The main timeline of the story stretches from 1912 to 1975. The viewpoint of all four books is that of Shigekuni Honda, a law student in Spring Snow who eventually becomes a wealthy retired judge in The Decay of the Angel. Each of the novels depicts what Honda comes to believe are successive reincarnations of his schoolfriend Kiyoaki Matsugae, and Honda's attempts to save them from the early deaths to which they seem to be condemned by karma. This results in both personal and professional embarrassment for Honda, and eventually destroys him.
Other characters who appear in more than one book include Satoko Ayakura (Kiyoaki's lover), Tadeshina (Satoko's maid), Imperial Prince Toin, Shigeyuki Iinuma (Kiyoaki's servant and Isao's father), Keiko Hisamatsu, and Rié (Honda's wife).
Although The Temple of Dawn contains lengthy arguments in favour of the concept of reincarnation, Mishima's biographers note that he did not believe in it himself.[3] An earlier work of about the same length, Kyoko's House, had been spurned by critics; it has been conjectured that he embarked on The Sea of Fertility in defiant response. It expresses many of Mishima's deepest-held convictions about the nature and purposes of human life, and the last book is thought to encapsulate an (extremely negative) personal assessment of himself and his own legacy.[4]
The tetralogy was described by Paul Theroux as "the most complete vision we have of Japan in the twentieth century". Charles Solomon wrote in 1990 that "the four novels remain one of the outstanding works of 20th-Century literature and a summary of the author's life and work."[5] Although the first book, Spring Snow, is a loving recreation of Japan in the brief Taishō period, and is well-grounded in its time and place, references to current affairs are generally tangential to what is later to become Honda's obsessive quest to understand the workings of individual fate and to save his friend.[citation needed] Richard T. Kelly wrote that the tetralogy reveals "all his gifts – an eye for detail and scene-making, a sensuous regard for the physical, and a cool detachment that could be terrifying in its terseness."[6]
Yasser Nasser of The Bubble said that "the first book is by far the best, presenting a vision of Japan that is both alien and relatable to the Western reader."[7]
The literary historian Marleigh Ryan, however, was less sympathetic. In 1974, she wrote, "The outstanding weakness of this, the final novelistic effort of Mishima Yukio—and indeed the major failing of the bulk of his work—is its striking inability to rise above the emotional and intellectual limitations of its author."[8]
Overcoming Violence in Asia: The Role of the Church in Seeking Cultures of Peace Paperback – Illustrated, 15 July 2011 by Donald Eugene Miller (Author)
These chapters are rooted in a World Council of Churches conference of Historic Peace Churches in Asia that took place in Solo, Indonesia. There, as part of the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence, Asian Christians engaged interfaith diversity, violence, and radical pluralism in Asia.
Konrad Raiser, World Council of Churches General Secretary, 1992-2003, observes in the Foreword that "This volume is another example of the very creative contribution that the Historic Peace Churches are continuing to make to the ecumenical search for reconciliation and peace. For teachers and students engaged in developing a new approach to an ecumenical ethics of peace and for those committed to overcoming violence in their local context, the book provides valuable insights and welcome encouragement." Ruthann Knechel Johansen, President, Bethany Theological Seminary, says that "Courageous and imaginative contributors from Indonesia, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Australia prophetically and poetically call people of all religious faiths to listen to voices from the margins of the world's societies, to embrace with wonder and gratitude the rich diversity of human cultures and religious pluralism, and to work tirelessly and joyfully for God's shalom, salam, and peace with justice throughout the earth."
Fernando Enns, VU University Amsterdam, Chair for Theology and Ethics, Faculty of Theology, points out that "Historic Peace Churches--Mennonites, Church of the Brethren, and Society of Friends--have kept alive the witness for peace with justice within the global ecumenical familiy of churches, not only during the past Decade to Overcome Violence. This volume presents another strong contribution to the ongoing search for a credible and faithful Christian presence in the midst of religious pluralism, in face of religious radicalism and the violence of poverty."
