After last week’s hefty (and important) BookNotes, describing a handful of books studying the history of the extremist politics of the far right in the last decades (and a few that are very contemporary) I want, now, to list six wonderful summer reads. Three are just now out, three you can pre-order now. Of those, two will be released in early August, and one is due mid-August. Of course, we can take pre-orders of nearly anything, any time, but now would be a great time to get on the waiting list for these three soon-to-be-released, forthcoming August ones.
Please note:
It is really helpful, if you happen to be ordering something that is in stock now AND something that is not yet released if you tell us if you prefer them to be sent as they are available OR if you’d rather we hold some until the others release, consolidating the order.
Let us know how you want us to serve you. Again, all are at our 20% off.
The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies our Souls Rich Villodas (Waterbrook) $25.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $20.00 AVAILABLE NOW
This one just released last week and we’re eager to send some out. We liked his first one, Deeply Formed Life which seemed to me to be a lovely combination of classic, evangelical piety with a bit of spiritual formation informed by the broader contemplative tradition and attentiveness to the issues of the day. We love it when pastors of very lively evangelical churches – Rich is the pastor of New Life Fellowship in Queens, New York – draw on the riches of the wider church and are unafraid to invite us to serious formation in the way of Jesus. (He has his undergrad degree from Nyack College and his seminary MDiv from Alliance Theological Seminary.) He is a wise young leader in a thriving multi-ethnic church. For those who have been following the fantastic (free) on-line video curriculum by John Mark Comer called “Practicing the Way” (in conjunction with the book by that name) you may recall Rich sharing his own conversion story in the first episode. He clearly knows something about the deeper practices that shape us into people who are like Jesus.
Rev. Villodas did am excellent second book that drew on line from a poem by Langston Hughes (again, something you don’t see in most evangelical books about Christian living) called Good and Beautiful and Kind. It showed the sort of personal and public virtues we are looking for when we take up the “deeply formed life.” I liked that book a lot as, again, it drew on evangelical faith language and his own experiences as a pastor in an CM&A church and invited readers into a culture of goodness and beauty, including the call to be engaged in anti-racism work and the like. Solid, delightful, beautiful stuff.
Now in this brand new one, The Narrow Path – I wish I had time and space to summarize each chapter – he invites us into this paradoxical Christian vision of finding a richer, fuller life by pursuing what Jesus calls “the narrow way.” He notes in the beginning just how odd this sounds to the modern mind; who wants to be “narrow”, right? The very phrase connotes closed-mindedness, restrictive, maybe self-righteous. Nothing could be farther from the truth, he insists. Jesus’s call to discipleship certainly is a narrow way but it is a way that leads to a much fuller life. How this is and what it looks like is the theme of the book.
So, The Narrow Way.
It is a reflection on the Sermon on the Mount. I put most books about this into one of two categories: there are great exegetical works, straight studies, rooted in Bible and history, from John Stott’s great Bible Speaks Today: The Message of the Sermon on the Mount to Scot McKnight’s Story of God Bible Commentary: The Sermon on the Mount. We have one showing how various important exegetes, writers, and preachers from the past handled the texts. And then there is the stunningly broad and useful Following the Call: Living the Sermon on the Mount Together (published by Plough) which is an edited devotional of 365 varied readings on the Sermon from across the centuries.
And then there are those that are most aimed at calling us out of our American materialism and militarism, even arguing – as does the must-read The Upside-Down Kingdom by Don Kraybill – that we put up “detours around Jesus” to avoid the hard teachings of his counter-cultural way. There are many serious reads by Anabaptist peacemakers and Catholic justice workers and others who have written books that invite us to radical commitments to citizenship in Christ’s new regime, his kin-dom.
