2023 in Review (D24-30)

Christmastide is here, but the year’s almost over.

Merry Christmas! And happy New Year! I hope your year has been filled - with goodness and mercy in your wake, with friends and family surrounding you, with Christ before and behind you. 

I also hope you weren’t expecting to see pics from Germany this Saturday - I took them? But maybe you’ll see them next year ;) Have a look at some of my favorite photos of the year:

In this week between years, I wanted to share something more important:

“There is no difference between someone who won’t read, and someone who can’t.”

The twin disciplines of reading and writing have helped me maintain a semblance of sanity this year, and I do not take it for granted that you have chosen with your precious attention to read so many of my words (and, on rare occasion, gifted me with some words of your own!) When I started writing these letters back in January, I thought that the music I listened to would be the defining habit of my equanimity. But I quickly realized that while I did love listening to albums all the way through, books were doing the heavy lifting in keeping my person engaged in the work of good living.

I’ve read a lot of books this year - as have you undoubtedly. I’m going to tell you about the three best books that I still think about regularly, months after reading them. And in this week between years, would you give me one last gift and reply to this message (or send me a text or a Marco Polo or a carrier pigeon) telling me about your top 3 books from the year? Or, I don’t know, send me some of your favorite pictures of the year?

#3 Belonging by Geoffrey Cohen

I caught a glimpse of this book in a bookstore on a week home and it drew me like a moth to flame. So many of the heartaches and impatiences I have dealt with this year (and years previous) come back to this loaded word - and the book did not disappoint. While it is the least practicable of this short list (it’s mostly an exposition of scientific studies on belonging across the past 20 years instead of a handbook for how we can be better at creating belonging for ourselves or others), it provided language for belonging that allowed me to name so much of my frustration. Jesus says truth sets us free - and boy is there a lot of truth to be found in the data. I’ll be sure to keep writing about my implementation of these truths, but I suspect you’d find a lot of treasure in this book just as I did. If my political letters rubbed you in any way, I’d recommend this read as a follow-up and conclusion.

#2 Invitation to Silence and Solitude by Ruth Haley Barton

My roommate ran a group study from Practicing the Way that was based loosely on this book and while the video lectures were inspirational and scriptural, I found that, like most movie adaptations, this book was better. And it was better by a *lot*.

You could read Barton’s Invitation all year long. Each chapter has exercises that are immediately implementable, that stack over time, and that provide a practical framework by which to create a secret place for you and God to meet as long as you wear your eyes to see and ears to hear. 

I read this book in February and think about the lessons in it every day. If you give it a chance, the God you’ll meet in the practices will change your life. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the absolute case, and that His invitation stands as a guiding light to the life you actually want to live.

#1 To Be Told by Dan Allender

Odds are good that if you’ve talked to me in person at all this year, I’ve spouted wisdom at you about being alive that originated from this book. While I probably haven’t said this title directly to you since March, it’s been living rent-free in my conscious and subconscious ever since.

It’s not a book for just anyone. But it’s at the top of my list of books I think you’d benefit from reading for exactly that reason. This book is for writers, for co-laborers with Christ, for those seeking God’s will for life-altering decisions - with very practical tasks in each chapter to illuminate your way forward. Allender crafts, like the quote that opened this letter, a very emotionally compelling case for why there may be no difference between someone who doesn’t write and someone who can’t. While I could make the same case to you now, Allender wrote a whole book about it and if you’d like, I’d be happy to send it to your house as a belated Christmas gift (I just might need you to remind me of your mailing address first lol) or to your inbox as a pdf (in a week or two).

Yours is a story to be told - co-authored with God, the plot, characters, theme, and moral of your life aren’t a mystery to be revealed at the end of your life, but recognized and chosen while you’re still living it. I’ve always hated/wrestled with the meaning of life because it’s not obvious: but Allender is convincing me that it’s not impossible to know and that it might just possibly be hand-tailored to each of us.

—

Our CFO shared some of the books that had helped him through hard times at our last All-Staff and, as an avid reader, I was pretty unimpressed by his recommendations. Not because they’re bad books, but because I’d read a lot of the books he’d recommended or books by the same authors or in the same genre and found them to be unhelpful.

One of the lessons from Belonging is that a good intervention is only effective if it comes at the right time - so while these books hit me at just the right time this year, it’s entirely possible that you read the free chapter on Amazon and roll your eyes fondly at what pithy prose is hitting me between the eyes. And I can live with that - as long as you tell me my taste in books is garbage with a list of your own best reads in hand.

And while my brain absolutely functions better when reading words, I realize not all brains process words on a page as words spoken in podcasts or told in stories. So. Send me your most influential media of 2023! And tell me about the difference it has made for you~

Happy New Year!

–Beth