These keep getting a little later each month. You would think that since this is my own blog, if the format of what I am posting is boring or tedious to me, I would figure out a way to change it. But no. I will omit links for the books this time--a huge chunk of of the "tedious." As I might have mentioned before, a lot of this reading is part of what I feel is important for me to learn to do better at my job as a community minister, to gain a better understanding of different aspects. And some of it is for fun or just cause I want to.
Spiritual Formation: The Book of Waking Up by Seth Haines. This was the follow up to Coming Clean, read back in May. Reading a follow up so close to the first one seems like a good idea, especially when I like the first one, but then regret it. There is always a bit of rehashing and retelling for those who are reading the book in the original publication timing (5 years apart in this case). All in all the book was a helpful reminder that so much of what we rely on to help us process (or bury) whatever struggles we encounter as part of life make it worse. In his case it was alcohol, but there are so many other "crutches." In the 5 years since the first book, he discovered Ignatian exercises to help him draw closer to God instead. Which lead me to shuffle around a book list to read more about those.
Poverty/social justice: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond. This book was well written when it could have been so dry and just a struggle to finish. Told from first hand accounts as the author lived alongside these families in the Milwaukee area, and from both sides--the renters and the landlords. From my job, I see a lot and am somewhat grateful that there are more resources in my community for struggling families than those in the book. But that is in my community--and I know larger urban areas in any state are going to resemble what the author encounters.
Leadership: Dream Big by Bob Goff. Inspirational and would be even more so if and when I make myself take the time to work through the workshop questions in the back of the book. Someday.
Other: How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi. In this book, the author talks through his own journey and how those experiences intersected with different elements of racism/anti-racism. It is ingrained in our own histories and cultures, and has just been a part of cultural. Sometimes overtly and sometimes more subtle. It touched on a lot of different aspects, many of which I have read about in more depth in other books, such as mass incarceration, and we be a good resource to read alongside a collection of other authors.
With Grace: Crazy in Alabama by Rita-Garcia Williams. Final book of the trilogy. The girls head to Alabama to visit their grandmother. Through each of these, the author provides a glimpse of the differences of cultural and family interactions the girls face in different parts of the country during the 1960s--airports and Oakland, California in the first book, New York in the second, and rural Alabama in this one. This third one especially focuses on how intertwined our identities can be with others. I thought they were all great and would recommend.
Maybe, just maybe, with the next of these posts for August, I will try to do so a little closer to the beginning of September so that my brain does not get quite so confused about what I have read in the previous month (versus what I have already read for this month).
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