I trust Villodas a lot and I’d like to say this book draws on both the heady exegetical texts and the rousing calls to counter-cultural discipleship. But yet, The Narrow Path seems to be doing something yet again, a subversive call, yes, but really readable and not off-putting. It is warm even as it is challenging. He’s a pastor and a wholesome preacher and he obviously cares about his flock and he, as a writer, cares about his readers. He isn’t wearing his woke cred on his sleeve (although he easily cites Howard Thurman and King and Bonhoeffer and Hauerwas, even.) He draws on one of the very best commentaries on Matthew (by Dale Bruner) and yet never seems the least bit arcane. He is a practical, inspiring, preacher and it shows. It should surprise us as two of his mentors were Peter and Geri Scazzero (known for their several books on emotionally healthy spirituality.)
The Narrow Path is written in a way that seems safe and grace-filled with no heavy-handed, shaming calls to self-sacrificial obedience. It’s almost like a lovely, inspiring, Christian self-help /motivational book, inviting us away from self-defeating and toxic ways of thinking and being, and inviting us into the way of Jesus.
Which is not to say, good and beautiful and kind as the book may be, that it doesn’t pack a wallop. It does! Maybe that’s part of its subversion — it sneaks up on you, inviting you into a careful reading of the words of the Master, the context of this famous sermon, and the many implications for living in our twenty-first century, fast-paced lives. From sexual ethics to the question of personal wealth and giving, from love of enemy to being honest as people of utter integrity, there is a lot here in this short, punchy sermon. Villodas explores it all quite nicely.
The first part of the book is under the rubric “Understanding the Narrow Path.” After a brief interlude on prayer, actually, the second part is arranged as “Walking the Narrow Path.” These good chapters are entitled Our… Witness, Anger, Words, Desires, Money, Anxiety, Judgement, Decisions, and Enemies. Although it is brief there is a wonderful Afterword that I’m going to come back to, I am sure, simply called “Practicing Obedience.”
The ending, like the whole book, is immensely practical and invites us into the language or practices, hoping to encourage habits and lifestyles, things that will, indeed, yield happiness, joy, freedom, or (as the classic translations put it) blessed.
Who doesn’t want that? The Narrow Path: How the Subversive Way of Jesus Satisfies our Souls by Rich Villodas is highly recommended, indeed.
Watch the trailer here that advertises the book (but be sure to come back here to keep reading, and order at our secure order form page.) https://youtu.be/gq6xv_YeEv8?si=LKL6Yj042ranA458
The Hope In Our Scars: Finding the Bride of Christ in the Underground of Disillusionment $22.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $18.39 AVAILABLE NOW
We have quite a large selection of books from a real variety of perspectives for those who are deconstructing their faith, for those who are restless in their current faith tradition, for those who have doubts or those who have been hurt by the church and are wondering what to do. That so many have come out lately — from all angles and perspectives — is an indication, it seems, that we are well on our way towards what one author calls “the great dechurching.” More and more we have learned just how many people bad religion has hurt.
I suppose I shouldn’t conflate these different sorts of books and memoirs, those who have been hurt by toxic fundamentalism, those who have legitimate doubts about complicated Biblical or theological assertions, and those who have ben burned by a dumb local parish with hurtful people or systems. Deconstruction and doubt are not always the same thing and leaving a bad church can be a sign of great faithfulness to the gospel. I get it. All of that may be for another post.
For now, though, I want to highlight this brand new book by the fabulous (and relatively conservative and delightfully Reformed) author and speaker and social media gadfly, Aimee Byrd. She wrote the excellent Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and one on the sexual revolution (called, cleverly, Sexual Reformation.) She’s been cited in First Things, Sproul’s Table Talk, the PCA By Faith, etc. She is not particularly progressive nor is she deconstructing her core doctrines. We appreciate her bold voice and tenacity within evangelical and Reformed circles. But she has paid a price for her moderate concerns against sexism and such. Some have viewed her as “dangerous” because she dared to invest in the education and agency of women.
As with her other recent books, Byrd is showing a huge capacity for empathy for those who have been disillusioned or hurt. She gets why some are walking away from conventional faith and from the church. The Hope in our Scars maintains, with great grace, that we can create “healthier forms of trust” that can assist those wounded by the church. This trust can be deepened by recognizing the power structures that are at work in local congregations and bigger church systems.
