Six New Things – Week of June 2, 2025

It’s Pride Month AND Juneteenth Month! So many people – and so many dreams – are being torn down. Let’s celebrate, honor, and build one another up – the surest form of resistance and a great way to create resilience!

ONE

‘Othering’ others – because of the color of our skin or the whole person within – invariably stems from fear and grows into hatred and violence.

When we ‘other’ others – we lose! We lose the intellect and creativity, the dreams and hopes, the enormous possibilities made real only through a ‘bigger we’, what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Beloved Community.

So we’re centering Pride AND Black-history-as-human-history:

The History of We (Kokila) ‘takes what we know about modern human civilization and, through magnificent paintings, creates a tale about our shared beginnings in a way that centers Black people in humankind’s origin story’.

The Rainbow Sheep (Beaming), offers a ‘humorous story about inclusion, self-acceptance, and the joy of being different’.

Discover more in our NEW Curiosity, Wonder, & Awe and Relationships & Identity: 2SLGBTQIA+ lib guides.

TWO

Differences, creativity, and dreams: the perfect mixture for new possibilities!

Find more in our Identity & Diversity and our growing Tweens & Teens: Justice – Education lib guides.

THREE

Differences, creativity, and dreams – when friendship pulls them together, the sky’s the limit!

The Crayons are back for a hilarious third adventure: The Day the Crayons Made Friends (Penguin) – all sorts of friends who open up all sorts of fascinating possibilities!

The Dinosaur Seed (Beaming) is a celebration of friendship and creative collaboration as Cece, Flora, Wyatt, and Victoria, ‘dream a boring rock into a spectacular adventure’.

Bring adults into the adventure of ‘cooperative, inclusive play’ with Pathways to Belonging (Wipf & Stock), in which a ‘contextual, story-driven global network’ of twenty-two contributors invite readers ‘to an experience of community, connection, and meaning’ that ‘points the way to the expansive, flourishing life for which we yearn’.

Find more in our Anti-Bullying & Friendship and Belonging lib guides.

FOUR

Global spiritual practices – literal practices in diversity – can liberate people for creative peace-making.

  • Liberating Yoga; From Appropriation to Healing (Broadleaf) reminds us that yoga is not about exclusivity, expensive equipment, or fitness trends, ‘yoga is a spiritual practice from South Asia with the ultimate goal of connection, self-realization, and liberation’.
  • ‘Developed in collaboration with His Holiness The Dalai Lama’, Peaceful Mind (Penguin), offers ‘an inspiring meditation exercise for adults and kids to practice together’.

Find more in our Spiritual Practices: Embodied/Movement and Mindfulness lib guides.

FIVE

Practices of liberation and peace may be necessary prior to grappling with the ‘profound story of courage and grace amid the fight for racial justice’ found in Mother Emmanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church (Penguin).

For young people grappling with daily realities, What to Do When the News Scares You, Revised Edition: A Kid’s Guide to Understanding Current Events (Magination) offers a workbook designed to help process the ‘bombardment of unsettling information’ kids receive through media and adult conversations.

Find more in our Anti-Racism: …and the Church and Social Justice: …with Children & Families lib guides.

SIX

‘Othering’ originates in the divide between binary gender identities: toxic masculinity is having a moment.

Let’s nip that narrative right at its source with a broader theology.

God Looks Like Jesus: A Renewed Approach to Understanding God (Herald) invites readers into a radical truth and a global movement: ‘the conviction that God looks like Jesus’ – meaning God’s very essence is ‘a love that is humble, other-oriented, and self-sacrificial’.

Dr. Michael J. Chan ‘relates the wonder of nature, and how it can be easily lost in the storm of hyper-masculine bravado and consumption’ in, Masculinity and the Domination of Nature (Church Anew blog).

Invite all ages to explore creation and develop awe and wonder this summer with 7 Freebies from Augsburg Fortress and Sparkhouse, including take-home faith formation prompts, outdoor activities invitations, and more.

Find more in our NEW Organizing Congregations and existing Adult Bible Study: Masculine Lens and Camps, Retreats, Summer, & VBS.