Review: A Just Passion

February 6, 2023February 5, 2023 / rtrube54 / 1 Comment

A Just Passion: A Six Week Lenten Journey, Ruth Haley Barton, Sheila Wise Rowe, Tish Harrison Warren, Terry M. Wildman, and others. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2022.

Summary: A six week Lenten devotional consisting of brief excerpts from works by InterVarsity Press authors, scripture readings, and breath prayers, considering how, in the passion of Christ, we lament the injustices of the world, find healing in the redemptive work of Christ, and enter into Christ’s heart for justice for the oppressed.

Lent is a season of fasting (except on Sundays), where we begin by remembering that we will die, we lament our sins and those of the world and the impact of these on others. It is a time of repentance and drawing close again to Christ, walking in the way of his passion and anticipating the hope of Easter Sunday. For many, some form of Lenten devotional reading is a part of their practices from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday, the forty days of Lent.

A Just Passion follows in that tradition, offering readings for the forty days of Lent (Sundays excepted because Sunday is a feast and not fast day). The readings are drawn from the writings of InterVarsity Press authors, each reading of two short pages of reading. Among those included are Ruth Haley Barton, Tish Harrison, Warren, Eugene Peterson, Esau McCaulley, Sheila Wise Rowe, Dominique DuBois Gilliard, John Perkins, Tara Beth Leach, and Soong-Chan Rah, just to give you a sense of the stellar lineup represented here.

Also included in each week’s readings are a lectionary reading drawn from the First Nations Version of the New Testament, an English translation for indigenous peoples of North America, whose lead translator is Terry M. Wildman. One day each week includes a “breath prayer” in which we breathe in a short invitation or supplication to God and breathe out a line of response or release. For example, the breath prayer of week one is (breathe in)”Blessed are those who hunger” and (breathe out) “They will be filled.”

The readings focus on the inextricable link between the passion of Jesus and the pursuit of justice. They begin with Tish Harrison Warren reminding us that on Ash Wednesday, the ashes are to remind us that we are dust, that we die, and to hold on to what is real. John Perkins reminds us that Jesus was love incarnate, a mission of reconciliation his son Spencer died pursuing, and that he continues in West Jackson. Mark E. Strong tells the story of a young boy who has nothing for the offering and climbs into the basket, offering himself, which is truly the living worship of every Christ follower. Bethany H. Hoang, director of International Justice Mission, speaks of the exhausting work of fighting injustice, work that only can be sustained if begun in prayer. Christ outpoured in our lives is the beginning of our pursuit of justice.

Each reading gives the author and book from which it is sourced and an index by days gives more complete publication information. Not only is this a wonderful “sampler” of the authors who write for InterVarsity Press, this is a well-conceived and substantive collection that helps us enter into Christ’s passion while calling us into the pursuit of justice. Vice President of InterVarsity Press Cindy Bunch introduces the collection, offering specific practices we might consider in the pursuit of justice. If you are still looking for a Lenten devotional, this one is well worth your consideration.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Little Prayers for Ordinary Days

June 24, 2022June 17, 2022 / rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Little Prayers for Ordinary Days, Katy Bowser Hutson, Flo Paris Oakes, and Tish Harrison Warren, illustrated by Liita Forsyth. Downers Grove: IVP Kids, 2022.

Summary: Twenty-eight prayers, with illustrations, written for children covering the events of the day from getting up to going to bed and all the ordinary and not-so-ordinary things that can happen in a day.

A few years ago, Tish Harrison Warren introduced us, in The Liturgy of the Ordinary to the idea of encountering God and being aware of God’s presence throughout the ordinary events of our days, from getting up, to making our beds, searching for our keys, brushing our teeth, and ending the day. In this children’s book, Warren is joined by Katy Bowser Hutson and Flo Paris Oakes and illustrator Liita Forsyth in a very different looking book that helps children (and parents) develop the same awareness that our days are filled with moments where we may connect with God.

At the beginning, they assure us that:

"God always listens. God always loves you.
You can tell God anything."

