sacred

Sacred Marriage Participant's Guide: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?
$9.99
We embarked on this book in a small group of 20-and-30-something married couples with kids. We are all Christians and have strong marriages. We were looking for a book to further explore the two together and help us grow in each path. This isn't the book to do that.

Thomas seems stuck on marriage being a chore, and focusing in on how you have to pull up those bootstraps, and love the unlovable - including your spouse. For those in a very bad place, this book probably offers some great advice to "keep on keeping on" and get through the hurdles, love your spouse, make it work, yadda yadda yadda. However, to most of us in our group, we found it to be written from only the perspective of a horrible marriage in which people are not treating each other well.

We dropped the book after several chapters. Yes, we see the small value the book has to offer, and yes, I'll bet if you read the whole thing, you can find some lovely snippets of insight. Sorry, not interested in investing the time to read through the rest of the this. I'd rather find an uplifting book, and focus on that. What a painful several weeks this has been digesting this writing. Good riddance!!

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
$19.99
If you wanted Diablo to go on forever, this is the game for you. Good graphics, giant world to explore. An awful lot of fetch quests, but otherwise, the best of this genre in a long time. Will play on two PCs if not online.

Awake, My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp [Two-Disc Special Edition]
$26.99
I'm a transplanted Californian, and had never heard about this music until we moved to Tennessee in 2004, and were introduced by actually attending a singing down on Lookout Mountain. We were hooked.

The documentary is wonderful! We owe Matt and Erica a tremendous debt for making it. But you will never know the power of the music, and of the community that keeps it alive, until you attend an annual singing.

Check out [...], click on Singings, and then click Annual Sacred Harp Singings -- Denson Book, and search through the monthly listings. Or, on the main page, scroll down and check out what is happening in your own state. Call the group nearest you and ask for more information about the Annual Convention -- then GO and be a part of it.

Singing Sacred Harp turned out to be the best musical experience of my life -- we go as often as we can, and although we've only been singing four years and have a lot to learn, the power of this communal praise to God in song can bring us to tears as well.

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
$39.99
Let me start by saying I am a Diablo II fanatic. I judge all games based on that one---a good game for me is a game that's a lot like Diablo II. I won't say I'm sorry about that---it's the level truth. A friend of mine that feels similarly said this was the closest game he'd found to that Diablo feeling. It's taken me a while to think this, but I think he's right.

The big reason I think a lot of people don't like this game is that it's MUCH more complicated than it appears the first time you play. It seems at first to be so simple it's almost boring---just hit a button to kill, do quests that are fairly easy to do, etc. However, there is much more here than you realize. I've probably play this about 50 hours so far, and I am still learning major new things---how to really use runes and relic right, how to understand the skill trees, how the different characters play so differently---it's really fun if you like to keep learning. I'm just now feeling like I understand the game.

I love the HUGE map. I haven't seen even half of it yet. It feels like you really are in a world that you can explore.

Contrary to what another reviewer said, you can play this and save it WITHOUT XBox Live---I only just got XBox Live and I played and saved MANY times before getting it. The neat thing is that once you do go live, you can use the characters you created offline to fight on-line.

It's not a perfect game. Sometimes the pathfinding is very annoying, and I keep hitting dead ends, even in areas I think I know well. People are right that the storyline is not that exciting, but I really don't care about the storyline. If you are someone that does, this might not be the game for you. I'm more of a kill and collect player. I also get annoyed when it's nighttime in the game---it's very hard to see what you are doing, which I guess is realistic but still not fun.

If you are looking for a game that's easy to get into but has a lot of depth, if you like exploring and collecting and trying different character classes---this is a game you will probably like. If you are really into plot lines and realism, probably not.