top five episodes of Cheers. Rob tries dating a singer, but maybe it's just that he's always wanted to sleep with someone who has a record contract. Then he sees Laura again. And Rob begins to think that life with kids, marriage, barbecues, and soft rock CDs might not be so bad.

A Fresh and Important New Way to Understand Why We Buy Why did the RAZR ultimately ruin Motorola? Why does Wal-Mart dominate rural and suburban areas but falter in large cities? Why did Starbucks stumble just when it seemed unstoppable? The answer lies in the ever-present tension between fidelity (the quality of a consumer’s experience) and convenience (the ease of getting and paying for a product). In Trade-Off, Kevin Maney shows how these conflicting forces determine the success, or failure, of new products and services in the marketplace. He shows that almost every decision we make as consumers involves a trade-off between fidelity and convenience–between the products we love and the products we need. Rock stars sell out concerts because the experience is high in fidelity-–it can’t be replicated in any other way, and because of that, we are willing to suffer inconvenience for the experience. In contrast, a downloaded MP3 of a song is low in fidelity, but consumers buy music online because it’s superconvenient. Products that are at one extreme or the other–those that are high in fidelity or high in convenience–-tend to be successful. The things that fall into the middle-–products or services that have moderate fidelity and convenience-–fail to win an enthusiastic audience. Using examples from Amazon and Disney to People Express and the invention of the ATM, Maney demonstrates that the most successful companies skew their offerings to either one extreme or the other-–fidelity or convenience-–in shaping products and building brands.

Reissued as part of Counterpoint's celebration of beloved American author Wendell Berry, the five stories in Fidelity return readers to Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, and the familiar characters who form a tight–knit community within. "Berry richly evokes Port William's farmlands and hamlets, and his characters are fiercely individual, yet mutually protective in everything they do. . . . His sentences are exquisitely constructed, suggesting the cyclic rhythms of his agrarian world." —The New York Times Book Review "Each of these elegant stories spans the twentieth century and reveals the profound interconnectedness of the farmers and their families to one another, to their past and to the landscape they inhabit." —The San Francisco Chronicle "Visionary . . . rooted in a deep concern for nature and the land, . . . [these stories are] tough, relentless and clear. In a roundabout way they are confrontational because they ask basic questions about men and women, violence, work and loyalty." —Hans Ostrom, The Morning News Tribune