This is followed by twenty eight “little prayers” of five to thirteen lines, most of which may be read aloud in twenty seconds or less. They cover these topics:

For waking up
For looking in a mirror
For the start of/for the end of a school day
For reading a book/for listening to music
For making something/trying something new
For rest time
For waiting
For when I break something/when I have lost something
For seeing a friend/leaving a friend
For doing chores
For when I do what I shouldn’t
For being outside
For play time
For petting an animal/for when I see a bird
For meal time/for when I have to eat something I don’t like
For taking a bath/for brushing my teeth
For an everyday day/a hard day/a really great day
For when I look at the stars
For bedtime

Some things I really liked include thanking God for our bodies when we look in the mirror and take baths, for all the things that are wondrous about books, and asking God for help when it is hard to wait, or we do things we know we shouldn’t or have to eat food we don’t like. I need the prayers about losing things and breaking things. Then there are the wonders of a pet’s soft fur and the wonderful variety of birds outside our windows. In brushing our teeth, there is a reminder of all the things we do with our mouths. In the prayer about hard days I love the line “Thank you that I don’t have to pretend that things are okay.” And in our days of school shootings and lockdown drills there is the prayer “And please keep everyone safe all day long.”

Here are sample pages showing the delightful prayers and illustrations from bath time:

What a wonderful way to teach children that God is not just present at church, but in all the ordinary things of our days, even when we are not at our best, or the day has not been. These prayers convey that there is no time or place or occurrence in our days where God is not present. They are prayers that spoke powerfully to me. I am not too old to delight in books or music or stars or the fur of an animal. Even with the effects of age, I still marvel at the gift of my body, especially when I luxuriate in a shower. I still have good and bad day.

What a wonderful gift this is for any young parents! You might want to buy one for them and one for you, particularly if you are a grandparent! There is so much rich theology packed into these little prayers. While you read them in twenty seconds, you will ponder them far longer.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: Prayer in the Night

May 10, 2021May 9, 2021 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Prayer in the Night, Tish Harrison Warren. Downers Grove: IVP Formatio, 2021.

Summary: Both an introduction to Compline and a phrase by phrase reflection using one of the loveliest of Compline prayers.

Keep watch, dear Lord,
with those who work,
or watch,
or weep this night,
and give your angels charge over those who sleep.
Tend the sick, Lord Christ,
give rest to the weary,
bless the dying,
soothe the suffering,
pity the afflicted,
shield the joyous,
and all for your love's sake.
Amen

Over the last year of the pandemic, I’ve posted on Facebook prayers, morning and evening, (“Collects”) from The Book of Common Prayer. The prayer above, from of the office of Compline, is one of my favorites, and often I think of particular people as I pray each phrase. During the pandemic this has included the working and weary medical personnel, the people keeping vigil for those in ICUs, the sick and sometimes the dying, those afflicted with long-COVID, and others who struggle with chronic pain and illness. Amid this all I think of the joyous including new parents, graduates, and all of us who have received vaccines. I think of angels watching over and guarding us in the vulnerable moments of our nightly rest. I rest in the care of the Lord who watches for love’s sake.

Thus it was with great delight that I discovered on opening Prayer in the Night that it is organized around this loved prayer. Tish Harrison Warren takes us through her own journey of praying compline, most notably one night with her husband in an emergency room as she hemorrhaged severely during a miscarriage. She introduces us to Compline, the last of the prayers of the hours or offices, to be prayed at night before retiring. She writes of how Compline helped her at a time of loss of a baby and of her father:

“Compline speaks to God in the dark. And that’s what I had to learn to do–to pray in the darkness of anxiety and vulnerability, in doubt and disillusionment. It was Compline that gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in darkness, as good news.”
Tish Harrison Warren, p. 19.

In succeeding chapters, Warren offers reflections on each phrase of this prayer that come out of her lived experience with praying it. She begins by discussing the God to whom we pray in the dark, and how the prayers operate as cairns, rock structures, that help us keep on the path when we can only feel our way along in fog or the dark. She then turns to the way of the vulnerable–those who weep or watch or work, taking the phrases in reverse order. She concludes:

“Taken together, working and watching and weeping are a way to endure the mystery of theodicy. They are a faithful response to our shared human tragedy–but only when we hold all three together, giving space and energy to each, both as individuals and as the church.”
Tish Harrison Warren, p. 75.

