God Sex Drugs Other Things

Howard Frankl's God, Sex, Drugs and Other Things begins with three essays on subjects found in the title: one essay on drugs, one on sex and one on God. The "Other Things" turn out to be Money and Murder, and there is an essay on each of these topics. The book comes to a close with a short epilogue on the reality that holds the whole work together, call it compassion, call it universal salvation, or just call it Love. Writer Ernesto Cardenal calls this "a bold book ... In it are things writers don’t dare say. Only God. And he has said them in the Bible. But since we read the Bible so often, those things don’t shock us. They shock us when someone says the same things in a new way. This is an orthodox book, but to some it will not seem so, because it presents the dogmas with a freshness and originality we’re not used to."

Living on the street, Dr. George ran a prostitution and drug dealing business to feed his addiction to sex and drugs. His life spiraled out of control, leading him to the confines of a prison cell. When released on probation he risked it all on a drug blow out. This was the catalyst that started the intentional climb towards a life of freedom. In this book, Dr. George guides the reader through his personal story and how he used the power of intention to change his life.

“A highly personal, richly informed and culturally wide-ranging meditation on the loss of meaning in our times and on pathways to rediscovering it.” —Gabor Maté, MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction A neuroanthropologist maps out a revolutionary new practice—Hedonic Engineering—that combines the best of neuroscience and optimal psychology. It’s an intensive program of breathing, movement, and sexuality that mends trauma, heightens inspiration and tightens connections—helping us wake up, grow up, and show up for a world that needs us all. This is a book about a big idea. And the idea is this: Slowly over the past few decades, and now suddenly, all at once, we’re suffering from a collapse in Meaning. Fundamentalism and nihilism are filling that vacuum, with consequences that affect us all. In a world that needs us at our best, diseases of despair, tribalism, and disaster fatigue are leaving us at our worst. It’s vital that we regain control of the stories we’re telling because they are shaping the future we’re creating. To do that, we have to remember our deepest inspiration, heal our pain and apathy, and connect to each other like never before. If we can do that, we’ve got a shot at solving the big problems we face. And if we can’t? Well, the dustbin of history has swallowed civilizations older and fancier than ours. This book is divided into three parts. The first, Choose Your Own Apocalypse, takes a look at our current Meaning Crisis--where we are today, why it’s so hard to make sense of the world, what might be coming next, and what to do about it. It also makes a case that many of our efforts to cope, whether anxiety and denial, or tribalism and identity politics, are likely making things worse. The middle section, The Alchemist Cookbook, applies the creative firm IDEO’s design thinking to the Meaning Crisis. This is where the book gets hands on--taking a look at the strongest evolutionary drivers that can bring about inspiration, healing, and connection. From breathing, to movement, sexuality, music, and substances--these are the everyday tools to help us wake up, grow up, and show up. AKA--how to blow yourself sky high with household materials. And the best part? They’re accessible, by anyone anywhere, no middleman required. Transcendence democratized. The final third of the book, Ethical Cult Building, focuses on the tricky nature of putting these kinds of experiences into gear and into culture—because, anytime in the past when we’ve figured out combinations of peak states and deep healing, we’ve almost always ended up with problematic culty communities. Playing with fire has left a lot of people burned. This section lays out a roadmap for sparking a thousand fires around the world--each one unique and tailored to the needs and values of its participants. Think of it as an open-source toolkit for building ethical culture. In Recapture the Rapture, we’re taking radical research out of the extremes and applying it to the mainstream--to the broader social problem of healing, believing, and belonging. It’s providing answers to the questions we face: how to replace blind faith with direct experience, how to move from broken to whole, and how to cure isolation with connection. Said even more plainly, it shows us how to revitalize our bodies, boost our creativity, rekindle our relationships, and answer once and for all the questions of why we are here and what do we do now? In a world that needs the best of us from the rest of us, this is a book that shows us how to get it done.

Thomas Merton and Ernesto Cardenal were both poets and priests, wholly committed to a life of spiritual contemplation which was never far from the gritty work that lead them to risk life and reputation in order to raise worldwide consciousness concerning issues of social justice and the abuse of human rights. From the Monastery to the World collects the complete correspondence between these spiritual men and dedicated activists, translated into English for the first time. The letters in this book, written between Merton and Cardenal from 1959–1968, give us fascinating insights into the early spiritual and political awakenings of eventual Sandinista and exponent of liberation theology Ernesto Cardenal, who was then a novice leaving the Trappist Monastery in Kentucky where he first met Merton. While making the long trip home to Nicaragua to build a utopian artist's commune on the Island of Solentiname, Cardenal rubs elbows with some of Latin America's greatest writers and artists of that time. In From the Monastery to the World, Cardenal is still a hungry pupil, years away from becoming the internationally renowned poet–statesman and Nicaraguan Minister of Culture. Here we see the poet and monk Thomas Merton as a wise, patient, and sometimes even humbled mentor, during the years when he was still shaping and collecting the raw materials for such writings as: "The Way of Chuang Tzu", "Raids on the Unspeakable", and "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander". Merton and Cardenal's correspondence grants readers an audience to conversations between two men deeply connected by their vigorous endeavors toward spiritual freedom, voracious intellectual appetites, and artistic exploration despite the cultural differences, language barriers, and geographic distances which divide them.

To any attentive observer, the Western world is in serious trouble. It shows the signs of languishing under a devastating disease. This is clearer nowhere else than in the realm of epistemology, the study of truth and how we attain it. Here, the belief in human autonomy—the freedom of individual men and women to interpret the world and live within it as they see fit—has slowly eroded any foundation for knowledge or morality. The result is a society adrift, floating wherever the tide might take it. If the disease ravaging our society is the belief in human autonomy, the cure is submission once again to the God who created this world, at least that is the argument of the Gift of Knowing. The author argues that apart from submission to God as He has revealed Himself in the Christian Bible, there is no firm foundation for truth or a trustworthy way of attaining it. However, through His revelation in Scripture, God has given His people a foundation for knowing the world He has created and living within it.

As a child, author Ellen Harlow dreamed of becoming a renowned vocalist. However, chasing the dream of stardom left her feeling incomplete. She wasn't satisfied and eventually found herself searching for something more. In 1991, Harlow gave her heart to Jesus Christ resulting in a renewed desire to speak and sing for the sole purpose of giving praise and adoration to God. In Sex, Drugs, and the Love of God, she narrates her real-life experiences and how she transformed her life of sexual sin, drugs, and a multitude of unmentionables held in secret until now. Through a series of short stories, Harlow tells how God's amazing hand was at work throughout her life. In this memoir, she shares her testimony that transformation and change are possible. Sex, Drugs, and the Love of God communicates what it means to now have a close, intimates relationship with Jesus.

Introduction: Sex, Drugs & The Love of God. The book you're about to read is God's hand at work in a real, clear and undeniable way. The collection of stories here are true and although names have been changed to protect the privacy of the parties involved, the one name above all names is still the same - that is, Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God!I believe our Lord and Savior will work through all who read this book. While some will be drawn closer to Him, others will meet Him for the first time and seeds will be planted. You'll find the Holy Spirit in action, along with God's Truth, Mercy, and abounding Grace woven throughout each story. May our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, touch your heart and guide your thoughts and emotions as you encounter His awesome power, great simplicity and most of all, His amazing Love. Enjoy and be encouraged as you experience hope, healing and transformation to be the person He created you to be.