Mary Moody Emerson has long been a New England legend, the "eccentric Calvinist aunt" of Ralph Waldo Emerson, wearing a death-shroud as her daily garment. This exciting new study, based on the first reading of all her known letters and diaries, reveals a complex human voice and powerful forerunner of American Transcendentalism. From the years of her famous nephew's infancy, in both private and published writings, she celebrated independence, solitude in nature, and inward communion with God. Mary Moody Emerson inherited both resources and constraints from her family, a lineage of Massachusetts ministers who had earlier practiced spiritual awakening and political resistance against England. Cole discovers a previously unexamined Emerson tradition of fervent piety in the ancestors' own writing and Mary's preservation of their memory. She also examines the position of a woman in this patriarchal family. Barred from the pulpit and university by her sex, she also refused marriage to become a reader, writer, and religious seeker. Cole's biography explores this reading and writing as both a woman's vocation and a gift to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Helping to raise her nephews after their father's death, Mary Moody Emerson urged Waldo the college student to seek solitude in nature and become a divine poet. Cole's pioneering study, tracing crucial lines of influence from Mary Emerson's heretofore unknown texts to her nephew's major works, establishes a fresh and vital source for a central American literary tradition.

Mary Moody Emerson and the Origins of Transcendentalism: A Family History

Biographies & Memoirs

Cole, Phyllis

Arts & Literature

Oxford University Press

Are you standing still on your journey of faith? Do you want to become a more faithful disciple but need direction for moving ahead? Or are you standing at a crossroads, waiting for a guide to point you in the right direction? Spread before you are various paths. Which of them would Christ have you follow? This unique devotional resource guides you on a year's journey during which you will find specific direction for becoming a more disciplined, faithful disciple of Christ. Wherever you are on the faith journey right now, as you walk through the pages of this book you will grow in spiritual understanding and experience as you gain deeper insight into the relevance of spiritual truth to your everyday life. Each daily reading begins with a statement of the day's central idea to focus your mind, followed by the passage of Scripture that has inspired the central idea. After this comes a brief meditation, which includes the most unique feature of the book: an exercise to help you apply the main idea during the day. Then the main idea is restated, as both a blessing and a challenge to action. Themes include transformation, creation, fear, forgiveness, compassion, community, healing, peace, and miracles.

Having the Mind of Christ

Religion & Spirituality

Cole-Dai, Phyllis

Miller,Paul E

Christian Books & Bibles

Abingdon Pr

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Books by Cole, Phyllis