Jean Maalouf – författare

A New CreationOur very survival is at stake. We must change.The references and values on which we used to depend are becoming relativized and questionable, and the true sense of integrity, responsibility, and purpose now seems outdated. Instead, we seem to have chosen the path of shortsighted success and gratification, convenient arrangements, and sometimes the one-sided fanaticism and fundamentalism. No wonder we find ourselves in such a deep spiritual crisis that makes all other crises possible, probable, and even certain and extremely dangerous. Change Your World: Awakening to the Power of Truth Beauty Simplicity - Change is an invitation to faithfully recapture the basics, deeply rediscover the very reason for our existence, and carefully reassess our references and values. Truth will make us free. Beauty will save the world. Simplicity will help redefine our priorities. Change will transform us and will transform our world into a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is a profoundly political book; it describes, in an original and engaging way, how to live and govern from our highest and most sacred consciousness. Therefore, do not expect politics as usual, politically correct, well-calculated, and feeling good spirituality talks. Expect rather as it is articulation, straightforward approaches, and unequivocal descriptions of the new creation values. Our survival depends on our ability to be truly human and in alignment with our most sacred consciousnessthe mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Isnt contemplation the highest form of activity, as Aristotle suggested?Masterfully, Dr. Maalouf uncovers the simple truths of a happy, healthy, and meaningful life, and discloses the secret of the fullness of life. A contemplative approach to life is indispensable for grasping and living the essence of what it means to be truly human.

Retirement! What Retirement?This book is not only for those who have already retired or those who are about to retire, but also for those who still are far from a retirement age. Arent we all adding more birthdays and growing older! In any case, we dont need to feel old.In this book, you will find inspirational thoughts on what aging means to all of us -- the young, the middle aged, and those who are in their later years. Since we have one life to live, we should make of the rest of it the most and best of it. Indeed, retirement is not retirement from life, but the beginning of a new life with new opportunities for meaning and significance.Many books have been written on retirement. Some of them focus on understanding Social Security, Medicare benefits, insurance options, and investment portfolios. Some others target the tips for best housing solutions, best travel and vacation bargains, best shopping deals, and the like. This book is different. Its direct focus is to show how even more important the other aspects of life are -- aspects such as general physical-mental-emotional-spiritual well-being, creative pursuits, social support, deep faith and sense of purpose. It offers enlightening explanations on how to enjoy life to the fullest no matter what our circumstances are, and it provides practical spiritual guidance for the ways of staying alive and blessed all our life.With its insightful reflections, uplifting propositions, warm style, captivating quotations, and engaging personal reflections and practical resolutions, Your New Adventure: Make the Most of the Rest of Your Life invites you to make the most of your retirement and life, and offers you the suggestions that you wont get from your financial and professional advisors. Such life wisdom will help you create the conditions for a happier retirement and a fuller life than all other material means -- important they might be -- can possibly offer. Aging well is living well all our life so that we are able to say, How good it was to be here! I truly have lived the fullness of life by being what my Creator meant me to be.

GodGod is dead, declared Friedrich Nietzsche. Thank God! Who needs that God anyway? We now have the other gods weve created to fit our deep desires and make us feel that it is WE who are in charge, and not anyone else. We thought that these human-made gods were not only more convenient, more suitable, and much easier to worship, but they also held the key to freedom, security, and happiness. Did they?Who and what are these gods we love to worship? What kind of religious practices will we use in order to please them? Has religion become a sophisticated tool that allows us to hide from the true God? Has religion become a ready commodity we use every time we want to subdue an opponent? Is religion still needed when science and reason are now the light of our world? Is religion more than a good business after all? Does religion help to bring personal and world peace, or does it provoke violence and wars? Do we really need God to tell us what the truth is? How do we know what is good and what is wrong?In this book, you will find an answer to these questions and to many more. You also find an explanation for why religion, when it is reduced to an abstract concept or to the mere embodiment of human institutions, will not help men and women to achieve their life purpose and reach their highest potential and destiny. Instead, it may even be dangerous. A deformed religiona religion with a false god or without God at allcould become fanaticism, ideology, Puritanism, abstraction, a weapon to win an argument, humiliate the opponent, and even kill the adversary. A true religion preaches love, not hate. So tell me who you worship, Ill tell you who you are.This book is, in a sense, a heretical book. It is disturbing, bold, radical, and controversialintentionally controversial. Dr. Maalouf is hoping to shock readers out of apathy, indifference, compromises, and idolatry into the true reality of what being human with a divine destiny is. This is a must-read book for all those who seek God beyond their gods, the whole truth beyond their half-truths, and the depth of a divine connection beyond the letter of the law. It is a hard-hitting challenge to false beliefs and a much-needed wake-up call to refocus attention and desire on what is essential and most lasting.

