Prayer When You Don't Have The Words: Mini Reviews of To Light Their Way and A Rhythm of Prayer

When Kayla Craig's daughter was three years old, she was hospitalized with a respiratory virus. Sitting by her bedside, Craig discovered that she could not find the words to pray. When a friend sent her a book of prayers, she found comfort in praying words that had already been laid out for her. As she continued to raise her children, she found many moments when she just did not have the words for the joy or sorrow or doubt she was experiencing. So she wrote a collection of prayers for parents, for the ones who are overwhelmed, for those smiling and crying as they send their little love off to kindergarten for the first time, and for the ones who are feeding a baby in those dark early morning hours.

This collection of prayers and liturgies is beautiful and varied. Craig writes in the introduction that these are not prayers that ignore reality; instead, she includes prayers for the one who parents alone, a prayer for receiving a diagnosis, and one for when your child is the bully. Some are meant for a caregiver to pray by themselves, and others are meant to read with your child. There are even simple breath prayers intended to help parents connect with God in the midst of school pickup, getting everyone to practice, and ensuring every child has brushed their teeth. To Light Their Way is a beautiful reminder that it is ok to not always have the words, and it would be a fantastic gift to give to any parent or caregiver. 

To Light Their Way
A Collection of Prayers and Liturgies for Parents 
By Kayla Craig
Tyndale Momentum October 2021
240 pages
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Sarah Bessey had a similar moment of not knowing how to pray. She recalled the prayer circles of her youth, missing both the confidence of knowing that others were praying for her and the many different ways they reached out to God. Bessey asked a group of women who teach and challenge her to contribute prayers to this collection. These prayers are not necessarily meant to be read and repeated verbatim.  Instead, they are intended to inspire you to find your own new ways to pray. 

The prayers in this book are angry cries about injustice or a guided prayer for when you don't know what you want. Some selections are not prayers themselves; they are letters to a future self or musings on the power of a mother or grandmother's prayers. One of the prayers in this book even sparked controversy when the Black author prayed that God would just let her hate white people instead of having her heart broken over and over by people who won't address their racism. It is good for us to be reminded that prayer doesn't have to look just one way and sometimes the anger or grief we feel is uncomfortable to confess. A Rhythm of Prayer is exactly this reminder and a powerful tool for anyone who calls out to God. 

A Rhythm of Prayer
A Collection of Meditations for Renewal
Edited by Sarah Bessey
Convergent Books February 2021
176 pages
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The Nun and the Atheist: Mini Reviews of Agatha of Little Neon and Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

Agatha is committed to God and the church but, more than anything, she is committed to her sisters. When their diocese goes bankrupt, she can't fathom doing anything else but going with her sisters wherever they are sent. None of them expected to be assigned to a halfway house in Rhode Island. Agatha, Frances, Therese, and Mary Lucille leave behind their home and everyone they know to try to do some good for the people of Little Neon and the students at the local high school. 

Agatha of Little Neon is, in a way, a coming of age story. While she is in her mid-twenties, Agatha is discovering for the first time that the people in authority are not always looking out for her best interests. She is also starting to wonder who she might be if she hadn't promised her life to God and her sisters. Agatha, Frances, Therese, and Mary Lucille are well-acquainted with many of the virtues, but the thing that rings true on every page is kindness--they are kind to themselves, kind to each other, and kind to the people they encounter who are doing the best they can. This is a story about figuring out who you are and what is important when your community and your beliefs let you down.

Agatha of Little Neon
By Claire Luchette
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux August 2021
274 pages
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Gilda is not well. She is anxious and depressed, and usually thinking about death. The local ER staff knows her by name since she frequently goes there, thinking that she is dying. Her relationships with her family and girlfriend are strained. When she sees a flyer for mental health support, she gathers the courage to attend a group at a local church. Instead, she finds a friendly priest who assumes she is applying for the job of church receptionist. Gilda soon finds herself trying to keep too many lies straight--not only is she pretending that she is a straight, Catholic woman who is qualified for this job, she is also keeping up an email correspondence with a friend of her dead predecessor Grace while pretending to be Grace herself. 

