books

BOOKS

Beauty: a centering guide for you
Who Told You That You Were Naked? Black Women Reclaiming Sexual & Spiritual Goodness
Bootlicked to Balanced: Healing the Mind, Freeing the Spirit

Read more below about each title.

Experiencing the beauty of life is almost critical, yet we tend to consider it more of a luxury … an indulgence.

All around and within us are countless expressions of beauty, simply waiting for us to behold them, to be inspired and invigorated by them … to honor them, to cherish them. And doing so enhances, not just our lives, but our holistic sense of well-being.

Beauty: a centering guide for you was originally designed for the cast and crew of the concept trailer for the episodic film, Desire’s Kiss (DK):

DK is about a young Christian woman, sexy beyond her years, who comes of age in the hands of an older lover, despite objections from her family, her faith – and her fears. DK celebrates the beauty of feminine sexuality and its expressions. Learn more about Desire’s Kiss.

Get your copy and share your thoughts here or drop candi a personal, confidential email at cdugas at candidugas.com.

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Any denial of one’s true self means living in less than full freedom . . .

Who Told You That You Were Naked? Black Women Reclaiming Sexual & Spiritual Goodness explores how Black women’s experiences and other sources for theological ethics can inform our desire to reconcile sexual and spiritual goodness. This exploration seeks to reverse the adverse effects of the Black church’s traditional tendency to teach more about religion than spirituality and to be virtually silent regarding sexuality.

Who Told You That You Were Naked? reveals that the difficulty in this reconciliation has roots in the larger issues of church-condoned gender hierarchy, Christianity’s hierarchal dualism, and American (USA) race-based oppression and injustice. Inside these pages women will find relevant responses to their cry that the church is absent — or impotent — in helping us to navigate the everyday issues regarding love, sex, and dating. We rewind the text to (re)consider what the Bible actually says about non-marital sex, masturbation, and the submission of women to men.

Who Told You That You Were Naked? provides creative ways to (re)configure our own lives in light of these discoveries — with meditation, exercises, and small-group study.

Get your copy and share your thoughts here or drop candi a personal, confidential email at cdugas at candidugas.com.

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Whatever changes you want to make, begin inside of you . . .

“… we must make ‘… being the guardian of our inner life … our highest priority. . . . Our inner world is the architect of our external world . . . We aren’t happy because we are healthy; we’re healthy because we are happy. With our minds we are creating our days; by our choices we are building either the harmony or the pain we experience. The life you are living reflects the life you have already established inside.'” ~ Susan Taylor, in Bootlicked to Balanced, p. 69

Bootlicked to Balanced: Healing the Mind, Freeing the Spirit asks readers, “At this very moment, are you, your greatest self?” This book is one of few works that specifically leads readers on a God-seeking journey through meditation and Christian scripture. The journey is one of discovering and reconciling the self’s essential parts in order to move closer to God. Listen inwardly, face issues, converse with God, and become your greatest self!