Six New Things – Week of June 16, 2025

This is late …and ‘lite’. We’re all tired. You are not alone in feeling weary. So: short reads, easy-to-digest supports, and resilience builders. In the midst of grief and deep communal loss, savor relationships, friends.

ONE

In When We Become the Fire (Piloting Faith), Rev. Cameron Trimble affirms and inspires, writing, ‘…if you feel tired this week (I do!), let it be the holy kind of tired. Let it be the kind that comes from having lived in alignment with your values, the kind that says: I showed up. I was there. I gave what I could. I danced the fire into being.’

That title gets perspective with, We Were the Fire: Birmingham 1963 (Penguin), ‘The powerful story of an eleven-year-old Black boy determined to stand up for his rights, who’s pulled into the action of the 1963 civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama.’

I’m adding the former to our forthcoming From Fear to Fire Toolkit, available early August!

TWO

These Heathens: A Novel (Penguin), offers a glimpse of diversity in 1960s Georgia as a 17-year-old Black teen encounters, ‘guests at a queer kickback… student activists at a SNCC conference… and celebrities [from] …the pages of Jet and Ebony‘, in this exploration of ‘how one weekend can change your whole life’.

This joins We Were the Fire in our Tweens & Teens Historical Fiction lib guide.

THREE

Prior to this weekend, we saw what UCC Pastor James Burklo describes as, ‘The moment fascism arrived in America’. While, ‘All of us, across the spectrum of political opinion, must protest this with vigor’, Burklo encourages, Showing Respect for Our Soldiers (Progressive Christian) by, ‘…speak[ing] truth to the power that is abusing them, just as it abuses women, trans and queer folks, immigrants, and the rest of us!’

In the midst of this weekend’s traumatic events, Grieving the Death of a Friend and Grieving the Death of a Pet join Grieving the Death of a Father and Grieving the Death of a Mother (all Broadleaf) for a full spectrum of pastoral care support.

For more support in one-on-one pastoral grief support, see our Grief, Death, & Dying lib guide.

For more support in providing broader care, see our Collective/Communal Grief & Trauma lib guide.

FOUR

In the midst of protests and rallies, assassinations and manhunts, Pride and Juneteenth celebrations, perhaps an 8+-minute lectio divina from Richard Rohr will renew, restore, and Awaken the Prophet Within. Discover ‘more on the wisdom of the prophets’ in Rohr’s, The Tears of Things – and its Reader’s Guide (all Center for Action and Contemplation).

We’ve added all three to our Contemplative Activism and Lectio Divina lib guides.

FIVE

Courage and conviction are hallmarks of everyone ‘living Resurrection in the midst of Good Friday’. Thanks to the Sahan Journal, we learn that, Researchers Vow to Continue Preserving Indian Boarding School History Despite Federal Cuts.

We can join in this important work and work Toward Right Relationships with Native Peoples with the wise leadership and guidance of Friends Peace Teams.

Discover how the ELCA is engaging the former through their Indian Boarding School Initiative; I’ve added the latter to our WaterThreads Toolkit.

SIX

Get to the basics of relationships with Boar and Hedgehog (Candlewick) – a tale in which grumpiness and know-it-all-ness collide and forge an ‘unexpected camaraderie’. It’s in our Antibullying & Friendship lib guide.

Read more on savoring friendship and other simple pleasures in this week’s Savoring as Resilience Practice Great Idea.

 

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Beginning July: In an effort to free up time to create Toolkits responsive to these days, Six New Things will post only twice a month. We’ll post the first and third Mondays of July and August – and see how that goes.

Feedback is always welcome: ministrylab@uccmn.org.