For our very survival and sanity, we need God.We need virtue. We need character. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil thing out of an evil treasure (Matthew 12:35). Godly people make all the difference in the world by striving to match the politics of the earth with the politics of the kingdom of God.By talking about uncovering the healing power of faith, hope, love, and prayer, this book uncovers at the same time the secret of sanitythe sanity that runs our lives at the individual level, as well as at the national and international levels. Sanity requires the rejection of the gods weve created by learning to focus on the God in whose image weve been created.Billions of dollars are spent every year on the pursuit of physical perfection. People do anything to become richer, more powerful, or more prestigiouswith improved appearances and more pleasing makeup in all domains as if the only value that really counts is the most attractive picture we are able to show. In this very expensive race for the outside perfect masks, the pursuit of inner beauty can often be pushed aside when this inner beauty is by far more important than the outer beauty. Dont we know that the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7)?In this book, Heal Your Life: Awakening to the Power of FaithHopeLovePrayer, Dr. Maalouf masterly invites us to reject the double lifestyle we are living and to genuinely consider living by the truth of the permeation and integration of theology and politics. Politics, Pope Paul VI declared, is the highest form of charity. And we can add that charity is the highest form of political sanity as well. Indeed, real politics takes action and contemplation. All our crises are rooted in our spiritual crisis first.For our sanity and survival, God is needed. For our sanity and survival, the politics of the earth should match the politics of the kingdom of God, as this book explains.

Nothing is . . . neither fuller nor better in heaven and earthEvery authentic love story is, in its essence, a journey toward God, and every time we truly love, we unveil the face of God because God is love (1 John 4:16). No wonder Thomas Kempis affirmed that nothing is sweeter than love, nothing stronger, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth because love is born of God and cannot rest but in God, above all things.But if it is so, why in the world do we find ourselves very often dissatisfied with our love life and why do we have so many dysfunctional relationships with our families, neighbors, and others? Why do we seem to love to hate each other and make enemies rather than friends not only with individuals and groups but also with other nations as well? What is missing from our earthly love? What has happened to love?To these questions and to many more, Dr. Maalouf, whose focus is one of gentle revolution in human development, as leading critics said when describing his prolific works, Is suggesting here a different way of seeing the reality of love? Although it is based on psychological, sociological, philosophical, and theological principles, this adopted way conveys the message through a poetic, contemplative, and mystical method in the style of Meister Eckhart and St. John of the Cross. This is not intended to be a comprehensive study on love, but a fresh awakening to the existential, deeper, and richer level of consciousness of the living love, for the love of one another (John 13:34) is not just a commodity for social arrangement, but the evidence of our divine origin and destiny and the critical condition for our very survival.Thus, a book like this should be read meditativelythe way one listens to a great symphony or perceives a masterpiece in an art museumand comprehensively for it is not just the total sum of its paragraphs as a symphony and a painting are not the total sum of their different notes and colors. Thenwonder of wondersone will realize that there is nothing more mysterious, more magical, more life-changing than love. It is indeed the philosophers stone that converts whatever it touches into a golden reality. Then everything will start to make sense, for nothingnot even all the money in the worldcan buy the strength and the happiness of a true loving heart.

God is not tamed by our theological speculations, nor by our churches, our managerial skills, or even our prayers. The Incarnate Word does not philosophize or theologize or reorganize; He lives, loves, comforts, heals, transforms. This is the way of Incarnational spirituality, an on-going dynamic for persons who would really let God loose in their lives. The Gospel happens anew each day in the tiniest of events. It gives Jesus, the Incarnate God, a chance to live on and transform the world again.