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Overcoming violence in asia: the role of the church in seeking cultures of peace
Overcoming Violence in Asia: The Role of the Church in Seeking Cultures of Peace. Donald E. Miller, Gerard Guiton, and Paulus S. Widjaja, eds. Telford, Pa.: Cascadia Publishing House; Geneva: World Council of Churches. 2011. Pp. 292. $23.95.
Growing up in a Mennonite church in the Philippines, I had an early exposure to a peace perspective as I reacted to the violent political and economic setting of my country. There has been so much violence experienced by the Filipino people who live with deep poverty and injustice, and yet the responses to try to end poverty and injustice have also been, sadly, violent. Despite their modest presence in the country, Mennonites have advocated the peace theology among various church denominations and religious and political groups, whether Christian, Muslim, or Anarchist, to try to respond to violence in a more peaceful way.
Most religions in the world, including Christianity, started in Asia. But it is surprising that most Christian churches in Asia are highly influenced by the Western worldview. This book discusses perspectives of historical peace church leaders across Asia who are seeking their own definitions of peace and are on their journey to overcoming the violence that is so...
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Description Explores the genesis of the Quaker movement and its underlying foundation: its intimate vision of the Kingdom of God, in the midst of the turmoil of 17th century Britain.
Read on the Scribd mobile app Download the free Scribd mobile app to read anytime, anywhere.iOS Android PUBLISHER: Inner Light Books RELEASED: May 1, 2012 ISBN: 9780983498049 FORMAT: Book
Gerard Guiton is the author of The Growth and Development of Quaker Testimony (2005), a spiritual direction work, Stillness (1994), and has co-edited Overcoming Violence in Asia: the Role of the Churches in Seeking Cultures of Peace (2011) for the Historic Peace Churches/WCC. He was Henry J. Cadbury Scholar at Pendle Hill Quaker Study Centre (Philadelphia, 2004-5).
“The longer I live, and the more I see Of the struggles of souls toward the heights above, The stronger the thought comes back to me, That the universe rests on the shoulders of love; A love so limitless, deep and broad, That men have renamed it and called it God.”
Oliver Shaw Fell, 1833-1904
Nearing the end of his life, Oliver Shaw Fell wrote this poem for his associates at the Universal Peace Union. Fell was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on 10 Third Month 1833 into the Religious Society of Friends and died on 31 Twelfth Month 1904 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Fell spent his life in faithful service to the causes of anti-slavery, temperance, and peace. Fell worked as a teacher for 35 years and then as the Business Manager of the Universal Peace Union. Oliver Shaw Fell’s life was in many ways similar to those of other 19th century liberal “Hicksite” Quakers.
For over 350 years the Religious Society of Friends has been made up of individuals such as Oliver Shaw Fell. Inner Light Books was formed to help tell their stories. In publishing books by and about Quakers and books that examine Quaker values it is the hope of the publisher to expand the knowledge of and appreciation for the faith and practice of the Religious Society of Friends. The first publication of Inner Light Books was released in 2009. It is the intention of the publisher to offer selected texts on-line as well as in book form. The texts published will be from original unpublished manuscripts as well as out-of-print books.
I am a Baptist minister, teacher and writer. I serve at the Collins Street Baptist Church in the heart of Melbourne, one of Australia’s most beautiful cities. With a history dating back to 1838, Collins Street is among the nation’s oldest continuing Baptist congregations. More than that, it’s an engaging and courageous community deeply committed to the city and its people.
After a decade of service in church planting and youth ministry, I did postgraduate studies in practical theology at Fuller Seminary in Los Angeles, California. I then spent 15 years teaching in spirituality, ethics and pastoral theology, first at Macquarie Christian Studies Institute in Sydney and then at Melbourne’s Whitley College. My research and writing interests include the ethics of everyday life, the theology of food and hospitality, and the nature of Christian mission in suburbia.