We can free ourselves from tribal thinking and even celebrity culture and focus, with a healthy skepticism about authority (which has limits!) and give ourselves to relationships and postures that honor our discomfort and are honest about our stories. Our stories matter to God, she reminds us, and there can be “hope after harm” in the church as we are clear about that. This book, although written with a light touch, offers deeply theological and candid reflections, about our scars. She’s born scars and she knows many readers have worse.
As Kristin Kobes Du Mez (professor at Calvin University, and author of Jesus and John Wayne) puts it, this is:
“A book for the bruised ones, for the smoldering wicks, for the disillusioned.”
I appreciate other approaches and those who are even more hard hitting in exposing abuse in the church. But Aimee Byrd has an important voice in this movement of voices because, in part, she points us mostly to Christ Himself. As it says on the back cover, The Hope in our Scars offers, “…a passionate plea to work through our disillusionment with the church and rediscover what’s true and beautiful about our covenantal union with Christ.”
I love the allusive and gentle titles of the chapters. The introduction is called “Beauty Rises.” Part one includes two chapters under the heading “Partners in Affliction” which includes “Disillusioned Disciples” and “Boatloads of Shame.”
The next two sections are “Partners in the Kingdom” and “Partners in Endurance.” These invite us to hold on to what matters most, to fight to love Christ’s church, and invites us to be “a church that sees.” I loved that one chapter alludes to the old Indigo Girls song, “Closer to Fine.” Hey, it’s not every book that alludes to the Indigo Girls, alongside lines from old Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck, British poet Malcolm Guite, Christian neurologist Curt Thompson, modern artist Makoto Fujimura, and medieval mystics like Brother Lawrence. And has a bit about erotic love and a good bit about laughter and beauty. And more than one quote by Frederick Buechner.
None of these are exactly underground, but in The Hope in our Scars she has opened herself even more to those marginalized and hurting folks, making this a searing but gracious invitation. She has been demoralized herself; she admits some of her own wounds, and she has learned to laugh at the incongruity of it all. She can help us find the very Bride of Christ in our pain. We can help others be heard and be healed. There is hope; we don’t have to walk away. This book is a gift and I bet you know somebody who would appreciate it.
This Sweet Earth: Walking with our Children in the Age of Climate Collapse Lydia Wylie-Kellermann (Broadleaf Books) $18.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19 AVAILABLE NOW
What a wondrous, thoughtful, eloquent, honest, poetic, rare books this is. It is somewhat about ecology and the horrors wrought by unstopped climate change. If we are paying attention, we know this is happening and in tender prose she mentions many sad truths — fewer birds, less rain. She tells how her dad, activist Bill Wylie-Kellermann, used to spray the hose in their backyard during cold Detroit winters a few decades ago and, as children, she and her siblings could skate; no longer; the winter’s are different for her young boys. There is much such sadness in this short, beautiful book and it is tender and personal. I found it very moving.
The book is, despite all, an homage to the beauty of the Earth. I don’t know if you had a chance to listen to our latest Three Books From Hearts & Minds podcast, but I highlighted three books about enjoying the outdoors, finding God in the wilderness, and helping children with a robust theology of creation by doing Christian educational work in nature. This was, had I had it when we were recording that pod, one I surely would have cited. It is beautiful, warm, sad, and touching. She tells great stories of her inquisitive children and their love for other creatures — there is a scene about feeding birds right out of their hands which is really nice. There are urban stories as well (Lydia grew up in Detroit and her parents were activists there, fighting principalities and powers and often joining picket lines or doing civil disobedience.) But even there we find a tender and profound reverence for the beauty of life.
(Although, I have to say, as much rolling in the grass and walking barefoot through the weeds that her boys do, one might have thought she’d have mentioned what can be the devastating impact of Lyme disease, the tick-born disaster that is growing — yep, due to global warming. She is attuned to the groaning of creation, even though she doesn’t cite Scripture, and I kept waiting for something about this growing public health danger. Lyme, some researchers are thinking, is likely behind the rather sudden recent rise in sudden onset psychosis and the rise in Alzheimer’s.)
