Clarification and Books I’m Reading These Days
Thank you all so much for your support upon the release of my “big news” a couple weeks ago. Many of you who have made this leap in your own lives shared how it was a similarly difficult decision to make, but one you never regretted. That was so encouraging to hear.
I do want to make one clarification though. There were a couple of folks who assumed I would stop blogging as well and that is far from the truth! My more flexible schedule will actually enable me to step up my blogging/writing game, which I’m really looking forward to. Plus, I’m still working on that book! It’s still coming along and I have a feeling I’ll be saying that for a while. I’m learning that it’s a much slower process than I had ever anticipated but I’ve come to peace with that.
On the subject of books, I wanted to dedicate this post to a few books I’ve been loving these days (not that I have a lot of time to read during this time of my life, sadly, but I squeeze it in when I can).
And all of them happen to be written by…women!
The first is Know My Name by Chanel Miller. My predecessor of this church recently got this for me. I had yet to hear about this memoir but as soon as I read the back jacket description, I knew I’d be hooked. It’s written by the woman from the well-known Stanford Rape Case in 2016. She details what going through that entire experience was like, from the evening of the incident to the many years of piecing her life back together afterwards. It gives such a clear portrayal of how cold and cynical our legal system is towards sexual assault victims, even when they’re so clearly innocent. The interrogation that sexual assault victims undergo manipulate them into believing that they themselves are responsible for the abuse they were subjected to. As such, I would say that this book is a paradigmatic example of victims of the #metoo movement, where they were hurt, but not believed. Chanel Miller also happens to be a rockstar writer. I mean, just such a good writer—descriptive, fluid, captivating and…pretty. Her writing is pretty. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you read it.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb is another book I’ve been sucked into. I’ve been a fan of Gottlieb’s for years, ever since I read her viral essay in The Altantic, “Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.” In this memoir, she brings her similarly hilarious writing style as she shares about what it was like for her, a therapist, to begin seeing a therapist herself upon a breakup with a man whom she believed would be her spouse. Through the book, I’m also learning an assortment of therapy ideas and terms. I’ve experienced such ideas through the study and practice of pastoral care so it’s interesting to see those ideas explicated in a different field of study. One such idea Gottlieb mentions is a client’s “narrative flexibility”. I discuss this idea a lot in my workbook, “Cultivate Healthy Relationships and Mend Broken Ones.” The way she describes it however, is that therapists are immediately able to determine how healthy a client is by the extent of her “narrative flexibility,” which is an individual’s self-awareness of her own interpretation among other plausible interpretations.
The final book I’ve just begun is a special one as it’s written by a friend, and former supervisor from my days at Bloy House, the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, where she serves as President, Dean, and Liturgy Professor. She just released this book to be read during the 40 days of Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday, February 26th. It’s called Winged with Longing for Better Things by Sylvia Sweeney. For each of the forty days of Lent before Easter, there is a scripture passage, reflection, prayer, and poem. It’s an ancient practice for Christians to take up a discipline during the season of Lent, whether that be giving something up or taking something on in order to press the reset button on our spiritual lives. During this season, we engage in intentional self-reflection and realign ourselves with our spiritual commitments, rather than let the busyness of our day-to-day lives distract us. This book also has a particular focus on eco-feminist theology, which seeks to honor women’s perspectives as well as the well-being of our earth, the one planet we humans get to call home during this lifetime. The reflections and prayers bring to mind the ways we hurt our environment and invite us to ponder ways to change our behavior in order to bless the earth and help it flourish, rather than hurt it and pummel it of its resources. I would recommend this book for anybody looking for a simple Lenten spiritual practice.
With all that said, happy reading everyone!