Reading Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead is somewhat like watching a horror movie--every few minutes, you want to call out, "No! Don't do that. That is a terrible choice." Yet Gilda persists in lying to everyone around her, even herself. It's not malicious; it's just that Gilda can't see what the good choices might be. I think this book will ring true for many people who struggle with their mental health. It's hard to put this one down, as readers hope that this will be the moment that Gilda gets some help and is finally able to see that there is good in life, even if everyone in the room will indeed be dead someday. 

Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead
By Emily R. Austin
Atria Books July 2021
226 pages
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Review: No Cure for Being Human

We live in a culture that promises that we can control our lives--we can get that dream job, lose those pesky ten pounds, and find love if we just follow certain steps. But of course, nothing is certain. Kate Bowler was 35 years old when she was told she had stage four colon cancer and just a fourteen percent chance of living for the next two years. Like the professor and scholar that she is, she set off to figure out how to live when life is precious but not guaranteed.

This is Kate's second book about her experiences with cancer (you should also read her book Everything Happens for a Reason). No Cure For Being Human focuses on her time in a clinical trial, when she got on a plane to Georgia every week to receive harsh drugs that might save her life. A large part of this narrative is Kate trying to understand what it means to be a good patient when her doctors leave her in the dark about a test result or her mother begs her to rest. 

Reading Kate Bowler's words feels like a gift each and every time because she gives us all permission to admit that we are not in control. She is brilliant, hilarious, and earnest, like when she recalls arguing with the manager of a hospital gift shop about selling books that promise she will get better. Just a few pages later, she writes about leaving the hospital and tearfully asking her dad how she will know she is living the right way in light of her limited time. 

In writing this review, I basically re-read this book and wrote down lines from every other page. This book recognizes that sometimes having faith is not enough. We need to speak out loud the reality that we are scared that we won't have enough time, that we won't accomplish everything we hoped to, that our children or friends won't know how much we loved them. While most of us are not wondering if we will see next year, the reality is that time is finite for all of us. "No matter how carefully we schedule our days, master our emotions, and try to wring our best life now from our better selves, we cannot solve the problem of finitude. We will always want more." If we focus on this truth instead of the catchy slogans about living our best life, will we actually see what is important? Kate Bowler (and I) think we just might. 

No Cure for Being Human
(And Other Truths I Needed to Hear)
By Kate Bowler
Random House September 2021
224 pages
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How Then Shall We Live? Mini Reviews of Books About Life and Faith

D. L. Mayfield is not writing to make anyone comfortable, even herself. As she got to know her neighbors, who were mostly refugees, she realized that her belief that God rewarded people who followed the rules was not true for these people who had been through so much. In The Myth of the American Dream, she calls Christians out for confusing the work of our faith with our striving for affluence, autonomy, safety, and power. 

When she taught English to students who had recently arrived to the United States, she realized that a bag of donated clothes or a grammar worksheet would not fix the trauma and oppression that these people had experienced. Mayfield challenges her readers to look beyond these momentary transactions and ponder what it looks like to be a good neighbor, to realize that we are not flourishing when our neighbors are suffering. Our good intentions are not enough in the face of policies like redlining, gentrification, and prejudice in hiring that keep people from owning a home or earning the kind of income that we do. "Love is a concrete way of living in the world that prioritizes others, and other's people's children, over our own." The Myth of the American Dream asks us to open our eyes to more; it is a book that will convict you to rethink what you ask from God and change how you live as a good neighbor to the people around you.