From this she turns to what she calls “a taxonomy of vulnerability.” She describes her renewed understanding of the care of the angels in our sleep as she prayed for her first child each night. Her reflection on sickness includes insights into the wonders of our bodies that we often take for granted until illness. In weariness we are offered rest, one to learn from, and one who intercedes for us. Prayer for the dying reminds us of our own death and how we are taught to live in light of it and our resurrection hope. Suffering and affliction take us into new places of dependence upon God in our weakness, and call the church into depths we are reluctant to go. Then there is the risk of disappointment in joy and our need to be shielded here as well.

Finally, Warren concludes by exploring how God invites us into a deeper encounter with his love. In the night. When we doubt. In our illness and vulnerability. In suffering and affliction. The love of God, revealed in Christ, is the last word of this prayer.

The writing about goodness, truth, and beauty one finds in Warren’s prose is humbling. All I can say is what is found in this book is so much better and richer than my summary. Warren helps me pray a prayer I’ve loved with deeper meaning and consciousness of my vulnerability and the depths of God’s care. She offers good direction for all of us facing “night” in our lives.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Writing as Naming

July 30, 2020July 29, 2020 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Photo by Negative Space on Pexels.com

I came across a statement this morning that captured why I write. It is from one of my favorite writers, Tish Harrison Warren, in a new book co-edited by Tim Keller and John Inazu, Uncommon Ground. She writes:

“When we write, we participate in Adam and Eve’s vocation in the garden: the vocation of naming. We give words to reality, and through our words, we help shape reality” (p. 73).

Both my outer and inner worlds often feel inchoate. Whether it is making sense of what I am thinking and feeling, describing the gist of a discussion among colleagues, or trying to discern some thread of meaning in the chaos of modern existence, I find myself turning to writing.

I write to know what I think. Sometimes I write to figure out what I think. When I review, I write to crystallize in a few words the thousands of words I’ve read in a book. Sometimes writing is the way I sort out my own sense of how I should live in pandemic times. I give words to reality, and at least shape how I will engage that reality, if not the reality itself.

Writing as naming is communal as well. It certainly is in a medium like that which on which you read my words, or in magazine articles, newspapers, and books. Our writing gives shape to reality not only for ourselves but for others. One of the tests of good writing for me is whether others recognize the reality I’ve tried to name as their own. I love it when someone writes back and says, “you found words to describe what is was like for me.”

More than that, writing as naming, when done well clarifies how we will work together. Lawyer friends of mine tell me that this is at the heart of a good contract. I’ve learned a great deal about getting the words right from my attorney friends. It is equally important on a work team as we discern and decide what we will work on together, and what we each agree to contribute to that work.

I’ve never been a writer of fiction, but I suspect this is part of what drives these writers. They are not just telling a story. They are creating a world. I think of J.R.R. Tolkien, who created Middle-earth, fashioned languages, and a whole mythology of origins and cosmology. That is some serious naming!

For babies to receive a name, a mother must give birth. Many writers describe the labor of giving birth to words that name as akin to the birthing experience. Finding the right words and phrases, the right composition of paragraphs is hard. There is such a difference between “almost right” and “just right.” I think any of us who write feel we rarely totally achieve that end. Sometimes, it feels that the beautiful or pithy thing we want to say is out there, just beyond our grasp. One thing for sure: for writers, words matter.

Why then do we do it? I think it comes back to what it means to be human. We are naming creatures, gifted with amazing language powers far exceeding any other creature. While not all of us are drawn to writing, all of us use words to describe our world. Writing simply allows us to deliberate our words (hopefully) and to extend them in space and time, extending them beyond the circle who can hear our voice, and the ephemeral moment of our utterances.

This helps me understand a bit more why I write.

Review: Liturgy of the Ordinary

December 20, 2016December 20, 2016 / rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Liturgy of the Ordinary, Tish Harrison Warren (foreword by Andy Crouch). Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016.

