Prayers: Please do not ignore that voice within you. Many of you are letting me know that there are struggles that you are enduring but are hesitant to share. Please pray for one another and our willingness to share love freely during this most unsettling time. For all the realities that are swirling for you and yours, we pray... for the world around us, we pray. For the spiritual world within us, we also pray.
By way of meditation, I’m going to offer something a little different today... It’s a book recommendation. Many of you know that my undergraduate degrees are in English and Religious Studies, with a minor in Creative Writing. I tend to get lost in "work related" books too often these days. Earlier this summer, I asked all of our staff to set goals for their work and development this year, and I shared with them that I wouldn’t ask them to set goals if I wasn’t doing the same. One of my goals is to read a non-work-related book per quarter. As I shared with the staff, I started with one book a week, then shifted to one per month, and ended up committing to one per quarter. I require that our goals be attainable, and realistically, one non-work-related book per week or month would cause me more stress than I care to admit. Thus, I set the goal for one per quarter. I hope to blow that out of the water (and I’m on track to do so!)
Anyway, the book that I will be finishing in a few minutes is "Six Angry Girls" by Adrienne Kisner. Adrienne was a classmate of mine at Boston University School of Theology. She’s written a number of young adult fiction books, and this is her latest. I am loving it. She recently got her first starred review for this work. I don’t often send out book recommendations for meditations, but this book has me thinking about growth, identity, commitment, being willing to change, the images we put out there for others, and the delicate balance between internal work and activism. It’s powerful stuff - all in a young adult novel.
I share this because this pandemic season is causing us all to have to shift our "normal" ways of being. Embracing a new pattern, trying out a book that you wouldn’t typically be drawn to, or reaching out to someone whom you miss but haven’t actually told that in awhile can all be acts of faith.
That’s what this is for me today - an act of faith in which I am seeing God in fictional characters and thinking about the people who have (and continue to) shape my values. I am eager to see what else emerges as I continue this journey of renewal and rest this week... More later!
Sending love to each of you and remembering the importance of Together While Apart,
