Showing results by author "Jordan Blake Carter" in All Categories

This is not your high school history. From atomic showgirls and quickie divorces to Burning Man billionaires and desert survivalists, Nevada has built its reputation on contradictions. It is a place where nothing should have thrived and yet everything did, in the most outrageous ways possible. In this book, you’ll meet miners who gambled away fortunes before breakfast, mobsters who turned Vegas into a playground, politicians who looked the other way, and dreamers who set fire to wooden effigies in the desert just to see what would happen.

Between the letters in our Bibles and the rhythms of modern church life, a gap wide enough for the teachings of Jesus to slip into the background has opened. We still sing His name and quote His words. But too often, we sidestep the commands that cost us the most. In Living the Words We Skip, you’ll confront the hard truth: much of what passes for Christianity today would be unrecognizable to the Carpenter from Nazareth. Through Scripture, history, and examples, this book exposes how we’ve traded the cross for comfort, discipleship for affiliation, and the Kingdom for the empire’s approval.

Puerto Rico is more than beaches and postcards, it is a centuries-long experiment in survival, rebellion, and rhythm. From the first Taíno villages to the sugar empires, from Spanish fortresses to American bureaucracy, the island has been conquered, taxed, forgotten, and reborn more times than anyone can count. In Rum, Revolution, and Resilience, Jordan Blake Carter uncorks five hundred years of history with equal parts humor and honesty. The result is a portrait of an island that keeps rebuilding itself, through hurricanes, politics, and colonial hangovers without ever losing its flavor.

New York never learned to whisper. It shouts, sings, honks, and argues its way through four centuries of chaos, creativity, and contradiction. From the Haudenosaunee confederacy to Wall Street excess, from canal diggers to coffee-shop philosophers, Empire, Egos, and Everything Bagels takes listeners on a wild, witty ride through the Empire State’s tangled past.

Arkansas has always been the state people forget about — until it suddenly crashes onto the front page with diamonds in cow pastures, dueling governors, civil rights battles, or a president from a town called Hope. Mocked as a land of barefoot hillbillies and moonshine stills, praised for its wild rivers and stubborn resilience, Arkansas has never fit neatly into anyone’s box. Irreverent History of Arkansas: Diamonds, Deliverance, and Razorbacks takes listeners on a wry, sharp-eyed tour through the state’s messy past.

Wyoming may call itself the Equality State, but its history is anything but straightforward. Beneath the wide skies and cowboy swagger lies a story of contradictions: pioneers chasing dreams while leaving grave markers in wagon ruts, cattle barons hiring mercenaries to crush small ranchers, outlaws turning into tourist mascots, and politicians railing against federal overreach while cashing federal checks. And let’s not forget Yellowstone, where bears once begged for marshmallows and tourists still try to pet bison.

From ancient myths to modern rituals, Jordan Blake Carter uncovers the shared values, moral codes, and deep questions that unite spiritual traditions across the globe. You’ll travel through history, meet prophets and sages, and see how faith, in its many forms, points toward compassion, justice, and hope.

From online outrage to everyday indifference, modern life can make compassion feel naïve or even impossible. Compassion in a Cynical World is a guide for holding on to your humanity when it would be easier to shut down. Drawing on real-life stories, research, and the author’s own journey through burnout and disillusionment, this book offers practical tools for staying open-hearted without being overwhelmed.

Sweet Home, Strange History: An Irreverent History of Alabama pulls no punches and spares no sacred cows. With sharp humor and plenty of grit, it dives into the contradictions that make Alabama unforgettable: pride and shame, resilience and stubbornness, politics that stumble, and football that redeems it all. From Creek mounds to cotton fields, from George Wallace’s finger wagging to Nick Saban’s trophies, this is Alabama in all its messy glory.

Alaska’s history is as wild as its wilderness, and just as unwilling to be tamed. Before the Russians showed up for fur and trouble, Indigenous peoples had been thriving here for thousands of years, navigating ice, sea, and politics with skill that would make modern survival shows blush. Then came the explorers who “discovered” places already mapped in someone else’s memory, the gold rush stampedes, the salmon wars, the Japanese invasion in WWII, the oil-fueled pipeline boom, and the endless political battles over land, resources, and who gets to decide Alaska’s future.

Still Standing: Taking Care of Yourself When You're Chronically Tired and Stressed Out is a compassionate, science-informed guide for anyone navigating chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, or burnout—especially those who never get a break. Whether you're a working parent, caregiver, student, professional, or neurodivergent adult, this book offers practical, shame-free support for staying afloat when rest feels out of reach. With gentle humor and zero pressure to overhaul your life, Jordan Blake Carter helps you understand what’s really going on in your body and brain.

Welcome to Utah, where wagon ruts meet billion-dollar malls, and sacred prophecy collides with PR campaigns. This is not the version you got in seminary. From red rock petroglyphs and Spanish explorers to polygamist raids, forged scriptures, and ski resorts, Zion in the Desert tells the strange, scrappy, and often uncomfortable history of a state that was never just one thing. The book dives headfirst into the contradictions that shaped Utah: faith and resistance, empire and exodus, miracles and cover-ups.