So yesterday, I spent the day cleaning out my parents’ basement after five feet of water rushed in and flooded all the Christmas decorations that Mom has collected over the past fifty years. So I’m turning to the book Braiding Sweetgrass.
I had a list of things I was going to recommend this week about Critical Race Theory and Christianity, but I just can’t go in that direction right now.
I’ve been so immersed in the loss of this week—Hurricane Ida in New Orleans (where my husband is from) and now these storms that have wreaked havoc in the Northeast, the Delta variant of Covid causing people to get sick and die across the nation, the wildfires out west, the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan…It all weighs so heavy on my heart.
In light of all that very real hardship and pain, I will tell you what is giving me hope and comfort (without denying or ignoring the very real trauma and pain of our world) right now. I’m reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and she is awakening hope in me.
Hope that we can reconnect to the given world. Hope that we can restore the intimacy of human and earth. Hope that beauty will somehow endure.
What are you reading or listening to or watching that is bringing you hope today?
Learn more with Amy Julia:
- More Favorites and AJB Recommends
- AJB Recommends: Spiritual Practices for Personal and Social Healing
- We Need Humility for Healing and Life
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