MSI Press Blog

  Recently released - the audiobook for A Believer-in-Waiting's Firs Encounters with God  by Elizabeth Mahlou. A Believer in Waiting's First Encounters with God allows readers an entrée into the world of what might be called a modern-day mystic, a world where spirituality, contemplation, hierophany, and miracles unite. Good, evil, suffering, darkness, unknowing, and the unconditional love of God are the leitmotifs that bind the author's experiences from the physical world to the spiritual realm. For more posts about Dr. Mahlou and her books, click  HERE . Paperback copies of this book can be purchased at the  MSI Press webstore   at 25% discount with coupon code FF25. Want to buy this book and not have to pay for it? Ask your local library to purchase and shelve it. Sign up for the MSI Press LLC monthly newsletter (recent releases, sales/discounts, awards, reviews, Amazon top 100 list, author advice, and more -- stay up to date)   Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book

  Today's book excerpt comes from  Blest Atheist  by Elizabeth Mahlou. Defiance, part 2 My childhood contained two compartments: home and not-home. Not-home was a special place that I kept carefully separated to prevent the excesses of home from tainting it. Not-home was the place where I received validation, especially from teachers who encouraged me in many ways. Several of my elementary school teachers used me as a reading group teacher. Others encouraged my propensity for writing poetry and mysteries. Still others brought me whole libraries of books from their homes which I would inhale the way I had inhaled all the books in our small school library. My French teacher in high school encouraged me to write French poetry for our bilingual school journal. As even more validation, I won awards for public speaking, drama competitions, spelling bees, and other competitions that my teachers encouraged me to try.  I also won the city’s history-writing award. Years earlier, someo

  Today's book excerpt comes from  Blest Atheist  by Elizabeth Mahlou. Mercy, part 2  I began fighting Ma at a young age. When I was small, Ma was like a god, a strong, mean, and angry one. She loomed large, powerful, and seemingly omni scient. As I grew older, however, I learned that I could fight this god and retain my dignity, and as I grew even older I found that I could fight this god and win. Perhaps my growing ability to vanquish the earthly god in my life colored my own disposition toward God the Almighty.  Small, with “dark eyes that could sparkle with delight or flash with fire,” according to relatives who remember those days, I apparently exhibited from birth a pro found orneriness. The pediatrician could not calm me at my six-week checkup and strapped me to a table, waiting for me to stop screaming. For two hours, my screams pierced the doctor’s closed window, causing passersby in the city square below to stop and wonder what was happening. The doctor sent Ma to

    Excerpt from  A Believer-in-Waiting  by Elizabeth Mahlou.  A Simple Grace It all began with prayer, but which prayer began it all I do not know. It may have been the grace I was coerced into saying five years ago. Or, it may have been the prayer of my sister Danielle five decades earlier. I used to think it was the former. Now, in reviewing the whole expanse of my life, I rather think it may have been the latter.   Danielle’s Prayer The “8-pack,” a moniker given to my seven younger siblings and me by my brother Rollie, suffered immense abuse during our childhood. My sister Katrina, in fact, never planned on growing up, certain that she would be killed by Ma before achieving adulthood. However amazing, we all did survive the extensive physical abuse (e.g., being stabbed, thrown into walls, kicked into unconsciousness, pulled down flights of stairs by the hair, and much more), emotional abuse (e.g., being negatively compared with each other, denigrated at every opportunity, and, in o