Category: Christian

Braving the Thin Places

Celtic Wisdom to Create a Space for Grace

by Julianne Stanz

Loyola Press, 2021. 170 pages.
Review written August 19, 2022, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

Here’s how author Julianne Stanz introduces the idea of a “thin space”:

Each of us stands at the threshold of a thin place, and we are its gatekeeper.

Have you ever held a loved one’s hand as they slipped from this life and into the next? Birthed a child and felt the thin edges of God’s presence inside your being? Beheld such beauty that it took your breath away? Or been moved to tears by an image or a piece of music? If so, you have stood at the edge of a thin place, a place where God and humanity meet in a mysterious way. These moments open us to places of rawness and beauty. Something seems to break open inside us, and words are inadequate to describe what we are experiencing. We feel a sense of breakthrough as we break free of the ordinary and into the extraordinary.

This book is about making room for thin places and embracing them. The author was born in Ireland and brings the idea of thin places from the Celtic tradition.

The Celts, known for their love of threshold places at the edge of life, such as Sceilg Mhichil, a crag off the coast of County Kerry, were never afraid to explore God in the known or in the wild, barren edges of life. We should not be afraid either. The Celtic imagination considers sacred places to be “thin,” or places where the veil between the worlds of heaven and earth seems especially permeable, and the worlds discernibly close to each other. Thin spaces exist between the now and the not-yet. Entering thin spaces is an opportunity that we don’t normally have — to slow down, to pause, to look with fresh eyes, to recover a sense of wonder about the world. The pace of life moves too fast for many of us over concrete and inhospitable ground, and we are searching — for joy, forgiveness, healing, completion, and peace. God is all around if only we recognize his presence. And for those wwho do, that this space is one of rejuvenation and renewal.

This book works for personal meditation and devotional use, and it would also work for a church small group to go through together. There are 11 chapters and an Introduction. Each chapter has some open-ended questions at the end, under the headings “Breaking Open,” “Breaking Through,” and “Breaking Free.” And they start with an Irish proverb.

Julianne Stanz makes this a personal journey, illustrating it with stories from her own life. The book builds toward getting through difficulties and making a space for grace.

To be honest, I read this book when everything in my life seemed to be wonderful — having just gotten my dream job and enjoying working in it. But I know hard times will come, and I think this lovely and encouraging book will be especially helpful to take up and explore when one of those times comes. Yes, happy times can be thin places, too — but I don’t need as much help finding a good perspective on them. I enjoyed the book, but I think that if times were tougher, it might be a lifeline. I will keep it on hand.

loyolapress.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Miracles and Other Reasonable Things

A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God

by Sarah Bessey

Howard Books (Atria), 2019. 222 pages.
Review written September 6, 2022, from my own copy
Starred Review

First, a big thank you to my friend Amanda who recommended Sarah Bessey’s writing. I purchased this book shortly after it came out, on her recommendation. When I finally got around to reading it a few years later, I wondered what took me so long. I loved it!

First, Sarah Bessey has a way with words. Her writing is lyrical and lovely. This book is full of stories that pull you into the scene and keep you reading. She also finds ways to interweave emotions and thoughts about God that get you thinking as well.

This book begins with a very bad car accident. One that significantly messed up her health.

In the middle of the book, she receives a miraculous and dramatic healing. But although that healing was real, other parts of her body were still in bad shape. She had to grapple with the miracle that did come and the miracles that didn’t come. And she explains that journey in a way we can all relate to.

Here’s a paragraph that I love, when she was talking about a way God had reached out when she was discouraged and told her she was not forgotten:

I have never gotten over that moment, that word of knowledge, and I hope I never do. My mantra was disrupted, and I had a new path to walk, a path I still walk to this day. If God had not forgotten me — and clearly God had not — and yet I was still part of the company of the unanswered prayers, perhaps that meant that I had misunderstood something about God. Perhaps the problem wasn’t God; perhaps the problem was the God I had created and the God I had been given.

