Hello –
Many have the custom of setting aside time during Lent to do some reading. While I primarily want to encourage the PrayWorshipServe rhythm as a Lenten practice (20+1+5), I also want to recommend three books that could help deepen your experience of Jesus. (For each, the title also serves as a link to Amazon should you wish to purchase it.)
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life – This accessible book is by Richard Rohr, a popular author, a Franciscan monk and the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. There have been about a dozen of us at St. Paul’s who have read it in the last six months, including most of the volunteers for Young Moms Marin. It gives a very helpful framework for living a life of wisdom. It helps make sense of, and beauty out of, the pain and suffering we all inevitably experience.
Toxic Charity. How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) – This is another book many of us at St. Paul’s have read. It is a short book which aims to make sure that we have a healthy relationship with those we intend to serve. Far too often charity work become codependent and holds people back from becoming who God intends. At St. Paul’s we aim for friendship with those we serve. This pithy book, filled with stories and a practical Oath for Compassionate Service, helps keep the ‘Serve’ in PrayWorshipServe on track.
The Long Loneliness. The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist – I just finished this book, which many consider to be one of the greatest American spiritual classics. It’s the memoir of Dorothy Day who was the co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Day started out as a reporter and so an essential element of the movement was a newspaper. The book, then, is filled with great details that capture American life in the first half of the 20th Century. One of her earliest memories was being in San Francisco at the time of the great earthquake. Her memories of the way people helped each other after the disaster was key in her wanting to dedicate her life to service in community. In her twenties, before she became a devoted Christian, she hung out with bohemians like Eugene O’Neil in New York. Day died in 1980. She is well known to two people at St. Paul’s. Richard has family that lived at one of her farms for the Worker movement and Meg’s family home in Vermont served as a kind of refuge for Dorothy. Dorothy is an icon of life lived in a rhythm of PrayWorshipServe.
I hope to see you Sunday and then again on Wednesday.
Blessings,
Christopher
p: (415) 456-4842