My books include
God Next Door: Spirituality and Mission in the Neighbourhood (Acorn, 2007),
Eating Heaven: Spirituality at the Table (Acorn, 2013) and
Heaven All Around Us: Discovering God in Everyday Life (Cascade, 2018).
I live with my partner in the city and am inspired every day by the neighbourhood of which I’m a part.
I have two blogs, Eating Heaven where I write about all things food, and this one where I wonder about everything else.
I’m a keeper of journals. For as long as I can recall I have written my way through life. In copious notebooks I’ve documented and reflected on what’s been a mostly unremarkable story. Regardless, the earliest of these are drenched with angst. As I scan them now, I cringe. They read like an endless and urgent ‘quest’ for improvement or for reality different to the one I knew.
My religious upbringing did not help. The journey to Christian devotion — a quest of the most noble kind — was fueled by a dim view of the human heart and of the world in which we’re ‘entrapped’. The narrow road out and toward God was paved with words of obligation: repent, give up, let go, deny, quench, resist. It was an urgent business. Honestly, I felt more failure than progress as I trudged along, but the drive to ‘press on’ remained.
With the benefit of age, I wish now I could go back to that ernest young man and others like him. While he sits hunched over his journal I would stand behind him, my hands on his shoulders, and speak words of peace. “Go easy,” I would say, “this world is good and precious, and so are you.”
It is the psalmist who affirms all creation as filled with the beauty and majesty of God and
St Paul who marvels at that all-encompassing love that leaves no peak or crevice of this life untouched.
The Franciscan Richard Rohr describes true religion as “always a deep intuition that we are already participating in something very good, in spite of our best efforts to deny it or avoid it.”
Indeed, this world declared ‘good’ and ‘very good’ in the creation story continues to be so. The great privilege of the Christian faith is not that we are on a journey toward God, but that we are in God and the life of God is in us.
Yes, I am still journaling and still questing. I still seek meaning in what I do. I still aspire to goodness in who I am and justice for those around me.
But the urgency of it and the self-criticism, they are less.
Rather than being driven by a rejection of the world’s darkness and a desire for improvement in myself, I find myself inspired by the beauty of all that’s around and even within me.
Today there is less drive for personal progress and more longing for the grandeur, kindness and grace that fills this world of ours.
Yes Simon I was a young zealous Christian living in an Open Brethren environment of piety more than grace. Baptist life was doing doing doing rather than being. PNG reminded me that culture is more than western while as an Industrial Chaplain spirituality was more than church. Whitley College was a light into new thought , doubt and challenge. I now live that “easy” life in solitude using my iPad to wander as I choose. Yesterday Jim Barr at Box Hill Baptist, today Sarah Miles St Gregory of Nyssia in San Francisco.
Tomorrow I coffee with 10 non Christians whose sense of community is Christian but they just don’t know it. I will walk home along Spring Creek encountering platypus koala a wallaby. My prayer is that we will grow community through IT. Mark Blackwell Reply
My guiding prayer is that of Thomas Merton My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going/ I do not see the road ahead of me./ I cannot know for certain where it will end./ Nor do I really know myself,/ and the fact that I think I am following Your will/ does not mean that I am actually doing so./ But I believe that the desire to please You/ does in fact please you./ And I hope I have that desire/ in all that I am doing./ I hope that I will never do anything/ apart from that desire./ And I know that/, if I do this,/You will lead me by the right road,/though I may know nothing about it./ Therefore I will trust You always/ though I may seem to be lost/ and in the shadow of death/ I will not fear,/for You are ever with me /. and You will never leave me to face my perils alone./ Reply simoncareyholt says: June 10, 2022 at 4:04 pm
A beautiful prayer, Mark. So glad you live in a place the sustains your spirit. Reply
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Description If living with a deep awareness of God in our lives is important, how do we do it without moving to a monastery? How do we discern and respond to God amidst the places, routines, and relationships of our everyday lives?
In this book, we go in search of God's presence in homes and neighborhoods, supermarkets and sporting arenas, workplaces and weekends.