In the miracles and the lack of miracles, she looks at what she needed to unlearn and relearn about God, and she takes the reader on that journey with her.

I also loved the chapter where she visits Prince Edward Island. I was there in 2019 with two of my best friends. I’m always happy to read the thoughts of an L. M. Montgomery fan! And yes, I can’t think of a better place for a spiritual retreat.

I’m going to look for more of Sarah Bessey’s writings. Like me, she comes from a Christian background, but some of her beliefs have changed as an adult. I appreciate her stance of not being certain that she has all the answers.

sarahbessey.com
SimonandSchuster.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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The Bible and the Transgender Experience

How Scripture Supports Gender Variance

by Linda Tatro Herzer

The Pilgrim Press, 2016. 126 pages.
Review written May 19, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is for Christians who want to understand what the Bible says about accepting transgender people. And who are willing to think about interpretation and context.

Now, I am all too painfully aware that some Christians are not willing to think about interpretation and context or the consistency with which they apply principles of interpretation. I have a transgender daughter, and less than a year ago, I left a church with a broken heart because of this issue. Most of the people there had their minds made up, and I wish I thought they’d listen to the words in this book more carefully than they listened to my words. (I did a blog series with the title “Transcending.”)

I’m not going to present all the author’s points, because those points deserve to be heard in their entirety. But she does tackle verses that are used to say that transgender people are sinning and explains why that’s a huge stretch. She also looks at passages that strongly suggest that God wants his people to be accepting and welcoming of gender variant individuals.

I’ve also read and reviewed Transforming, by Austen Hartke, which is another look at this same topic. There is not only one set of arguments, so you’ll get some new ideas and perspectives here. The study guide at the back of the book seems especially helpful, and the author is gentle and instructive for people who don’t know anything about gender variance but want to learn how to be respectful and supportive.

I especially love the way the author closes out the main text of the book (before appendices with information to help you make your own church or group more trans friendly).

On a personal note, I am grateful for the gifts of honesty and courage I have seen manifested by gender variant people. They have inspired me to be as honest as they are about who God has created me to be, challenging me to ask myself, “Who am I vocationally? What are my unique, God-given gifts, aptitudes, and interests? Am I honoring and using them to their fullest? Who am I spiritually? What sort of spiritual practices work best for me, given my divinely created temperament and proclivities?”

Next, gender variant friends and congregants inspire me to live my answers to the preceding questions as courageously as they live their truths. Let’s face it, all of us are subjected to peer, parental, familial, societal, and even religious expectations about how we are and are not supposed to act. So to act in ways that are true to who we are but that may be contrary to people’s expectations of us takes great courage – for all of us! Watching transgender people courageously live their lives has been a huge inspiration to me to exercise the courage I need to live my divinely created truth each and every day.

Given the ways that gender variant people inspire me daily, and all the gifts I have seen them bring to the church and to the world, I close with two prayers.

My prayer for all gender variant people is that you will let the light of your vast and varied gifts continue to shine brightly. My prayer for all nontransgender people is that, in the same way we delight in the dusk and dawn of each new day, may we also celebrate the dusk/dawn light of gender variant individuals and the many gifts they bring to the church and to the world.

Amen! May it be so.

TransformationJourneysWW.com
thepilgrimpress.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/bible_and_the_transgender_experience.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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The Whole Language

The Power of Extravagant Tenderness

by Gregory Boyle

Avid Reader Press (Simon and Schuster), 2021. 226 pages.
Review written April 26, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Oh, this book, like Gregory Boyle’s earlier two books, Tattoos on the Heart and Barking to the Choir, just filled my heart with joy! It also gave me sheer amazement at these examples of faith lived out, modeling God’s overwhelming love, and yes, extravagant tenderness.

