The Age Of Miracles: Embracing The New Midlife

In our ability to rethink our lives lies our greatest power to change them. What we have called "middle age" need not be seen as a turning point toward death. It can be viewed as a magical turning point toward life as we've never known it, if we allow ourselves the power of an independent imagination-thought-forms that don't flow in a perfunctory manner from ancient assumptions merely handed down to us, but rather flower into new archetypal images of a humanity just getting started at 45 or 50.

What we've learned by that time, from both our failures as well as our successes, tends to have humbled us into purity. When we were young, we had energy but we were clueless about what to do with it. Today, we have less energy, perhaps, but we have far more understanding of what each breath of life is for. And now at last, we have a destiny to fulfill-not a destiny of a life that's simply over, but rather a destiny of a life that is finally truly lived.

Midlife is not a crisis; it's a time of rebirth. It's not a time to accept your death; it's a time to accept your life-and to finally, truly live it, as you and you alone know deep in your heart it was meant to be lived.

Graham Christian - Library Journal

Williamson is unarguably one of the most visible and influential writers in spirituality and almost as puzzling as the book that was her inspiration and the foundation of her early fame, A Course in Miracles. Raised in a Jewish household, Williamson, after a string of personal mishaps entirely typical of American life, found her way to the Course, a book dictated by, so its "medium" Helen Schucman claimed, the voice of Jesus. Williamson's book-length exposition of Schucman's curious post-Christian mysticism, Return to Love(1992), became a best seller. Williamson's later work has distanced itself from the Course, and The Age of Miraclesis hardly an exception to this later practice-it is a grab bag of anecdote, precepts, and bland advice on middle age (Williamson herself is in her middle fifties). Its publication, although it scarcely mentions the Course, will coincide (or perhaps the better word is converge) with Williamson's new lectures on the Courseon Oprah Winfrey's radio channel, XM 156. The force of Oprah's approbation is so great as to render review almost irrelevant, but we will say that The Age of Miraclesis more of the same for the persuaded and will not damage innocent minds. For most collections.

Biography

Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed lecturer, author, and spiritual teacher. The Age of Miracles hit number two on the New York Times bestseller list. Among her other nine published books, four of them—including A Return to Love—were number one New York Times bestsellers.

Editorial Reviews -

The Age of Miracles

Graham Christian - Library Journal

Williamson is unarguably one of the most visible and influential writers in spirituality and almost as puzzling as the book that was her inspiration and the foundation of her early fame, A Course in Miracles. Raised in a Jewish household, Williamson, after a string of personal mishaps entirely typical of American life, found her way to the Course, a book dictated by, so its "medium" Helen Schucman claimed, the voice of Jesus. Williamson's book-length exposition of Schucman's curious post-Christian mysticism, Return to Love(1992), became a best seller. Williamson's later work has distanced itself from the Course, and The Age of Miraclesis hardly an exception to this later practice-it is a grab bag of anecdote, precepts, and bland advice on middle age (Williamson herself is in her middle fifties). Its publication, although it scarcely mentions the Course, will coincide (or perhaps the better word is converge) with Williamson's new lectures on the Courseon Oprah Winfrey's radio channel, XM 156. The force of Oprah's approbation is so great as to render review almost irrelevant, but we will say that The Age of Miraclesis more of the same for the persuaded and will not damage innocent minds. For most collections.

Features -

The Age of Miracles

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 The Long and Winding Road 1

Chapter 2 Do You Believe in Magic? 11

Chapter 3 The Nick of Time 37

Chapter 4 God Only Knows 53

Chapter 5 The Way She'd Act and the Color of Her Hair 75

Chapter 6 I Will Survive 95

Chapter 7 In the Midnight Hour 121

Chapter 8 Abraham, Martin, and John 139

Chapter 9 We Are the World 159

Acknowledgments 183

About the Author 187