There is poetry and prayer-like verse scattered throughout. And a lovely little ending listing lots of practical stuff you can do; there is something for everyone to take new steps towards being in awe and in wonder even as we deepen our resolve to care for what Bill McKibben calls, in his very positive endorsement, “The deep tension between environmental despair and joy in the still-lovely-if-tattered creation we inhabit…”
Wylie-Kellermann, who directs the Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center, edited a stunning book just a few years ago that I have reviewed here at BookNotes —The Sandbox Revolution: Raising Kids for a Just World, which brings together friends and elders and colleagues she knows from editing Geez magazine and writing in Sojourners and various Catholic Worker papers. She stands in that broad, radical tradition of faith-based resistance and in this book, mostly about climate anxiety, she writes beautifully and honestly and hopefully about our fears and grief and anger. The future is precarious — we all need to admit that rather than live in denial about it — so, as indigenous writer and theologian Randy Woodley writes on the back, this book is needed right now. He says we should gift it “to parents and grandparents and everyone who needs hope during this time of despair.” Because, it is a book about hope, even as we learn to follow the abandon and joy of our little ones.
“Wylie-Kellermann invites us to pilgrimage and prayer walk, toddler walk and tween race, to stand in silent reverence and thunder like the holy prophets as we work to protect a world that is fragile, fractured, and still so fecund! Read this book aloud with friends and build community; share it with the kids in your life to start to see nature as they see her; read quietly to yourself, and your tears will cleanse, challenge, and change you.” — Frida Berrigan, author of It Runs in the Family
Another Day: Sabbath Poems: 2013- 2023 Wendell Berry (Counterpoint) $27.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $21.60 DUE AUGUST 6, 2024
Since I have not laid eyes on a single page or poem, do not have much to say about this new poetry volume coming the first week of August other than to say it will surely be one of the big sellers of the summer. Or at least we hope so.
Mr. Berry is known for his exceptionally thoughtful, sometimes even dense, prose essays, mostly about our common life and about how he cares for the broader culture by living close to the land, learning about his place, and stewarding older practices of farming (one book is called The Art of Clearing Brush.) He is a contemporary Agrarian and his insights into community and economics and patriotism and land use, even sexuality, are localist and often overtly Christian. Many of these insights – collected in the title of one of his best anthologies called The World-Ending Fire, or in the great one put together by Norman Wirzba, The Art of the Commonplace – are delightfully explored, and sometimes even clearly explained, in the plots and conversations and characters of his many novels and short-stories.
His slow, unfolding novels are all set in the same fictional Kentucky town and are rural, about agriculture and kin-ship, about food and friendships. Some of our customers read his essays first so to more fully appreciate his novels, while many read his fiction first and only then study his nonfiction. I sometimes think of him as a rural companion to Marilynne Robinson, a person of faith writing both world-class fiction and nonfiction who is respected for her social vision and excellent craft in the modern world.
But Ms. Robinson isn’t known for poetry, and Wendell Berry certainly is. He is a farmer and ecologist and public intellectual and social activist, but he is most known for his writing. And he has written a body of poetry scanning back a half a century.
We have learned that Berry often walks through his woods and farmland on Sundays, a sabbath practice, a lovely, reflective, prayerful habit and out of these weekly walks – saunters, John Muir might have called them – he has created a body of Sabbath Poems. There was a small collection or two, and soon enough they were compiled in a bigger volume, This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems (that came out nearly 20 years ago.) This forthcoming one, Another Day, due August 6, 2024, compiles 225 pages worth of poems that he did since 2013. Perhaps, for some of us, these show the very heart of his work.
As the publisher puts it:
A companion to his beloved volume This Day and Wendell Berry’s first new poetry collection since 2016, this new selection of Sabbath Poems are filled with spiritual longing and political extremity, memorials and celebrations, elegies and lyrics, alongside the occasional rants of the Mad Farmer, pushed to the edge yet again by his compatriots and elected officials.
Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church Eliza Griswold (Farrar Straus Giroux) $30.00 / OUR SALE PRICE = $24.00 DUE AUGUST 6, 2024
I have read several books by the great writer, reporter, and Pulitzer Prize-winner, Eliza Griswold and think she is now on that list of writers who I’d read anything they do. She is that good. My favorite of hers was Amity & Prosperity, a study of two neighboring Western Pennsylvania towns and how the influx of fracking effected them. It remains a classic of contemporary creative nonfiction, one I recommend often. This new, forthcoming one — I have an advanced reader copy — is a novel-like telling of the rise and fall of an innovative Brethren in Christ church plant in the Philadelphia area (which grew to several locations.) It started a few decades ago when Rod and Gwen White, former “Jesus People”, felt led to start an unusual, deeply honest, organic, community of faith that served the poor in an urban part of Philly. Among their earliest colleagues and friends (if not a formal member, as far as I know) was the young Shane Claiborne, whose first book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical captures much of the earnest ethos and risky-taking vibe of the radical, Anabaptist, church for seekers and others on the fringe of the American empire. Shane and his pals went off to start The Simple Way and were clearly inspired by Rod and Gwen and the early days of Circle.
I spoke in that church on two occasions, actually; it is a long story how I got connected but they were young, very informal, worshipping on a Sunday night where the snacks were big bowls of Fruit Loops. From what we’d now call exvangelicals to unkempt street people to Messiah College students studying at Temple University to youthful Jesus-loving hippies to straight-arrow Brethren, I recall that it was a wild mix, an exciting, evolving place to bring people together to worship and be formed in the ways of God’s Kingdom.
Eliza Griswold was raised in the Episcopal Church (her father, Frank, was a former Presiding Bishop of the denomination and himself a fine thinker and writer.) But I suspect that she had little awareness of all that was brought by church planters Rod and Gwen White — the fiery evangelicalism, the passion for evangelism among the hurting and lost, the small group strategies called “cells”, the uniquely Anabaptist social ethic and expectations for building a truly alternative spiritual community. It seems to me that the leadership offered by aging Jesus freaks who were Anabaptists (who loved the nonviolent anarchism of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker movement) and the youthful zeal of those they attracted, was a far cry from the Diocesan styles Griswold knew best.
Which makes for a fabulous journalistic project; she cared about this eccentric church project and admired the various leaders who arose over the years. She understood (even if it was not her own particular tradition) their faith orientation and realized how very much was a stake. She set out to tell their story, in many ways, the perfect writer for this odd story.
(Maybe you saw the recent Atlantic article about all this that appeared just a few weeks ago.)
Here’s the wild, hard, sad, thing, the unexpected turn of events that made Circle of Hope the book that it became: before 2020’s Covid quarantine hit, Circle had become four main churches, a network of sibling “congregations” that met in different parts of Philly or in Eastern New Jersey, across the river from the city. As the book evolves we come to realize that the primary characters of the story are the four pastors of the four locations. Two men, two women, some people of color, all in admiration of Rod and Gwen’s robust and demanding leadership in the previous decade, and all, each in their own way, in profound conflict with them. And, it turns out, with each other. It’s enough to make you weep.
Although Griswold mentions her initial interest rather briefly, and acknowledges all manner of scholars of religion and alt-type pastors who she looked to for input (from Nadia Bolz-Weber to Kristin Du Mez to Drew Hart to Richard Rohr to Michael Ware to Dante Stewart, all thanked profusely) Griswold doesn’t say much about what drew her to this innovative church in the first place. I guess the best journalists have a good nose for great stories. This one ended up being a great story which, if not exactly exploding in her face, did turn ugly as she started to do years worth of interviews, forming friendships, being a part of what they would all eventually realize was the beginning of the end of their visionary faith community.
She tells us that she started to interview each of the leaders and decided to tell each of their respective back stories — a few came from central Pennsylvania, so it was especially interesting to us — when, a year or so in, the conflict between various leadership styles, different theologies, and different agendas become unreconcilable. Almost any other group of church leaders, I suspect, would have pulled the plug on the writing project, telling the hopeful author that it just wasn’t going to work out. But, no; they endured, invited her into the full, honest, story, a story full of pain and joy, growth and deepened faith, great love and huge disagreements. As the relationships devolve (somewhat around the self-interrogation needed as they engaged in inclusive habits and anti-racist goals) the story devolves and they allow her to look over their shoulders and tell the truth. Amazing.
