Six New Things – Week of November 03, 2025
Curiosity leads to awe leads to love, from which we pour out our selves, our time, and our possessions as a healing balm for hungry individuals and communities.
ONE
In her October 24, 2025 Letters from an American post, Heather Cox Richardson quotes Joel Berg of Hunger Free America as stating, ‘If the SNAP program shuts down, we will have the most mass hunger suffering we’ve had in America since the Great Depression.’
Read the full post for greater detail on how we got here and what’s at stake. Bottom line: cruelty and greed are running rampant in our federal government.
Cruelty and greed are no match for curiosity and generosity:
TWO
Spark curiosity with:
- Just Visiting This Planet, Revised and Updated for the Twenty-First Century: Further Scientific Adventures of Merlin from Omniscia (Blackstone), a companion volume to Merlin’s Tour of the Universe; Neil Degrasse Tyson’s second ‘collection of imaginative questions about the cosmos from curious stargazers’ of all ages.
Find more in our Faith Formation: Science & Faith and Tweens & Teens: Nonfiction & Poetry lib guides.
THREE
Cultivate awe with:
- Night Creatures: Firefly (Magic Cat), ‘follows one sun-seeking child who discovers a meadow illuminated by fireflies: “fallen constellations” that dance like stars among the summer grasses, setting fears to flight… showing the power of hope in a world steeped in darkness.’
- Grandmother Moon (Beaming), ‘captures a grandmother and grandchild’s relationship through their shared wonder and admiration’ as it ‘preserves Indigenous histories and teachings within a modern setting, reminding us that Grandmother Moon is always watching over us, and wherever we are, we are safe and loved’. An author’s note teaches about the different Indigenous names of the full moons throughout the lunar year.
Find more in our Faith Formation: Family Faith – Grandparents lib guide.
FOUR
Let wonder lead to love:
- The Stars Will Guide Us Home – A Meditation from Rev. Cameron Trimble, grounded in Psalm 8:3-4, offers a reflection, spiritual practice, poem, and guiding questions – all inspiring awe and wonder.
- It’s not new, but it is so profoundly beautiful and invites us into such a deeply awe-filled love for creation: Andrea Gibson’s Homesick: A Plea for Our Planet should be shared everywhere and with everyone.
Find more in our Spiritual Practices: Awe, Wonder, & Curiosity lib guide.
FIVE
Guide love’s flow in generosity:
- Undercover Kindness: Saying Yes to Love, No to Fear, and Embracing the Life-Changing Power of Ordinary Generosity (Convergent) asserts that ‘the most fun we can have is to spread joy and kindness with no inhibition’.
- Zip Zap Wickety Wack: A Story about Sharing (Neal Porter), ‘will inspire new nonsense and new values in homes… and farmyards around the world’.
Find more in our Stewardship & Giving: New Generosity and Talking with Children & Youth lib guides.
SIX
Rest in awe and wonder – and be renewed with love:
- Generosity is communal work with We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor (Broadleaf), ‘a book of prayers, rituals, and liturgies that grows out of communities committed to abolishing poverty’.
- Remember the importance of friendship with I’m Very Busy: A (Nearly Forgotten) Birthday Book (Philomel), which ‘shows how friends are more important than the busy-ness of a day’.
Find more in our Faith Formation: Belonging; Faith, Love, Compassion, Forgiveness; and Worship: Justice & Lament lib guides.
