There is no Easter without making one’s peace with the dead and with the forces of destruction that lurk within the human psyche.

When love and hatred engage in mortal conflict it is love which suffers most; but love has the final victory.

THEME The Connecting Solitude THOUGHTS FOR REFLECTION The spiritual desert is not a foe to be conquered but an emptiness to be affirmed: for when we are full, we perceive nothing, but when we are empty we can receive everything.

Structured for Lent, but practical for any time of the year, this new resource examines the lament psalms for their connections to contemporary experiences. The introduction acquaints the reader with Dr. Walter Brueggemann's analysis of the psalms into the categories of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. A contemporary psalm/poem for each entry discerns the emotional tenor of the psalms and makes it relevant for the challenges of contemporary life and relationships.

No one's raised who did not fall No one saves whom God did not send No one stands whose knees won't bend No helper's not been helped at all

I am standing before the cross in all its brutality And feel overwhelmed by the enormity of it all. Why could the church not have a nice Life-affirming symbol instead of a cross?

the world weighs heavy our brokenness wearies us and yet God is here