In Circle of Hope, the book’s subtitle looms large: “A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church.” In this sense it is a page-turning read, a human-interest story about idealists and struggle and relationships, but it is, also, a cautionary tale of sorts, an allusive lesson for us all, no matter the shape and tone of our own institutions of faith.
Although the raw stories of Ben, Julie, Rachel, and Jonny (and a few others; there is a chapter on Bethany that is very important to the story) are each unique and fascinating and makes for great reading, their interactions, their own personal cutting edges of their own faith journeys, their ways of coping with everything from isolation (due to Covid) and on-line / virtual worship, and the large social disruption caused by the Black Lives Matter movement and other allies of anti-racism, took hold in their already rather socially progressive ethos. The role of women in leadership was not in principle a contention, but, as everyone knows, even trained and strong women leaders have unique barriers and complicated contexts when they take up leadership in most churches. That many of Circle’s leaders were not professionally trained but called up from within the community / congregations, is itself a fascinating aspect of the story. The folks all knew and loved each other well, even as the tensions devolved to awful and hurtful accusations and too, too many fights.
From full LGBTQ inclusion to the significant nuances of “doing the work” to become anti-racist to questions of how to keep up the demanding routines of social services, protests, and public witnesses of the churches became front and center. I suppose it isn’t really a “spoiler alert” since it is clear when one starts the book that these social and political and theological questions come to tear them apart.
It is a book that vividly and honestly tells the story of a rather unusual set of congregations — unlike any most of us have been a part of, I’d guess — but in a way, it is a story for all of us. Really.
Circle of Hope is a riveting, detailed story of a handful of early 21st century Christians trying to offer something fresh and compelling that, in a way, is nearly unique in American church history. Neither a staid, liberal mainline denominational church or a conservative evangelical congregation, Circle embodied the vision of the alternative communities not unlike those formed a generation earlier like those at Sojourners or The Other Side or even places like Koinonia Farms. They were new, post-modern contemplatives, eager to share the Good News, informed by constant conversations and embodied practices of joy and lament, hope and praise. Alas, despite regular conversations about repentance and new life, fresh starts and new creation visions, they simply could not restrain the brokenness.
But, yet, as I say, the issues that tore them apart and the ways leaders did or didn’t lead well or faithfully, are for all of us. No matter how conventional or even boring your own church may be, these concerns about power and justice and relationships and gender and leadership and keeping the message of the gospel clear, are concerns for all of us.
Circle of Hope: A Reckoning… is a great read, interesting and in some ways, maybe some small ways, hopeful. It looks at hard stuff, about how even those with socially progressive and faith-based values can’t always do the work to become fully inclusive of those who are seen as marginalized. Even when all voices are invited to the proverbial table, sometimes power and tradition win out. Does love win in the end? It is a live question. Any of us in even slightly contentious spaces need to be reminded of these best hopes and hard dreams. And what can go wrong.
Listen well to Ben, Julie, Rachel, and Jonny. Get to know the White’s who started the whole big thing. And listen to Eliza Griswold, writer extraordinaire, as she works for years to be able to understand these dynamics and report this story well, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And the deeply spiritual and truly beautiful. Circle of Hope: A Reckoning with Love, Power, and Justice in an American Church is an unforgettable book and it may surprise you. It may even, in an ironic, counter-intuitive way, inspire you. Pre-order it today.
Life in Flux: Navigational Skills to Guide and Ground You in an Ever-Changing World Michaela O’Donnell & Lisa Slayton (Brazos Press) $19.99 / OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99 DUE AUGUST 20, 2024
You have got to get this book, especially if you feel as if your life is in the fog, in flux, if you are a bit overwhelmed or uncertain about choices (quotidian or large) that you must make. Who among us doesn’t face sometimes daunting decisions and lifestyle choices? Starting with a fabulous story about a guy — Lisa Slayton’s husband, it turns out — who navigated a small boat in a sudden, dangerous fog off the coast of Maine, the book offers navigational skills. The title and subtitle, unlike some books, are perfect. This book delivers the goods and plays with the metaphor with wonder and grace.
