Nietzsche once wrote, "God is dead!" Rolheiser responds, "No!" We simply are blind! If we could only remove the scales from our eyes, we would be able to see Him everywhere in our ordinary existence. Rolheiser states that the scales can be removed through contemplation, allowing us to see God "face to face."

This is a very spiritual book with great insights on the discipline of contemplation. Along with prayer and meditation, contemplation is one of the most effective ways of getting closer to God. This book helps the reader learn, understand and live the contemplative life.

"Blessed are the pure at heart, for they shall see God." Unfortunately, few of us are pure at heart. Rolheiser posits most believers rarely, if ever, see God in their lives. Something is wrong with us. This book first describes in some detail why we are not fully aware of God in our lives - excessive narcissism, pragmatism and restlessness are the culprits. Our perception is distorted because we lack the perspective of the contemplative: an infinite horizon where God is the background to all our ordinary experiences. Simply put, most lack the ability to see beyond their own heartaches and headaches.

The book then turns to the three main contemplative traditions in Western Christianity, the mystical tradition exemplified by John of the Cross, the Protestant contemplative tradition, and the philosophical tradition of Theism. Rolheiser does an excellent job of summarizing all three.

The book ends by succinctly explaining the spiritual exercises we can undertake to help purify our hearts, expand our awareness and reacquire a childlike heart of wonder and awe.

Read this book. Become a contemplative. See and feel God everywhere!

In this first book by Father Rolheiser he writes a clear and concise guide for those of us walking the contemporary and contemplative path.

He contends that "today we, the children of Western culture, post-modern, adult children of the enlightenment, struggle with practical atheism. Our consciousness is clouded with narcissism, pragmatism, and unbridled restlessness so much so, that we are contemplatively asleep. The road back is not a question of finding the right answers, but in living in a certain way. To approach reality and relationships with a certain set of attitudes. A proper praxis. And, like the Virgin Mary, after a certain gestation process, eventually you will give birth to Jesus. God enters the world as the conclusion of a gestation process.We must live in such a way that we give birth to God in our lives."

He routinely urged me to check my own comfort zone, such as "Endeavor to constantly discern your motivation, that is, be suspicious when the glory of God and your own glory habitually harmonize" and "Enter into the vulnerability of Christ, into his unwillingness to protect himself against pain as he fulfills God's will."

I found his observations about the church and religion today on the mark. His work is very readable and yet I found myself rereading a passage over and over because of the succinct, sometimes gritty, penetrating message. He makes the point that the journey takes time, practice and an ever vigilant opening of your heart. An excellent book that you will read over and over again.

I found "Fireworks 4 f/x and Design" very helpful in teaching the creative possibilities of using different tools and techniques together. I'm not much of an artist when it comes to drawing but Joyce's book also helped me to get some creative juices flowing. It helped me think differently (and yes, I use a Mac!). I can now approach a project and think more in terms of assembling an image or project as opposed to drawing it.

I must say that this book gave me more than my moneys worth!! How anyone can possibly compare it to a Quickstart guide escapes all logic. This book is intermediate as stated and assumes you know the basics. Which is exactly why I purchased it. I learned how to make complex shapes suitable for navigation. The techniques taught helped me implement my own designs. Another section I found very valuabe is the slicing and optimizing. How to best slice up a document and then how to optimize the individual slices for the fasted download times. A real usefull project was the one on deconstructing an animation. Not only can I now look at an animation and learn how someone else did something but I also learned how to look at any Fireworks source file and see what effects, fills, strokes and settings were used. All the files used in the book are included on the CD-ROM so if I was confused I would look at the file to see what I was missing. I did find a few "minor" errors which is to be expected, but nothing an intermediate user couldn't quickly identify. Plus most of the time all I had to do was check the Website for updates, watch one of the quick time movies or send an email to the author.Which by way answered any request the very same day. I learned tons of stuff about masking, how to mask an image without loosing pixels in the process, how to apply gradients and how to use gradients for lighting effects. The book is layed out in a logical format, even though it's intention is not to teach the programs basics, it still does a great job of teaching all the vital areas, such as how to fix those pesky pop-up menus problems and advanced features such as using Levels and photo restoration. If you are serious about using Fireworks for Web site design then you'll want to get this book. If you have a local bookstore pick up a copy to look at then come back and purchase it. I honestly don't think you'll be disappointed.

I was very thrilled with this book. What I particularly liked was the fact that it showed all parts of a website design. I was able to make mock websites including intuitive navigation and great looking designs using the techniques taught in this book. I put together a portfolio and landed my first web design job at a large firm.

The layout of the book is what I liked, it was very logical separating the vector from the bitmap. The designs were complete but separated by topic such as navigation or masks etc. Sure, I found some mistakes but nothing detrimental to my learning. One time I wrote the author and she replied very quickly and was very helpful offering additional advice and help. I was shocked at the fast and friendly response. So many times an author won't write back.

I recommend this book to anyone who is somewhat familiar with Fireworks and wants to explore the creative side of what the program can do.