Summary: Walking through the common events of an ordinary day from waking to sleeping, Warren explores how we encounter in these ordinary things the Christ we worship each Sunday.

I work with people in a university context who struggle to connect the Christ they worship each week with the seemingly ordinary, and often repetitive tasks that make up their days–answering emails, running experiments, attending committee meetings, preparing lectures, holding office hours, and grading papers or exams. In many cases, this occupies the most significant part of their waking hours. And for the ones who are followers of Christ, they often wonder what any of this has to do with the Christ they worship, and are attempting to follow. Time spent in a soup kitchen, a prison ministry, a mission trip–that seems closer to the real deal. Some wonder if they should even be doing the stuff that makes up most of their weeks.

There are others who think even the life I’ve described sounds “cutting edge” compared to spending much of their days feeding, cleaning up after, diapering, entertaining, putting down for naps and getting up again infants and toddlers. Or they work in some form of unskilled or repetitive work. And no matter what our work is, much of life involves a daily round of self-care, home care, and meal preparation, and a host of routine activities–every day.

Let’s face it. Much of life is lived in the ordinary and it is to this that Tish Harrison Warren addresses herself. Her book takes the tasks of the “ordinary” day and reflects on how we are met by and may be transformed by the Christ we worship each Sunday. She explores activities like waking, making our beds, brushing our teeth, losing keys, eating leftovers, fighting with our spouses, checking email, getting stuck in traffic, talking to friends, drinking tea, and sleeping. She connects these with the liturgies she participates in each week as an Anglican priest. She writes:

“And every new day, this is the turn my heart must make: I’m living this life, the life right in front of me. This one where marriages struggle. This one where we aren’t living as we thought we might or as we hoped we would. This one where we are weary, where we want to make a difference but aren’t sure where to start, where we have to get dinner on the table or the kids’ teeth brushed, where we have back pain and boring weeks, where our lives look small, where we doubt, where we wrestle with meaninglessness, where we worry about those we love, where we struggle to meet our neighbors and love those closest to us, where we grieve, where we wait.

And on this particular day, Jesus knows me and declares me his own. On this day he is redeeming the world, advancing his kingdom, calling us to repent and grow, teaching his church to worship, drawing near to us, and making a people all his own.

If I am to spend my whole life being transformed by the good news of Jesus, I must learn how grand, sweeping truths—doctrine, theology, ecclesiology, Christology—rub against the texture of an average day. How I spend this ordinary day in Christ is how I will spend my Christian life. “

She connects waking and baptism, as Lutherans often are taught to do in making the sign of the cross and saying, “remember your baptism” upon waking. Making beds reminds of the rituals that form a life. Brushing teeth represents all the embodied tasks that make up our day, and how we meet Christ through the bodily acts of standing, kneeling, and bowing. I particularly loved the chapter on sending email, and the blessing and sending that is part of our worship, and that may be implicit in our responses to our inboxes. She makes drinking a cup of tea a reminder of the enjoyment of all that is good in the sanctuary of God.

She concludes the book with a chapter on sleep, reflecting on the gift of sabbath and our struggle with lives of activism, and a resistance of sleep that may reflect a fear of dying. She poses an interesting question:

“What if Christians were known as a countercultural community of the well-rested–people who embrace our limits with zest and even joy? As believers we can relish sleep as not only necessary but as an embodied response to the truth of Scripture: we are finite, weak creatures who are abundantly cared for by our strong and loving Creator.”

Warren writes with an unvarnished realism about her own life, and yet there is also this sense of stepping back from the whirl of ordinary life in the various moments of the day to remember, and listen, and reflect on how Jesus as the Incarnate One brings his shalom into the whirl of the ordinary–whether it is a fight with a spouse, lost keys or a traffic jam. Warren’s thoughtful reflections help us move to that same place, a kind of center of quiet where the new creation life of Christ can enter into the ordinary spaces of our days.

This is a book I can give to those wondering if there are greener pastures of Christian activity than the everyday circumstances they find themselves in. It is a book that makes the connection between the extraordinary things we preach and pray and participate in each Sunday, and the ordinary realities of each week. From when we first wake until we lay down our heads at night. And all the spaces between.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher . I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.