I am not a big fan of self-help books, business books, personal growth stuff that feels gimmicky or overly focused on getting stuff done. I know there is a huge, huge market for leadership titles and practical guides to betterment, but I just don’t find most of them that engaging or that helpful. Man, am I glad I gave this a try. Life in Flux is the best book of this sort that I’ve read in a very long time. Thanks be to God.
Lisa Slayton is a leadership coach and old friend from Pittsburgh; she has worked as a consultant and even CEO of nonprofits and leadership development organizations. A lively, thoughtful Christian I admire her very, very much. So, naturally, I wanted to read this, and I was blown away by just how good it was, and how tenderly it spoke to my own quandaries about business, inner work, influence, and sustainable health in the marketplaces of life.
Michaela O’Donnell is very sharp (with a PhD) and is a friend of some of my most respected friends. She directs the fabulous Max DePree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary (we still keep Max DePree’s two books on leadership in stock) and is the author of one of the very best books on faith and work, the 2021 Baker release, Make Work Matter: Your Guide to Meaningful Work in a Changing World (Baker; $19.99 – OUR SALE PRICE = $15.99.)
What a joy to see that these two have collaborated so nicely, and written this book in an elegant, fascinating, captivating voice. It is Biblically-wise and really very helpful. There are stories, case studies, social science research reports, reflections on seminal works in social psychology and work-place theory, leadership studies, Biblical reflections, and a great sense of integration of a Christian worldview with the best of seemingly secular scholarship. None of it feels tedious or laborious, and flows very nicely, even as they write about hard, complex matters of the heart and of the culture.
I like that about Flux. It assures us that living in the liminal times, between holding on and letting go (think of the trapeze artist), is generative and hopeful, scary as it may be. And it clearly says, often, that there are our personal life issues to contend with, our stage and age and disposition, as well as the cultural forces and social pressures from the world that come into play. Even if we must grieve our personal losses — there is a lot on this, actually, which was beautiful and wise — we must be aware of the tension and maybe unrealized anguish that bears down on us from world conditions, wars and rumors of wars. We live in serious times and things need to be interrogated in our own lives as well as in our communities and churches, and in the broader culture and world at large. Oh yeah, they have the big picture about the zeitgeist, about flux and change and fog and risk.
Yet, the book is clear-headed and nicely arranged, with just enough bullet points and little charts to seem very, very practical. And there are poetic prayers and blessings at the end of each chapter as we take up the practices — they are all about the practices — that might allow us to slowly embody the habits of new and fresh ways of being in the world. Nice!
Which is to say, Flux is not mostly about work-world changes or growth in one’s professional life, even if many of the examples and case studies are about leaders, managers, supervisors, or workers in industry or other work-world roles. They consult with executives and entrepreneurs but the book is really about whole-life discipleship. It explores questions about how to bring a more wholesome sense of balance and life-giving energy for navigating the changes pressing all around us, in home, community, among friends and family, and, yes, in the job market. The way Michaela and Lisa move so seamlessly from sphere to sphere, from work to home to our most secret foibles of our interior lives, is nothing short of brilliant. They appreciate how things overlap. It is not only wisely whole-life in orientation, but draws together, as I’ve said, the public and the personal — offering what Garber calls “a seamless life.” It is both intellectually sound and written in a lovely, personal style. Life in Flux is a great, great book, firmly in the self-help genre as it may be and as practical as it may seem, rooted in a wholistic faith perspective and grounded in great truths, lived out in gracious, kindly ways.
And the wisdom is good. For instance, they write:
When things around us start moving faster, it’s tempting to lean in had to productively hacks and time management tools in an effort to make space for more. (Hello. The calendars I just described, above.) The assumption is that because there’s more coming at us and it’s happening faster, we need to do more and go faster to keep up. But the data shows that when we implement these tricks and tools to try to master our time or get it back, we most often end up simply filling our new space with more stuff to do. Oof.
