Author: thomrock

Around the Globe and Through the Ages the Faithful Have Always Gathered at Sunrise and Sunset to Worship, Pray, and Give Thanks

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My latest book, Time, Twilight, and Eternity: Finding the Sacred in the Everyday, is now available from Wipf and Stock Publishers, as well as your local bookstore.

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The ancient rhythm of night becoming day becoming night again has always set the tempo of our everyday lives. The daily spin and tilt of the Earth rules our clocks and calendars as well as our human bodies. Yet our minutes and hours and days all too often slip away completely unnoticed. For generations and cultures around the globe and across the ages, though, the moments surrounding sunrise and sunset have been noticeable exceptions: believers and seekers have long gathered in the gloaming to pause and reflect on the notion that the sacred unfolds, if it unfolds anywhere, in ordinary time. In Time, Twilight, and Eternity, Thom Rock explores the rich tradition of that unfolding, not only through the physics and optics of any twilight hour or rising or setting sun, but also through the whispered prayers of so many faith traditions. An unforgettable journey through the mysteries and wonders of dusk and dawn—as well as the extraordinary gifts of common prayer, ordinary time, and everyday grace—this poetic and evocative work is ultimately about our own rising and setting . . . and rising again; the daily practice of resurrection and fully inhabiting our lives here and now.

Advance praise for Time, Twilight, and Eternity:

“In their daily display of subtly graded beauty, the skies invite us to live time more creatively, no longer slaves of the clock. Theologians have neglected this sacred message. Renewing the tradition of American Transcendentalism, Thom Rock’s guide for sky-watchers recovers a lost continent of contemplative thought, opening a dialogue with poets and thinkers of all ages and cultures. A wholesome and life-enhancing book.”
—Joseph S. O’Leary, Author of Conventional and Ultimate Truth

You can read more about, and order copies directly from the publisher of  Time, Twilight, and Eternity here

 

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A Table in the Wilderness: Forty Days of Forgiveness

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RESOURCE_Template“In a powerful and inspiring spiritual guide, Thom Rock offers journeys to a more profound life that will resonate with both the initiated and the skeptics. This is a book for individuals, friends, and communities hoping for sparks to greater intensity and joy in their lives.” —Dr. Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College and author of, among other titles, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus, and Abraham Joshua Heschel: Essential Writings.

more advance praise for A Table in the Wilderness

Now available online or at a bookstore near you!

A new collection of meditations on the theme of forgiveness by Thom Rock,  A Table in the Wilderness: Forty Days of Forgiveness is rooted in the notion of journeying–of setting out each day to discover yet another peak in the mountain range, some new vista along the wide horizon of forgiveness–and draws upon the wisdom of multiple religious traditions as well as non-religious sources in order to gain new perspectives on this long misunderstood subject. Readers are just as likely to encounter Dr. Seuss or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince as they are to read the words of Sri Ramakrishna or Saint Augustine along the way . . .

“The mountains I see outside my window—those I have climbed sometimes for wild berries, sometimes for solace—rise up from the valley below as certain and reliable as a compass. There’s no avoiding them. I lift my eyes up to their pinnacled summits nearly every day, their hulking silhouettes visible from just about every corner of town. I watch them change color with the seasons. Chartreuse in spring as their blanketing trees unfurl tender new leaves, they will burn scarlet and vermilion by autumn. Summer twilight can paint them an unlikely combination of saffron and indigo. Come November, if snow hasn’t already frosted them crystalline white, they will blow a stormy plum-blue-black. They are a beacon, a symbol of home that I hold to dearly. Yet climb above their tattered tree lines, where the elements ravage their stony granite caps, and there is suddenly less and less to hold onto . . . until there’s nothing left to do but let go. The wind is always hurtling up against those rocky peaks and hiking those final steps is always an exercise in balance and perseverance and in trusting in whatever keeps us from being swept off this earth in the first place: fate, chance, gravity . . .

God.

Walking, especially atop mountains, has also become for me a dynamic image of what forgiveness can look like; a lesson in both moving forward and letting go.

 –from the Introduction

The book’s journey begins and ends with this assertion: not only is there a table of forgiveness set for us in the wilderness of this wild world we live in, there is a seat waiting for each and every one of us at that table. What matters is whether we take that seat (the choice is always ours) and, if so, how we behave at the feast.

Click here to order your copy online

or here to order directly from Wipf and Stock Publishers

 

 

 

Thom Rock’s latest book to be published Spring 2015

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Coming this Spring! A new collection of meditations on the theme of forgiveness by Thom Rock. To be published by Resource Publications, an imprint of Wipf and Stock, A Table in the Wilderness: Forty Days of Forgiveness is rooted in the notion of journeying–of setting out each day to discover yet another peak in the mountain range, some new vista along the wide horizon of forgiveness–and draws upon the wisdom of multiple religious traditions as well as non-religious sources in order to gain new perspectives on this long misunderstood subject. Readers are just as likely to encounter Dr. Seuss or Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince as they are to read the words of Sri Ramakrishna or Saint Augustine along the way. . .  (read more here)

Advance praise for A Table in the Wilderness:

Thom Rock leads us gently through the wisdom of the ages on a forty-day journey toward a forgiving heart. Setting aside unrealistic—and all too often unrealizable—expectations of apology or reconciliation, we find ourselves moving toward an inner transformation, finally allowing our defensive shell to be broken, our fists to be unclenched, and old hurts and resentments to be washed away in the healing waters of forgiveness. —Linda Klepinger Keenan, translator of Beyond Loyalty: The Story of Kibei ; author, with John P. Keenan, of I am / No Self: A Christian Commentary on the Heart Sutra ; and co-editor of Beside Still Waters: Jews, Christians, and the Way of the Buddha.

A Table in the Wilderness probes the theme of forgiveness in a beautifully written invitation to spend forty days and nights on a journey toward that place where ‘forgiveness becomes not only possible, but irresistible.’ With images, metaphors and examples drawn from a myriad of sacred and secular sources, and then wonderfully woven into 40 rich and inspirational meditations, Thom Rock offers us a refreshing way to discover and know in our hearts that ‘forgiveness is not something we find, but live.’ —The Right Reverend Thomas Clark Ely, 10th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont