www.goodreads.com/book/show/50358133
I especially appreciated Akhtar’s clear explanation of how ‘Economy’ is our National god in the United States. All people, no matter their religion, bow down in deference to Economy before their gods.
Christ
Review of ‘Who was Jesus and What does it Matter’ by Dr. Nancy Bedford
www.goodreads.com/review/show/4236110185
This short book from Dr. Nancy Bedford packs a vital theological punch. It poses the question ‘Who was Jesus’ and ‘What does it mean to follow him’ in an attempt to redirect the Church back toward the centrality of Christ, the gospel message, and what it means to be the Body of Christ. Without the centralization of Christ and what it means to tangibly follow Christ, the Church has lost its way. This text is a clarion call for our times with tangible steps for redirecting ourselves and our communities toward Christ.
Dr. Bedford provides 6 entry points into the two posed questions:
1. Who is Jesus of Nazareth and what does it mean to follow him?
2. Who is Jesus ‘the Incarnate One’ and what does it mean to follow him?
3. Who is Jesus as Prophet, Teacher, and Healer? And how to follow him?
4. Who is Jesus ‘the executed one?’ How do we follow him?
5. Who is Jesus resurrected and exalted? How do we follow him?
6. Who is Jesus in the Spirit, and how do we follow them?
This book is written to be accessible to all people and has discussion questions for each chapter. As a result, it is perfect for small groups! I highly recommend.
I’ll end this review with a succinct quote that I believe speaks to the concise clarity, beauty, and conviction of this text:
“If we say we follow Jesus, whenever it seems that the fruit of our discipleship does not lead to justice and peacemaking, it is time to reexamine our lives and those of our communities of faith. We can do so with the help of the Spirit by examining more closely the way Jesus lived (Matthew 7:15-20) and asking ourselves whether we are truly walking in his footsteps” (Dr. Nancy Bedford, ‘Who was Jesus and What Does it Mean to Follow Him,’ 74).
Amen!
Review of ‘The NIV Beautiful Word Bible: Updated Version’
www.goodreads.com/book/show/45734929
First and foremost, I need to clear the air: this is NOT a gendered book. The only place where the editors hint at a particular presentation is when the editor’s note only mentions biblical figures Hannah and Esther. And to that, I say “come on editors, do better. Resist the idolatry of capitalism and gendered marketing, please. It harms all of us who cannot fit your false expectations of hyper masculinity and feminism.” We need to resist the consumer world that says a Bible designed to highlight the beauty of scripture does NOT mean that it should be primarily marketed to girls. Boys MUST learn to see the beauty of scripture, too. If you get this version for a girl, get it for a boy, too. The Bible is for all people, so let’s stop boxing ourselves in with gendered stereotypes. Thank you and I will now step off my soap box.
This Zondervan NIV 2011 updated translation, written in Zondervan NIV typeface, is a WONDERFUL version of the Bible that is highly engaging. First of all, it does what many versions cannot: it meets the needs of visual learners. The editors of this version worked with BibleGateway to find the most searched scriptures and balanced them with scriptures that are lesser known to present 600 scriptures in colorful artistic presentations through the entirety of the Bible! 9 different artists took charge of illuminating the 600 different scriptures. They also did a fantastic job of making the chosen scriptures memorizable so that folks can engage with their Scripture reading for memorization as well.
Each page of the Bible has a couple of inches on the edge with lines for note-taking. Every few pages has this space taken up with the artistic presentation of scripture. These illustrations are gorgeous and reflect the essence of each individual scripture.
The Bible also comes with sticker tabs for each book of the Bible, if you want to have the books of the Bible marked in this way. All this to say, this version of the Bible is meant to be engaged: written on, highlighted, and covered in stickers. Have at it! Mark it up and make it your own!
The Bible also comes with a sturdy box carrying case which is helpful for being mobile. It is also small enough to carry around with you! The cover itself is a gorgeous felt floral pattern with a woody brown felt binding. Visually appealing without being obnoxious.
The back of the Bible has a table for understanding biblical weights and measures in comparison with our modern weights and measures, an index of the 9 scripture artists and which scriptures illustrations they created, and 5 pages of lines for note-taking.
It has been a joy engaging with this visually stimulating and artistic version of the NIV translation Bible and I look forward to utilizing it and learning from it in the months/years to come!
‘Truth-Telling in Community’ Testimony
Returning to in-person Church, work, and life-in-general fills my heart with joy. To be physically present together after so long apart brings warmth, relief, and gratitude.
And yet, returning to in-person church, work…life in general…it is so gosh darn hard. For many of us, there is so much uncertainty, ambiguity, and frustration. I don’t know about you, but I find myself full of questions and unknowns. Do I feel safe going back to in-person work? Will virtual options remain accessible to me? How do I navigate the varieties of physical contact comfort levels with friends, families, and loved ones? Will we ever reach a time where health and science won’t be politicized? Am I, and those I love, going to be okay?
For me, these past few weeks have been full of these questions and ambiguities, causing me stress and anxiety. And when I learned that the theme at my church this week, Urban Village Church, Chicago, was going to be about ‘truth telling’ and ‘living in community’ from Colossians 3:9-15, I knew that I was being provided an opportunity to reflect on these questions in prayer and in a reflective way that I hadn’t before. I’m excited to share some of the things that God has revealed to me in this time of prayer.
First, disclaimer, what I’m about to say completely takes Colossians 3:9 out of context. But the words at the start of verse nine, “Do not lie to one another” (3:9), stuck out to me during my prayer time this week. It connected with my experiences and convicted me to admit when I’m exhausted and worn out, to both myself and others, in this time of return to in-person life. If I don’t truth-tell with myself, and also with others, I am going to burn out.
Along with truth-telling, I need to communicate my boundaries and needs. For example, what are the safety policies of the place I’m going? Are there policies? Am I comfortable with that? What alterations can I take to feel safe? Hugs, handshakes, and high fives…consent conversations are as vital now as ever before. Care and tend to myself and my needs so that I can care and tend to the needs of others. Communication communication communication. Communication is the secret sauce to truth-telling in community.
And in this communication, I need to recognize that we are all figuring this out together in real-time. We are going to make mistakes. So grace for ourselves and others is key. And what does that look like? Colossians 3:12-13 helped me to think about grace as clothing ourselves with “compassion…kindness, humility, meekness, patience…and forgiv[ing] one another.”
But, when in doubt, I ask myself: “am I loving myself and others as I navigate this situation?” God is love, as verse 14 reminds us. So, as we navigate truth telling in community, if we operate out of love, God will be present with us.
If you take anything away from my reflection today, I hope it’s the greatest lesson I’ve learned in my prayer preparation this week: ‘When in doubt, love yourself and love others.’
Amen.
Book Review of ‘The Plague’by Albert Camus
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/761931279
What sounds like a good book to read during the resurgence of a global pandemic? How about a book detailing the ravages of the plague in the 1940’s?
But in all seriousness, this was an incredible book with insights and wisdoms terribly relevant today:
“When a war breaks out, people say: ‘It’s too stupid; it can’t last long.’ But though a war may well be ‘too stupid,’ that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves. In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn’t always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven’t taken their precautions. Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied them selves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences” (Albert Camus 37).
Book Review of ‘The Interior Castle’ by St. Teresa of Avila
www.goodreads.com/book/show/162512
This book has been a balm, guide, challenge, and spiritual enrichment over the past month. I highly recommend it as a guide in time of devotion, prayer, and spiritual reflection!
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“When we turn away from our small selves and toward God, both our understanding and our will become more sublime and more inclined to embrace all that is good. We would do ourselves great disservice if we never endeavored to rise above the mud of our personalized misery….If we are perpetually stuck in our own acre of tribulation, our stream will never flow free from the more of fear and faintheartedness” (47).
“Guard yourselves, my friends, against matters beyond your control” (50).
“Failing to deal with a problem out of fear of yielding to a negative temptation may be in itself yielding to a negative temptation” (52).
“Remember: all you have to do as you begin to cultivate the practice of prayer is to prepare yourself with sincere effort and intent to bring your will into harmony with the will of God” (61).
“Perfection isn’t about consolation, it’s about loving. We are rewarded by doing whatever we do with righteousness and love” (81).
“Remember: if you want to make progress in the path path and ascend to the places you have longed for, the important thing is not to think much but to love much, and so to do whatever best awakens your love” (91).
“I think that His majesty wishes we would do whatever it takes to understand ourselves. We need to quit blaming the soul for problems caused by a weak imagination, human nature, and the spirit of evil” (95).
“On the spiritual path, the Beloved asks only two things of us: that we love him and that we love each other…. if we do these perfectly, we are doing his well and so we will be united with him” (140).
“No matter how spiritual a soul may be, it’s not wise to reject corporeal forms. Meditating on the holiness of humanness is not unholy” (221).
“The more we understand about God‘s communion with creatures, the more we will praise his greatness. We should cultivate reverence for souls in whom our Beloved seems to take such delight. Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don’t remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us” (259-260).
“Remember: good works are a sign of God‘s blessing” (288).
“Even if our deeds are small, they will be made great through the greatness of our love for God” (295).
The Bible is not a guidebook to manhood or womanhood. It is a guidebook to personhood in Christ: Love God and Love your Neighbor (all people & Creation) as yourself. Anyone trying to package the Bible as a guidebook for gender presentation is on a slippery slope to idolatry.
Study Guide for ‘The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery’ by Sarah Augustine
The Study Guide I wrote for Sarah Augustine’s incredible book, ‘The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery,’ is officially available online: https://heraldpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-Land-Is-Not-Empty-study-guide.pdf
Purchase a copy of Augustine’s book today: https://heraldpress.com/books/the-land-is-not-empty/
Book Review: ‘The Black Trans Prayer Book,’ Co-Edited by J Mase III & Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi
The Black Trans Prayer Book by J Mase III
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
In a world where the enforced norm for life and existence marginalizes all identities that don’t ‘fit,’ identify-affirming practices are a form of life-giving resistance. As a result, ‘The Black Trans Prayer Book’ is a site of life creation and salvific resistance with God by offering interfaith prayers, poems, visual art, and a variety of other spiritual practices, created by Black Trans, Intersex, and Non-Binary authors, that demonstrate the belovedness, sacredness, and blessedness of all people to God, but specifically the people most marginalized by the powers and principalities of this world.
This text is sacred and vital space necessary for the holistic self-care and divine strength necessary for the Spirit-driven transformation work of dismantling white supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and all of the other violent sins that harm and exclude in our society, toward the evermore creation/embodiment of God’s Kin(g)dom here on our precious and physical earth. Amen
View all my reviews
Treasures of Darkness [Inspired by Isaiah 45:3]
God promises us treasures in the dark –
secrets and riches hidden within night –
inky wisdoms burst forth – if only we
dive into the depths of divine darkness.
Deacon Grant 