And who are the recipients of this love? Gang members. Father Boyle, a Jesuit priest, is the founder of Homeboy Industries, an organization that helps get gang members out of gangs. He tells stories from the lives of the men he works with, and I can’t get over how he persists on looking on them with eyes of love no matter what they do — and he conveys the message that this is how God looks on them, too.

And in this message of God loving gang members, I also absorb the message that God loves me, that maybe it’s not all about keeping a lid on sin, that maybe it’s much more about love.

Father Boyle teaches by telling stories. The titles of his books mostly come from sweet things he hears the homies say. For this one, he tells about a gang member impressed with another’s command of Russian. In amazement, he proclaims that the guy spoke “the WHOLE language.”

Mario meant fluency when he said the “whole language.” I wish to suggest the same here. We are on the lookout for a fuller expression and a wider frame within which to view things. Allow the extravagant tenderness of God to wash over us. Permit the lavishing of such love to surround and fill us, then go into the world and speak the “whole language.” This is the fluency of the mystic, who chooses to live in the soul, inhabiting the tender fragrance of love. The longing of the mystic is to be at home with yourself and then put the welcome mat out so that others find a home in you. In this, we want to be “all there.” The Magi hear in a dream: “Depart by a different route.” In this book, I hope to whisper the same invitation. The whole language sees us departing by a different route.

If we’re honest, the world kind of yawns at “religion,” but snaps to attention when offered the authenticity and authority of the fluent, mystical, nondualist view. We want to both hear and speak this whole language, because, mostly, we only know the half of it. We get stuck in a partial view.

This mystical kinship, this speaking the whole language, is the exact opposite of the age in which we currently live: tribal, divisive, suspicious, anchored in the illusion of separation — unhealthy, sad, fearful, other-izing, and demonizing. Mystics replace fear with love, vindictiveness with openhearted kindness, envy with supportive affection, withering judgment with extravagant tenderness. Now is the time, as author Brian Doyle suggests, to embrace “something other than combat.”

This book is packed full of stories of extravagant tenderness. I can’t encourage you enough to try Gregory Doyle’s books. You will be amazed and blessed, and you’ll also be encouraged to look at the world in new ways.

HomeboyIndustries.org
AvidReaderPress.com
SimonandSchuster.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Wholehearted Faith

by Rachel Held Evans
with Jeff Chu

HarperOne, 2021. 196 pages.
Review written March 10, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Beloved author Rachel Held Evans passed away suddenly in 2019 at 37 years old. She had unpublished work and manuscripts, and her husband asked her friend and collaborator Jeff Chu to finish and edit the book for her. The beginning and end of the book include tributes to Rachel and an explanation of how this book came to be.

This book is beautiful. The bulk of it is entirely in Rachel’s voice. I learned once again how much I relate to her personally — how much my own spiritual journey has been like hers. We were both good Sunday school students, winning prizes for knowing the Bible. We both went even more all-in during college at a conservative Christian college. And we both wound up in a much more progressive and gracious place than where we were brought up to be, though our adult journeys diverged much more than our youths did — but the end result seems very much the same.

And I love everything she writes in this book. From our similar backgrounds, I’ve got some of the same hang-ups as she did – for example, growing up with a focus on sin and what we “deserve.” I, too, am blown away by the thought from a poem by Daniel Ladinsky that God adores His creation.

These words seemed dangerous, heretical even. They seemed too good to be true. And yet did they not call to mind the poetry of the prophets, who spoke to Israel of a God who “will exult over you with loud singing,” who has “called you by name,” and who has “loved you with an everlasting love”? Did they not sound like the God of Hebrew Scripture, who soared over creation in the beginning and declared every flower and fish and tree and human in it “good”? Did they not echo the letters of a saint who proclaimed that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God”? Did they not sound like Jesus, who, through the smooth laminate of my AWANA workbook, first told me that “God so loved the world”?

This book tells Rachel’s story of getting to that place where she could believe those words, and then continues on to “Essays on the Christian Life.” The result is short chapters that I could read easily one per day – and I was always uplifted.

