Hope As Old As Fire

by Steven Charleston

HOPE AS OLD AS FIRE is a visionary collection of meditations written spontaneously every morning before dawn over the course of a year. As part of his spiritual discipline, Steven Charleston rises each morning to pray and beginning in 2011, at the request of friends, he began to write down brief reflections that came to him as images in words, echoes in language of his prayers. The result is a book that has inspired thousands of people with the clarity, simplicity and beauty of their spiritual message, a message of hope for every person who seeks to walk through life in a sacred way.

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Steven Charleston is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the first of the Five Tribes from the southeastern part of the United States to be removed on the "Trail of Tears". He is a bishop in the Episcopal Church with forty years of service in the ordained ministry. He has been the director of Native American ministries for his church, the first Native Bishop of Alaska, the President and Dean of a seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a seminary professor. Currently he teaches at the Saint Paul School of Theology.

Reviews

[Heather B]

Any time you have an opportunity to read Bishop Charleston's writings, do it! This book is a collection of facebook postings. They are timeless.

[M Christopher]

I did not dawdle in reading this book over seven months because I found it lacking. Quite the opposite. It is a collection of daily devotionals that I had to force myself not to devour in great gulps but rather to spread out over a long series of tiny nibbles, no more than a handful of entries at a time. Each entry is only the size of a standard paragraph; fitting since they were originally posted as daily entries on Facebook.

I highly recommend this book for any person of faith open to the mysteries and consolations of the Christian faith as seen by a man of Native American heritage who has also been a bishop in the Anglican communion. I will treasure my signed copy, sent to me as a gift by two longstanding friends, and I eagerly look forward to Steven's daily posts on Facebook.

To subscribe to Steven Charleston's daily meditations, make him a "friend" on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/steven.charl....

[Kerry Kirking]

Bp Charleston's meditations are truly soul food, offering a bounty of the kind of spiritual insights that change and enrich lives, expressed in poetic language to enrapture the reader.

"Friend" Bp Steven Charleston on Facebook and you not only receive fresh soul gems 6 days per week, but access a wide-ranging, geographically and otherwise diverse prayer chain which has become a treasured series of aid stations on my spiritual walk.

[John Hanscom]

Wonderful, for the type of book it is, which is a series of meditations for about 10 months of the year. Disclosure - I know Bp. Charleston, as he was Bp. here in AK, and like him a lot. I hope I am neutral enough to say that, even though each meditation is short, there is a lot of "meat" here, and it is a book I am not going to pass on, as I usually do.

[Sue]

I will search out any book that Bishop Charleston writes.