Along the way we look for practices that can lead us more deeply into the way of Jesus: activities like cooking and laundry, walking and sleeping, shopping and conversation with friends. Throughout, we want to better understand how to make God a central part of our lives, and to hear Jesus' call to "follow me" more clearly in the world around us. Christianity All categories
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Heaven All Around Us: Discovering God in Everyday Life
Kindle Edition
기준 Simon Carey Holt (Author) 형식: Kindle Edition
Kindle
US$9.99부터
If living with a deep awareness of God in our lives is important, how do we do it without moving to a monastery?
How do we discern and respond to God amidst the places, routines, and relationships of our everyday lives?
In this book, we go in search of God's presence in homes and neighborhoods, supermarkets and sporting arenas, workplaces and weekends. Along the way we look for practices that can lead us more deeply into the way of Jesus: activities like cooking and laundry, walking and sleeping, shopping and conversation with friends. Throughout, we want to better understand how to make God a central part of our lives, and to hear Jesus' call to "follow me" more clearly in the world around us.
"Simon Carey Holt hallows the everyday, revealing God's presence in our homes and neighborhoods, in pubs and offices and sports stadiums, and supplying us with wisdom and practices for sensing God when we wake, when we sleep, when we eat, when we play, and when we work."
--Michael Frost, Morling College, Sydney
"For every person seeking to move beyond a Sunday faith, for every busy worker and parent for whom spirituality feels out-of-reach, Simon Carey Holt is an invaluable guide. Drawing from Christian tradition and personal story, he points to God's presence in the smallest routines, and explores how we might honor the sacred in ordinary things."
--Alison Sampson, Baptist Pastor and Columnist
"Heaven All Around Us will bust your ideas of spirituality wide open. It is a must read for everyone who has ever thought, 'I'm just not that spiritual.' Holt will make you think again as he peels back the surface of ordinary things to expose the thrill of God's presence everywhere. This is a book that will enlarge your soul."
--Allan Demond, Senior Pastor of NewHope Baptist Church, Melbourne, Australia
"At the same time as our dislocated and dispirited society is looking to find connection in the near and the neighborhood, so this book invites us to find God in the 'local' of our lives. The author enticingly encourages us to experiment with seeing matters as routine as the laundry, the making of a meal, sports, and everyday conversation as ways to nurture our spirituality. It will be freeing and stretching for many who want to grow in love and goodness."
--Anne Wilkinson-Hayes, Head of Mission, Baptist Union of Victoria
"Simon Carey Holt has been at this for a very long time. From the start, his eyes have been shaped by the local and his life has been lived in the everyday. In this scurrying around for new fixes for the churches I urge you to sit quietly in your own place of living and absorb the practices Simon is proposing."
--Al Roxburgh, Writer and Consultant, The Missional Network
Simon Carey Holt is pastor of Collins Street Baptist Church, Melbourne, and adjunct lecturer in practical theology at Whitley College, University of Divinity. He is author of the award winning God Next Door: Spirituality and Mission in the Neighborhood (2007), and Eating Heaven: Spirituality at the Table (2013).
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Heaven all around us: Discovering God in everyday life
by Simon Carey Holt
4.13 · Rating details · 8 ratings · 3 reviews
If living with a deep awareness of God in our lives is important, how do we do it without moving to a monastery? How do we discern and respond to God amidst the places, routines, and relationships of our everyday lives? In this book, we go in search of God's presence in homes and neighborhoods, supermarkets and sporting arenas, workplaces and weekends. Along the way we loo ...more
Alan Marr
Dec 20, 2018Alan Marr rated it it was amazing
This is a book i wish I had written. It is clear, comforting and challenging. The final chapter should be required reading for every pastor. Thanks Simon.
flag1 like · Like · comment · see review
Campbell J. Brice
Jul 31, 2021Campbell J. Brice rated it liked it
Shelves: 00-my-library, 02-theological-collection
3.5 stars
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David Mitchell
Oct 12, 2019David Mitchell rated it it was ok
The last chapter - written to pastors - is good. It is written sympathetically to calls of the reformers that identified with 1 Peter 2:9. In this regard, I had not read Elton Trueblood The Company Of The Committed
"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." 1 Peter 2:9
Other chapters so-so.