The Myth of the American Dream:
Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power
By D.L Mayfield
IVP May 2020
192 pages
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Sister Helen Prejean is perhaps best known as the "Death Penalty Abolitionist Nun," especially after her bestselling book Dead Man Walking. She fights for the dignity of those in prison, and works towards a day when the government will not execute any people, regardless of their crimes. But Sister Helen was not always on fire for justice. As a young woman, she was a nun at St. Joseph Parish, where she was surrounded by other white, middle-class people in the church and the school where she teaches. Her life is generally comfortable, until she has a moment of epiphany--what would it be like to so inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus that you were willing to be ridiculed, to go to prison, to lose everything? 

Dead Man Walking is Prejean's story of protesting the death penalty, but River of Fire reveals how she got there. It gives a unique perspective on the changes within the Catholic Church during the second half of the 20th century, as well as Sister Helen's own journey from someone who focused on the spiritual to someone who focused on people who are suffering on earth. This book is easy to read because, as it turns out, nuns aren't that different from you and me. They have doubts, make mistakes, and struggle in their relationships with God and with other people.

River of Fire:

My Spiritual Journey

By Sister Helen Prejean

Random House August 2019

294 pages

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Review: Bread and Wine

Lent is seen as a time for reflection. Many people give something up as they think about the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. In the weeks leading up to Easter, many Christians spend more time than usual in prayer and study. Bread and Wine would be a great starting place. These 72 readings come from writers throughout Christian history and across the theological spectrum, including Kathleen Norris, Oswald Chambers, Barbara Brown Taylor, John Donne, Christina Rossetti, Watchman Nee, Madeleine L'Engle, Saint Augustine, and Mother Teresa.

In a perfect world, I would have finished reading this collection of devotions during Lent and written my review right around Easter. Unfortunately, I finished it in May and am just reviewing it now. This is definitely not the kind of book you can race through. Many of the selections require some time to think about deeper commitment during Lent, the temptation and crucifixion of Christ, and the new life we experience because of Easter. As with any collection, different selections will resonate with different readers but the diversity in this book ensures that there is something for everyone.

This would be an excellent resource for any church. Pastors and teachers could certainly draw from this volume during Lent and any Christian will find new ways to think about Lent and Easter and new writers to inspire and teach them.

Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter
Plough Publishing House November 2014
430 pages
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Review: Inspired

Rachel Held Evans grew up loving the stories of bravery and faith in the Bible. But as she grew up, she had some questions. How could a good God wipe out a generation of Egyptian children to lead the Israelites out of Egypt or reward Abraham for almost killing his own son? Why did her church believe some parts of the Epistles were still relevant and some were not? Her pastors and professors seemed more eager to get her to be quiet than to really answer her questions, so she started doing her own research and discovered different kinds of theology. In her uncertainty, she found a way to love the complicated and unexpected stories of the Bible all over again.

In Inspired, Evans looks at the different kinds of texts that we find in the Bible. There are tales that tell us the origin of the world, war stories, stories of resistance and deliverance, and letters and recollections from the early days of the Christian church. She gives each section new life by reimagining it--Hagar tells her own story and proudly declares that she was the only person to give God a new name, Job becomes a modern professor who has an unexpected encounter with some colleagues and a cafeteria worker, and Peter stepping out of the boat to Jesus becomes a choose-your-own-adventure during a trip to Israel.

These retellings are interesting and many of them made me think of well-known stories in new ways. But Evans challenges us even further. Many people experience Christianity as a long list of things you must check off, that you must act a certain way, and believe these specific things. But it can quickly become complicated when we admit that Scripture sometimes contradicts itself and doesn't answer the questions we think it should. Instead, she turns to Jewish midrash and invites us to see the Bible as the start of conversations instead of a door-slamming, absolutist end to them.

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again will be a book I turn to again and again. Evans writes with passion and reverence for the Scripture and shows us how to hold the tension of a holy, timeless book written in a specific place and time by specific people. We are a part of an ongoing story of faith--the first few chapters are captured within the pages of the Bible to teach us, to comfort us, and to help us to ask good questions.

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water
and Loving the Bible Again
By Rachel Held Evans
Thomas Nelson June 2018
240 pages
Reviewed as part of the book launch team