Books

Threatened with Resurrection: A Book of Sermons II, Fuller Press, 2005.

A wide ranging selection of the most powerful sermons Marilyn has delivered since 1998. All proceeds from sales of this book go to First Unitarian Church's Media Outreach Task Force.

Breaking Free: Women of Spirit at Mid-Life and Beyond, Beacon Press, 2004.

Breaking Free is a collection of personal essays by women in the second half of their lives -- essays in which they examine what age and life have taught them and reflect upon their lives and experiences. Contributors include Vivian Gornick, Audre Lorde, Erica Jong, Grace Paley, Terry Tempest Williams, Isabel Allende, Barbara Hurd, Sandy Boucher, and Maya Angelou.

Resurrecting Grace: Remembering Catholic Childhoods, Beacon Press, 2001.

Resurrecting Grace is a collection of personal essays about the often painful and humorous experience of growing up in the One True Faith. These short confessional pieces about the saints, the nuns, hidden desires, and overt transgressions--and of course the guilt, the guilt, the guilt--is one for proud Catholics, former and recovering Catholics, and Catholics by association. Contributors include Frank McCourt, Brian Doyle, Tobias Wolff, James Carroll, Patricia Hampl, Sandra Cisneros, Mary Gordon, and many others.

Claiming the Spirit Within, Beacon Press, 1996.

This rich and diverse anthology of more than 300 poems celebrates the sacredness of women's lives: the experiences that shape them, the relationships that sustain them, and the legacy that they build. In these poems, woman defy conventions and limits, fall in love and out again, wonder at their own bodies, grow old, and sing of the earth and sky. They pray, give birth, and make sense of suffering. Contributors include Margaret Atwood, Rita Dove, Louise Erdrich, Tess Gallagher, Nikki Giovanni, Joy Harjo, and Maxine Hong Kingston.

Cries of the Spirit, Beacon Press, 1991.

Brimming with the inspirational words and thoughts of our finest writers, Cries of the Spirit is a beautiful sourcebook of poetry and prose in praise of life and all that it entails. Here women's voices fill the age-old silence about matters central to their experience, from menstruation, sexual intimacy, and childbirth to caretaking, household rituals, and death. These writings represent a healing vision of the sacred that emerges from the particular consciousness of women -- a vision that partakes of the world of earth and flesh. Contributors include Denise Levertov, Jane Hirschfield, Mary Oliver, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Tess Gallagher, and Sharon Olds.

Wanting Wholeness, Being Broken, Fuller Press, 1998. (sermon collection)

Note: All these books are still in print. Cries of the Spirit was Noted With Pleasure by the New York Times Book Review in 1991, and has sold over 70,000 copies.