Month: January 2015

This I Believe 2 (audiobook)

Emotional Response-5

Scholarly Response-3

Listening to 75 people read their own 500 word essays about what they believe was inspiring and wonderful. The essays included beliefs in everything from semi-permanent hair dye to faithfulness to tolerance to baking. While I didn’t agree with each person’s essay, I still found their words intriguing. These essays made me wonder what I would write. Although I haven’t taken the time to sit and write my own essay, I have been thinking about what I’d write and I am inspired to lead others in this practice. You can hear essays and learn about how to write your own essay here.

This website also includes information about how to do this practice in your congregation. I’m looking forward to leading others through this process in my next congregation, and as soon as I finish my essay, I’ll be glad to share it with you too.

I highly recommend the This I Believe essays to everyone. Prepare to be challenged and inspired. Prepare to laugh and cry. Prepare to ponder what you believe as you agree and disagree with the essays you hear. These essays remind us of how much we have in common, how much we need to hear each other’s stories, and how much we need to tell our own stories.

Emotional Response-5

Scholarly Response-4

Kate Braestrup is the chaplain for the Maine Warden Service. I first heard her story while reading her first book, Here If You Need Me. Her first book is a story of love and loss and grief after the death of her husband. I loved that book and highly recommend it! This book is her look at love and marriage. She blends humor, Scripture, and real stories of real people into a book you can’t put down (or in my case a CD I couldn’t stop listening to!).

I have discovered that reviewing a book I heard on CDs is a different task than a book I can hold in my hand and refer back to when looking for quotes and main ideas. This book worked well on CD. The author read it, and as a pastor, she has a great speaking voice, and it sounded authentic.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who enjoys memoirs, anyone who loves others even when it isn’t easy, anyone who is married, has been married, or is considering getting married. This book gives us an honest look at love from the Christian perspective with all its imperfections, struggles, and joys.

When describing her job, Kate said, “I bear witness to the ways love resurrects itself in the face of loss.” (This statement was so meaningful that I stopped the CD, so I could memorize it. I think this is the task of any pastor and any Christian.)

When asked to lead a discussion on sex and sexuality for her daughter’s class, she had the class of 8th graders answer this question-Nothing matters more than ________? Her answer was love. The students had a variety of answers. The author believes that however you finish that statement shows what you treasure the most.

When discussing marriage with a soon to be wed couple, she said, “You aren’t promising to feel love but to do love.”

“Being parted by death is your best case scenario” when describing marriages and whether the couple should say “’til death do us part.”

Learning to Walk in the Dark Barbara Brown Taylor

New York: Harper One, 2014.

Emotional Response-4

Scholarly Response-3

Interestingly, I began reading this book in Advent. All around me I heard about the light shining in the darkness as I saw the days getting shorter. In this book, I was being called to embrace the darkness. This is a struggle for me. I am not afraid of the dark, but I do startle more easily at night and in the darkness. I find myself reaching for the light switch when I enter a room whether I need it or not. While reading this book, I tried to be in the darkness a bit more. I still prefer to the sunlight because most things are easier to do when one can see. I do think that a number of great points are presented about how we have demonized the darkness. I’m still learning to walk in the dark. Thanks to this book I’m more willing to keep learning.

I enjoyed journeying with Barbara Brown Taylor into the dark. I appreciated her attempt to reclaim language of darkness as important to our faith lives. I recommend this book for people who don’t always want to be in the light or sunshine, for people who find themselves awake in the dark, for people who dream and wonder about the many dream stories in the Bible, and for anyone wanting to explore and live into their faith more deeply. Step into the darkness. God is there waiting for you.

“We are all seeking company, meaning, solace, self-forgetfulness. Whether we ever found those things or not, it was the seeking that led us to find each other in the cloud even when we had nothing else in common. Sometimes I wondered if it even mattered whether our communion cups were filled with consecrated wine or draft beer, as long as we bent over them long enough to recognize each other as kin” (53).

“According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV, sometimes called “the psychiatrist’s Bible,” patients grieving the death of a loved one are allowed two months for symptoms such as sadness, insomnia, and loss of appetite. If their grief goes on longer than that, they may be diagnosed with depression and treated with prescription drugs…emotions such as grief, fear, and despair have gained a reputation as “the dark emotions” not because they are noxious or abnormal but because Western culture keeps them shuttered in the dark” (77).

“Who would stick around to wrestle a dark angel all night long if there were any chance of escape? The only answer I can think of is this: someone in deep need of blessing; someone willing to limp forever for the blessing that follows the wound” (85).

“Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air” (129).