There’s a chapter on the Sabbath, and I loved the thought that God asks us to do less, not more.

My point in dwelling on the Sabbath — my own hope in dwelling in the Sabbath — is to remember that our beginnings were grace and rest, and our ends will be too. If there’s any truth in any of this Christianity thing, it is that our existence started with rest, with the opportunity to glory in having earned nothing and done nothing, and it will find its culmination in rest, with the joy of feasting in the knowledge that we earned none of this abundance and had to do nothing to enjoy this goodness, nothing, that is, other than to simply receive.

But my very favorite section in the whole book comes in the essay Jeff Chu chose to put at the end of the book, as Rachel’s last message to her readers:

We can be gracious because we are grateful. We can love because we have been loved.

On the days when I believe, I know all this to be true. On the days when you believe, I hope you’ll know this to be true too. I hope you’ll feel deep within your heart and with every cell of your being that you are held and embraced by the God who made you, the God who redeemed you, and the God who accompanies you through every end and onward to every beginning.

Even on the days when I’m not sure I can believe it wholeheartedly, this is still the story I’m willing to be wrong about.

This book makes me sad that it’s the last one we’ll get from Rachel Held Evans, but the words of this book fill me with joy. Highly recommended.

rachelheldevans.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Every Thing Is Sacred

40 Practices and Reflections on the Universal Christ

by Richard Rohr and Patrick Boland

Convergent Books (Penguin Random House), 2021. 220 pages.
Review written October 23, 2021, from my own copy purchased via amazon.com
Starred Review

I was going to say that Every Thing Is Sacred is a study guide to the wonderful book by Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ — but it’s really more of a contemplation guide. There are forty “Reflections” on passages from the earlier book, with “Reflective Exercises” at the end of each Reflection. So it’s a guide to going deeper with the ideas from that book.

Yes, you’ll want to read The Universal Christ before or alongside this book. I am planning to reread both books together.

It’s a little misleading that Richard Rohr’s name is listed first as the main author, because Patrick Boland is the author of the Reflections. But that’s done because all the Reflections springboard from Richard Rohr’s writings.

I recommend beginning with the book The Universal Christ. Then, if you want to go deeper – and I think most people will – “Every Thing Is Sacred” can help you with that.

I also recommend getting a journal for it and doing the Reflective Exercises. Here I have to admit that I didn’t do many of them. I started out at the beginning, but then settled for reading each piece and thinking about it a little bit. This is why I do want to tackle the book again, and I think I’ll get more out of it.

Here’s a section from the Introduction by Richard Rohr, describing what you may get out of the book:

This is incarnational Christianity! Not God reserved for a few but God available to all in a thousand, thousand visible forms, and celebrated, over and over. Not just a problem-solving forgiver-of-sins God but a God whose greatness made sin by comparison unattractive, undesirable, small, and stifling. Once God models poured-out oneness for us, we are on some level allured into doing the same. Growth by “attraction, not promotion,” as the twelve-step program might say. Not so much a Christ coming into the world as coming out of a world that is already soaked with Presence.

And that is what both Patrick and I want you to experience for yourself in this little book. Not just warm thoughts but an entire earth and humanity warmed by the Word becoming flesh. This is a message you cannot know with your mind alone. You must come to know it in the very cells of your body – and see it in the cells of all bodies, which each carry the same divine DNA of their Creator. Think about it. How could they not be?

This book is neither pious nor academic but is filled with spiritual knowing waiting to be transferred to you if you have the right app (if you will allow me to use a mobile device metaphor). The app requires only two functions on your part – curiosity and a bit of love. Yet this book is not a workbook either because it is hardly work at all, nor does it ask for grinding concentration. We might just call it A Guide to Christian Freedom and Fun! (But in a Quite Serious Way). Why not?

cac.org
convergentbooks.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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