Books about boundaries, horses, and prayer
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab
I always need help with personal boundaries, so I was excited to check out this new release. It's a fairly fast read, giving easy-to-digest chapters about what boundaries are, why they're important, how to practice making and setting them, and what that can look like with family, friends, coworkers, and yourself. Each chapter ends with some journalling prompts to encourage you to engage with the ideas more deeply.
This is a great overview, but I particularly appreciated her insight that there are two kinds of unhealthy boundaries: porous (not holding a boundary) and rigid (creating hard-and-fast rules that have no flexibility for various situations). Porous boundaries are my default, but in trying to create healthy boundaries, I often veer too far into rigid boundaries. Having this mental framework is helping me see where I have built unnecessary walls and imposed rules that have done more harm than good.
Although sometimes I wish the chapters went into more depth about each of the topics, there is still a lot of valuable insight to absorb here, so I still highly recommend it!
Blue Horses: Poems by Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver's poems train me to notice life in a different way: to enjoy the beauty of animals and flowers and objects in their particularity. Although I didn't like this collection quite as much as Blue Iris, it was still a wonderful book to read before bed every night. (I also started an anthology of Oliver's work, Devotions, but had to take it back to the library. I'll finish it once I steal it back from whoever stole it from me.)
Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott
I've always appreciated Lamott's wry sense of humor and expansive sense of theology (I remember as a teenager reading her description of Jesus as an alley cat mewling outside her door, and I was both horrified and captivated by such an image), and this short book about prayer is full of both— with a lot of insight thrown in for good measure.
Her thesis is that all prayers can be boiled down to three basic postures— "Help," "Thanks," and "Wow"— and she devotes a chapter to each one (as well as a chapter for "Amen"). It's funny, poignant, thought-provoking, heart-breaking, and full of a grounded sort of hope that continues to seek meaning in a world out of control. Definitely worth the read!
Previously on What I've Been Reading:
All What I've Been Reading posts
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