As they later say,
We cannot frenetically make our way through life in flux. It simply won’t work. Trust me, though: this is good news. Our humanity is good news. Our limits are good news. They force us to choose a new way forward, limitations and all. But of course, that is easier said than done.
And they they explain how, “when we are in the midst of disorientation, counterintuitive shifts are often needed. We have to move slowly and differently.”
There are, in each chapter, little boxes that contrast a commonplace posture or way of doing things, and their “uncommon posture” which offers a fresh take on basic life patterns. These simple but profound sidebar boxes with these concisely contrasting postures, makes the lively prose and updated teaching as clear as can be. Hooray.
Life in Flux, due nearer the end of August, offers navigational skills, to be sure, but part of the first story (of Lisa’s husband stuck in the fog of a threatening storm in the rough Atlantic Ocean) shows how cutting the engine and wisely proceeding with intentional care is key. These portions are really good — and they just may save your sanity in these odd-ball times.
They coin a word, “unfigureoutable” and write with wit about “unfigureoutable” situations:
Unfigureoutable spaces are still uncomfortable. Why? Because they are ambiguous. They’re messy, they’re risky, and they can’t be controlled. Even if we trust God and will find us in the unknown, the reality of facing that which we cannot see clearly is difficult.
It’s natural to long for resolution when tension is present. However, it’s in the tension that growth and learning occur, so resolving it too quickly (or sometimes even at all!) won’t take us where we want to go.
Do you have some unfigureoutable times in your life? Tension anyone? Pain and longing that come up when thinking about change? Flux? Fog?
If so, you need to engage inner work, develop spiritual disciplines, and find healthy community. That’s another big key: as they say in chapter 8, one of their many “Navigational Skills” is “Don’t Go It Alone.” Their wise call to deeper friendships and Christian community is wonderful. Their piece about knowing oneself is essential and their insights about vocation and calling are excellent. Their bit about craft and skill sets, “Stay in Your Headlights”, is really useful; so useful. They have tons of points and take-aways for learning to be “At Home In Flux.” You’ll want to take notes.
From “Checking Your Speed” to “Choosing to Let God” to “Setting Your Compass”, this is all clear-headed, deeply profound insights, drawn from the many years of interviews, cohorts, leadership, and in-the-trenches work these two women have done. They know about “coming home to yourself” and they want to help us all be the culture-shapers and history-makers that we are meant to be. I admire them, their work, and, now, their forthcoming book. I very highly recommend it to anyone wanting a deft and gracious connection of visionary writing about vocation and calling with pretty down-to-Earth and actionable steps towards navigating the ever-changing contexts in which we find ourselves. Ends up, navigating through the fog of flux is an essential skill for human flourishing. This book can help. Pre-order it today.
This book is a life jacket, a compass, a sextant, and a steady voice of calm for anyone trying to navigate the storms of a life in flux. I am going to be assigning it to every one of my students and recommending it to every one of my clients. O’Donnell and Slayton have brought years of deeply attentive listening, wide-ranging scholarship, leadership experience, and their own authentic vulnerability to guide people through the most turbulent moments of life. You’ll want to read, reread, and pass along the wisdom of this book to anyone in your life who is facing rough waters. —Tod Bolsinger, professor of leadership formation at Fuller Theological Seminary and author of Canoeing the Mountains
In a whatever world, it is very difficult to know who we are, why we are, and therefore what we are to do. How would we ever know? And what difference could it make anyway? In their new book, Michaela O’Donnell and Lisa Pratt Slayton draw on years of unusually reflective and thoughtful experience with scores of people and places to offer windows into the integral relationship of ideas to life. Born of their unique ability to see and hear into the questions of honest people longing to make more sense of leadership, Life in Flux is the best of professional competence formed by theological maturity, rooted in every paragraph by hard-won wisdom about the nature of a True North and why it critically matters for individuals and institutions. —Steven Garber, author of The Seamless Life and senior fellow for vocation and the common good, M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust
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