Welcome to Litsy!

I finished the audio a few days ago. I‘m re-listening already. 😁

You won‘t find rules for living, finger-wagging, or easy answers. You *will* find an author as screwed up as the rest of us. (She admits this.) She doesn‘t push Jesus in your face, but says we can all do better (no extra-credit heaven points if you do). And BTW, God doesn‘t hate anyone.

Trigger warning: she is mouthy and swears (a lot).

May you expect so little of yourself that you can be super proud of the smallest of accomplishments.

May you expect so little of the people in your life that you actually notice and cherish every small lovely thing about them.

May you expect so little of the supply chain and the service industry that you notice more of what you do get and less of what you don't and then just tip really well anyhow. ⬇️

🤍 deep breathe everyone
If you‘re old it‘s the love the one your with theory
Do what you can where you can with what you have with your whole heart.

Tuesday thoughts

Also I love Nadia

https://thecorners.substack.com/p/if-you-cant-take-in-anymore-theres

I listened to this highly entertaining and convicting book about the ways God works through ordinary or unlikely people. Bolz-Weber does a fantastic job showing how grace and understanding often come from people and places we don‘t expect and maybe even from those that we don‘t like. I enjoyed her vulnerability, openness, and genuineness about her struggles in life and faith, sometimes leaving me with questions and reflections in my own life.

As a recently converted Nadia Bolz-Weber fan, I couldn‘t pass up the opportunity to devour her backlist — Accidental Saints + Pastrix — for #nfn2020! I seriously love reading and listening to her books. They‘ve given me a new outlook on my faith; and right now, I really needed that! 💕

May #BookSpinBonanza Book #4 @TheAromaofBooks

Nadia is a pastor in the ELCA, and I'm a seminarian on my way to becoming a deacon in the ELCA. So yay! 🙌 But I found her writing a lot more powerful back when I was first exploring a more open, inclusive kind of Christianity. Now that I've encountered so much depth and complexity from radical theologians, professors, and classmates in seminary, Nadia's stuff is less ground-breaking, but still good.

With so much time on Zoom and reading while sitting indoors, I've been having terrible eye strain, and today I woke up with it barely improved from where it was last night after classes. By the afternoon I had a terrible migraine, which is still terrible, so I treated myself to the first book on my #bookspinbonanza list that's available as an audiobook! (It's a good few down the list...) #migraineandaudiobook

Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber is snarky, salty, and absolutely endearing in this memoir of experiencing how the grace of God shines unexpectedly through flawed people, including herself. Her congregation “love that their preacher is so obviously preaching to herself and just allowing them to overhear it.” I love it, too. Bolz-Weber is the most relatable kind of leader: one who admits she‘s just as messed-up as you but has enough hope to light the way.

Hurray for Nadia Bolz-Weber and all like her, who acknowledge the mess of this world and its people but still find God wherever they look for him.

Anthony and I are perpetually early for everything, so as a result, we have an hour and a half before our flight to Las Vegas. I‘m sipping on some whiskey with my book on my Libby app. Life is good! ♥️🛫

Nadia Bolz-Weber is raw and vulnerable in this book. I keep having to take breaks.

I listened to the audio and it was moving and awesome. The authors particular style lends itself really well to being listened to, and this was one of the most honest Christian books I‘ve read in a while. Unorthodox and challenging.

Disclaimer - listened to the audio AND read along. This is the second of Pastor Nadia‘s books I‘ve read and find them full of insight and wisdom, interspersed with her history and story. You don‘t have to be a religious nut to find something useful in her books.

I‘m not sure what to say about this book yet. I certainly don‘t regret listening to it and would love for some more conservative Christians to read it. I‘m going to be pondering this for awhile, especially the need for community for people who are broken in some way, the people conservative Christians tend to rebuff, ignore, or actively try to keep down and how that is exactly the opposite of what Jesus showed in the Bible.

Moving anecdotes about members of her congregation and others

I need a break between Jacobean dramas, so starting Accidental Saints

Bolz-Weber is just a good story teller, so listening to the audiobook was a good choice. There was a whole lot about this book that resonated with me. Her stories about how God works in and through broken, needy people were a breath of fresh air for me. I've been battling some depression and anxiety these last several months, and it was encouraging to be reminded that Jesus is present and working in those messy places.

This is really a mash-up of two very different books. On the one hand we have a noisy 'look-at-me' humble-brag memoir, which to me was like fingernails on the blackboard; on the other, we have a quiet reflection on how we are called into community -- and into the liturgy and other traditions of collective church life -- so as to be formed by Gods grace as we extend grace to each other. Not complicated but radical in today's culture.

I devoured this book. Highly recommend.

Always a great feeling when you start a book with skepticism and assuming you're above what it probably has to say and then you're incredibly humbled by the message and are sitting teary eyed in bed thinking and feeling big things about Jesus and life.

And when I say great I mostly mean embarrassing and a little shameful.

I've got about a chapter to go but I'm calling it now - so-so on this one. I was intrigued by the concept but I don't think it delivered. It was more of a memoir than I was expecting. It is lao one of the few books I probably would have liked better if I hadn't listened to the audiobook, because she reads it herself and she just has that self-righteous pastors cadence I can't STAND. And that is an atheist's take on a book not written for me!

I really enjoyed this book a lot. She reminds me of Anne Lamott. I enjoy how she talks about her faith, her own life struggles, and those of the members of her church. (If you look closely you'll see a Bernie Sanders for Mayor poster on the wall from the 1980's.)

I heard about this one on NPR, then found out my library had it. I'm not particularly religious, but I found the author intriguing and her message inspiring. Her writing style and relationship to Christianity reminded me a great deal of Anne Lamott, whom I adore.

Continuing my #readathon while cooking ain't easy but someone's got to do it! Listening while the steaks sizzle... @DeweysReadathon

Books that are changing me now. There's so much relief and healing for me in reading these two books. Perhaps it is a bit of an everyday miracle they came to me at the same time? Enns approaches the OT questions that plague us all. It felt like balm to my soul to not hear a trite answer, but to receive a response that deals respectively with the ancients and today's skeptics gracefully.

I am excited to start this one! First #audiobook in a while and I am stepping out of my comfort zone for it. I am atheist and most especially of all dislike western Christianity. I look forward to a perspective that will hopefully help me disdain it a little less. :)

How I'm spending my morning. At the in-laws' farm being all sleepy, but at least I have coffee and this book! Nadia's down-to-earth words and invitation to be vulnerable and honest makes me want to be her best friend. She's like actually the bees knees 🐝👍😍 I highly recommend this book to anyone curious about a non-conventional faith (i.e. She's a pastor with *gasp* TATTOOS all over her arms 😂😂😂)

Audio Religion Brilliantly read by the author. Her no nonsense and human approach Christianity appeals to me. Her interpretation is how I was raised but cannot find in the modern church. We f-up and we live with it and we struggle to believe we are lovable. Must read for Christians and non alike.

She's so cool: tattooed, cursing like a sailor, feminist and queer-positive. But her theology--all that God/Jesus/Advent/liturgy crap--was too conservative for me, made me sick to my stomach. As a non-religious person, I couldn't get past it. I bailed halfway through.

My clergy book club is reading this book so I read it. It is a quick and enjoyable read but contains nothing that is new or especially noteworthy. I got it from the library; that was a good choice on my part. Nothing here worth $15.00.