Six New Things – Week of September 19, 2022

Sorry this is a day late! (My spouse’s minor medical emergency threw off the last three days; he’s finally on the mend!)

We kick-off LatinX Heritage Month with some book lists and reorient relationships with neighbors, society, enemies, creation, women and partners. Let’s move with grace from offering blessings to standing in solidarity!

ONE

To get us into Hispanic Heritage Month – which began September 15 – we’ve compiled a few book lists (from others) to help you find something perfect to read and/or to share:

Find more books for children (Identity & Diversity); Tweens & Teens (Perspectives & Stories); and adults (History of Race in America) in our lib guides.

TWO

If Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month inspires you to get to know (more of) your neighbors, you might try curbside walk-by blessings – and learn more than you imagine about and from your neighbors. Get inspired with Ask Me for a Blessing (You Know You Need One) (Broadleaf).

Which reminded us of Church on the Move: A Practical Guide for Ministry in the Community (Judson), which we highlighted several months ago. Author and Minneapolis pastor Travis Norvell was featured earlier this summer on the Lewis Center for Church Leaders Leading Ideas podcast (Episode 106).

It also reminded us of our Listening Post Great Idea from this past spring – recently revised with new inspiration.

Find additional inspiration for Reorienting your vision and mission in our lib guide.

THREE

Once you’ve met the neighborhood, it’s time to move from learning about to standing with. Joerg Rieger contends that “Solidarity, and the willingness to work at the seemingly impossible intersections of everything – the triad of gender, race, and class, yes, but more beyond – must mark the work of theology”, in Theology in the Capitalocene: Ecology, Identity, Class, and Solidarity (Fortress)

If walk-bys are less than a blessing in your neighborhood, try some Elusive Grace: Loving Your Enemies While Striving for God’s Justice (WJK), which, ‘brings the wisdom of Scripture into conversation with… diverse minds…’ to develop ‘a prescribed course of action… to mend our souls and restore our civic life’.

FOUR

If gender is the place where you’re called to take a stand, New Testament Women in the Bible – Volume 1 is Woodlake’s latest in their ‘for Progressive Christians’ series: it restores NT women their voice and agency after millennia of erasure.

FIVE

If the environment is where you take a stand, Lutherans Restoring Creation has a fantastic list of Season of Creation liturgies: Focusing Worship on God as Creator. Don’t let the “Lutheran” moniker scare you: it really is an ecumenical list!

SIX

And just because I couldn’t resist, I have to include Marriage Be Hard: 12 Conversations to Keep You Laughing Loving, and Learning with Your Partner (Penguin Random House): leave it to a pair of comedians to ‘provide a hilarious fresh master class on what it takes to build and maintain a lasting relationship’.