I had to skip the chapter "God at the Supermarket" as I could not cope with the notion of God among an aisle of sugary cereal. This chapter could perhaps been framed as "God as providore".
I won this book in a competition. It had been shortlisted as 2019 Australian Christian Book of the Year. (less)
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God Next Door
기준 Simon Carey Holt (Author) 형식: Kindle Edition
별 5개 중 5.0 2개의 평가
모든 형식 및 에디션 보기
Kindle
US$17.99부터
What if God lived next door? Would you recognise him? Would you talk to him at the fence or avoid catching his eye? Would you love him as you love yourself? Simon Carey Holt has listened to the experiences of numerous men and women of faith living in a variety of urban and suburban neighbourhoods, and uncovered the spiritual possibilities of our neighbourhoods. His inspiring stories open up exciting new possibilities for 21st-century mission.
인쇄 길이
183 페이지
2007
고객 리뷰
별 5개 중 5.0
미국의 상위 리뷰
John Gibbs
별 5개 중 5.0 Everyone is called to be a good neighbour
미국에서 2011년 5월 5일에 검토됨
We are called to seek, live and breathe the redemptive peace and presence of God in the neighbourhoods that are immediately before us, according to Simon Carey Holt in this book.
The book, which was the winner of the Australian Christian Book of the Year award for 2008, describes a spirituality of neighbourliness in which:
* Love of God and love of neighbour are a package: our neighbourliness is directly connected to our relationship with God;
* To love the neighbour is to act justly, compassionately and selflessly: love of neighbour is embodied in action;
* Real neighbourliness is inclusive and offered without prejudice: God's neighbourly love extends to all regardless of race, class or moral standing;
* The neighbourhood is a place of God's presence: neighbourly relationships play host to the presence of God;
* The neighbourhood is an important place of ministry: neighbourhoods are primary places of mission;
* Neighbourliness and neighbourhood continue to have an important connection: our call to global mission does not negate the primacy of our immediate environments.
Part one of the book describes modern neighbourhoods including rural communities, urban communities and suburban communities.
Part two describes the call of God with respect to neighbourhoods, including the Biblical mandate, the example of Jesus and the relationship between neighbourhood and church.
Part three describes mission in neighbourhoods including disciplines of engagement which the author calls "naming", "celebrating", "nurturing" and "inviting".
Most churches in the Western world are not very effective in engaging with their local neighbourhoods. Larger churches often cater more for members who live some distance away than for neighbours who live nearby. Smaller churches are often too inwardly focused. The author does not say that churches should be of any particular size or style; he merely says that they should have a strong missional focus on local neighbourhoods.
Many readers - perhaps most - will find the book uncomfortable to read.
The pressures of modern life and the strong preference most city-dwellers have for privacy make local neighbourliness and neighbourhood mission very difficult to do effectively. But the author refuses to excuse anyone; we might be called to serve people far away or in the workplace or within the walls of the church, but we are also called to mission in our local neighbourhood.
I was surprised by how much of the author's advice is simple and non-threatening. I highly recommend the book to church leaders and to any Christians who are seeking practical and achievable ways of engaging with their neighbours.
간단히 표시
10명이 유용하다고 평가했습니다
--
Bradley J. Brisco
VINE VOICE
별 5개 중 5.0 Love this book.
미국에서 2014년 6월 17일에 검토됨
검증된 구매
I can not recommend more highly this book by Simon Carey Holt. Not only does the book provide great handles for living a relationally connected life in the neighborhood, but Holt provides one of the best theological/biblical reflection on how the incarnation of Jesus is our model for living in context.
If you are serious about understanding what it means to life with, and for the sake of others in your neighborhood, then do yourself a favor and read this book.
