Happy "What I've Been Reading" 2022! This year I'm going to try to actually keep up with my reviews rather than just dumping all of them into twelve blog posts at the end of the year.
If you want real-time mentions of what I'm reading as well as initial thoughts, be sure to sign up for my newsletter.
On to the reviews!
Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength by Kat Armas
This book is absolutely stunning, for several reasons. Armas, a Cuban-American theologian, posits that too much of our theology is derived from what white male scholars think and not enough from how women on the margins live our their faith in the midst of la lucha, the struggle of existing on the edges.
The book is both personal and theological, seamlessly migrating between stories of her abuelita's (granny's) life to tales of women's protest and resistance in Latin America to insights about women in the Bible. Armas reflects on what marginalized women can not just tell us, but show us about the life of faith.
I really appreciated her Scriptural exegesis, giving perspectives informed by the experience of abuelitas in every culture to discuss both well-known figures such as Tamar and Ruth, as well as lesser-known women such as Shiprah, Puah, Orpah, Mahlah, Noa, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah, Huldah, unnamed wise women, and more. The chapter about Rizpah— a woman protesting state slaughter in 2 Samuel 21— absolutely shook me up.
I also loved the chapter that talked about her abuelita's folk religion— the rituals that her abuelita observed, and how people often decisively judge these expressions of faith as "superstitious" or "syncretistic." Yet, Armas argues, how can anyone deny that her abuelita's faith is not real, not sincere, or not important, when she demonstrates her faith every single day by casting herself into the arms of God to sustain her through struggles that most people condemning her will never have to face? Theology, Armas argues, is not so much about what you know but how you live. This is a powerful, thought-provoking, and beautiful picture of what that can look like.
Shoutin' in the Fire: An American Epistle by Danté Stewart
This book is a straight-up prophetic word (if you'll pardon my Christianese). It's a memoir but also an apocalyptic work, revealing and sitting with the cracks in the American system that are evident to Black people but so often not to white people. It often reads like poetry, vividly recounting Stewart's childhood in the Black Pentecostal church, his deep-dive into white culture at the expense of his own self when he was a young adult (like so many of us, he became a Reformed theo-brogian in the late-aughts), and the cultural forces and Spirit guidance that led him back to his roots, his culture, and his identity.
There is so much I could say about this book (I already feel like I need to read it again to really take it all in!), but one thing that jumped out to me was that it touched on many similar themes to Abuelita Faith: Stewart talks about how getting caught up in a very intellectual version of religion caused him to denounce his parents' faith because they didn't believe the "right" theology. It took him years— and embracing his own Black identity— to see the value in what he had dismissed as folk religion, and the way that his parents lived out their faith every day in the midst of struggle.
Another powerful theme in this book is the idea of giving up hope, and what you do after that (if that sounds familiar, yes, I did write a blog post about this idea last week, albeit with a different book!). His reflections on social justice and change within the context of this theme was something I'll be thinking about for a long time. Highly recommended for everyone!
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
A couple people had recommended this to me (thank you, Alison and Isabelle!), and I read the entire thing in a single day— I couldn't put it down. It's the story of a woman who grew up in Idaho in an extremely fundamentalist family who didn't believe in modern medicine and were always prepping for the end of the world. Her story of growing up, leaving for college, returning again and again and getting sucked back into her family, and her ultimately getting out, was a captivating read.
Massive trigger warning for familial abuse (physical abuse and gaslighting) and gory description (I had to heavily skim some sections, including not one but two parts where her family treated body-wide third-degree burns at home). If you can handle these, though, this is an amazing story about escaping abuse, uncovering identity, and learning to trust yourself.
Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren
This book is a beautiful reflection on the Christian life organized into a series of chapters each based on an ordinary act of the day: waking up, brushing teeth, getting stuck in traffic, drinking tea. Warren meditates on blessedness, self-care, community, communication, peacemaking, career, and most of all, why the ordinary matters to God.
A lot of her ideas made me uncomfortable, pointing out unconscious biases that I've built even though my rational brain says otherwise. Her musings about the anxiety of Christians to "make a difference"— and how that can cripple us from actually doing good in our everyday— especially hit me hard. This quote stood out to me:
"Biblically, there is no divide between 'radical and 'ordinary' believers. We are all called to be willing to follow Christ in radical ways, to answer the call of the one who told us to deny ourselves and take up our cross. And yet we are also called to stability, to the daily grind of responsibility for those nearest us, to the challenge of a mundane, well-lived Christian life."
I have a lot more thoughts about this, but for now, I'll say that if you're a Christian, this book is definitely worth checking out!
Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First People's Poetry edited by Joy Harjo
A wonderful anthology of Indigenous people's poetry across the whole U.S., some of them straightforward, some abstract, some beautiful, some brutal, some haunting, all worth reading. I highly recommend this, especially if you haven't read poetry in a while.
I haven't checked it out yet, but apparently there is a map of the poets' locations, as well as recordings of them reading their poems here: https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/living-nations-living-words/
What have you been reading lately?
~~~
No comments:
Post a Comment