I am seven years old, standing in the front row of the church in the Canadian prairies. Our congregation is a simple one, just a few dozen of us in a community centre clapping along to the repetitive and simple praise choruses about the exodus of Israel or the blood of Jesus or repeated proclamation of Hosannas. Three tambourines in a small room make quite a racket. The ladies wave banners, the children dance. I throw myself into the ecstasy we know together and sing loudly to God, As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul longeth after You. I mean every word.

I just got my driver’s license and I immediately drove to the mountains with my friends. We are sitting on the warm dirt in front of a campfire in Kananaskis country’s dark sky preserve. The Milky Way is our cathedral. I’m sitting on the ground, leaning back against the legs of a boy sitting on a felled tree, his hand is tracing circles on the back of my neck. I have no shame about the way I kissed that boy earlier in the day, my body alive with longing. We’re all tanned and we smell like sunshine we’ve been soaking up all day. Now, the conversation has slowed and we are all staring into the fire and up into the night sky. I feel held by those stars and by the Spirit, like I belong in the wonder.

I’m standing in a gigantic stadium in Tulsa, thousands of people surrounding me. The music is loud, deafening. It’s dazzling – all of the noise, all of the anthems. We sing songs of the victorious, the conquering, we are being rallied to a cause greater than ourselves. I am singing along. In the moment, I feel like crying, feel like jumping, feel like running. I feel alive, every cell thrumming with passion. Look at us, so young and beautiful and so easily manipulated for an agenda. Someone on stage calls us an army but I have no idea what that means and even less interest in finding out. Later, I find out. I do not last long in this world.

The liturgy of my childhood church is empty to me now. I’m tired of the performance and the answers and the politics and the certainty and the declarations and the who’s-in-who’s-out and the demand for more more more. Every unanswered prayer once began with God, we just want….

God, I just can’t hear you here anymore.

Maybe I never did.

I am still wanting.

I’m laying flat on my back beside a creek in the woods home in the Rockies, holding hands with the boy I’m going to marry someday. The clouds drift through the sky. We aren’t talking and yet we are saying everything. He thinks he wants to be a pastor and I think that’s great. I have no idea what that means for either of us.

I’m in my mid-twenties, standing in my backyard in south Texas, smoking a cigarette in the dark and praying in tongues. I’m married to a pastor and every Sunday, I want to skip church. I listen to k.d. lang crooning from the stereo, tapping ash into the flower beds, and long for home. In the living of it, I don’t know what to call this season of my life but someday I will know that I was grieving, I was growing, I was evolving. I was deconstructing, which sounds so much more forensic and purposeful compared to what I was feeling: tangled, impossible, a liability, a doubting skeptic, an arched eyebrow, a backslider, an apostate, a problem.

I was a mess but I was honest at last. What a relief.

Read more

This week, it’s time for our quarterly SHARING OF THE GOOD THINGS but before we head into that little respite together, I wanted to ask you for an opinion on our upcoming series here at Field Notes.

What deep-dive series should we do next?

For the uninitiated, I typically write a deep-dive series of essays or devotionals here at Field Notes a couple of times a year from Advent to Lent to our Unexpected Jesus series. But it’s time for something new as we head into June and I’d love to know which idea resonates with you the most right now. We’ll likely start next week.

Here are the options I’ve got on my short list:

1. Unlikely Spiritual Practices. I’d love to explore some of the spiritual disciplines/practices beyond the old faithfuls that many of us were taught (i.e. morning devotions with a Bible, set times of prayer etc.). I hear from people a lot that they have run out of gas or have some hang-ups around more traditional disciplines but have a lot of interest in cultivating a healthy spirituality within their daily life. So what are the unlikely practices that cultivate spiritual health in us?

2. My Mixtape Faves. Remember mixtapes in the 90s? When we would create an offering on a tape or a CD for someone in order to explain our taste in music and basically our whole origin story as a condition of friendship? I’m thinking something similar but for Bible stories or Gospel moments. In this series, I want to deep-dive four stories/moments in the Bible that were deeply formative for my own theological development. If this was a mixtape in the 90s, these essays would be the first few songs on my offering to you to explain why I am the way I am.

3. Parables, Reimagined. The stories Jesus tells always fascinate me and as my faith has evolved over the years, I’ve been shocked by how often I misunderstood them (or, more accurately, was taught a version that wasn’t entirely complete or nuanced). I thought it might be fun to look at a few parables through a new lens together.

4. Psalms of Hope Devotional. This would be a more traditional “devotional” format with questions, journalling options, and a much shorter essay/reflection rooted in the topic of hope through the Psalms.

5. Or something else entirely? Chime in through the comments if there is something else you’d like to propose. I’m open!

Leave a comment

Just an FYI, I’m not looking for a “winner” here - it’s quite possible I’ll pick something that did not receive the most votes but I’d love to get an idea for where your own hearts are at right now. All of these ideas are a possibility, if not now then in the future.

Thanks so much! I always love hearing from you all. Your input has shaped and guided a lot of what I do here at Field Notes and you rarely steer me wrong together, so I’m deeply appreciative.

Now? The Good Things

Once a quarter or so, we take a little break from everything to talk about the small - or maybe not-so-small - things which are bringing a bit of goodness or relief or joy to us.1

For me right now that includes a new television series that is bringing me immense joy, two albums I’ve got in steady rotation, a couple good recipes, reels that I sent to my friends (I’m old, I don’t do the TikTok), a new dress for the summer, the knitting pattern I have promised you for eleven months, my favourite Substack articles lately (DO NOT SLEEP ON THESE), and even more good things.

Then you get to share your own good things in the comments and my own list grows ever longer.

And just as a reminder, this is a sponsored-content-free zone. These are all things I genuinely experienced myself organically and/or paid for myself, so I feel good talking about them with you.

📖 A Good Line Worth Holding Onto

💖 Your Top 3 Favourite Reads

(AKA the most popular Field Notes since the last time we did this round-up)

📚 Reading

For my fellow bookworms, our latest Book Corner is right here with all my favourite recent reads. We’re having a great chat in the comments about books there, too!

📺 Watching

Read more

This blessing is not simple.
It does not have a section in the 
drug store's greeting card aisle.

This blessing is not uncomplicated.
It is for the things that are happening
or happened, or will happen
far away from the highlight reels.

It does not come with hashtags or
comment sections or 'girl, you've got this!'
blithe encouragement in text messages.

This is a blessing for the things you do not,
cannot, post or sometimes even name.
This blessing is for the heartbreak 
unvoiced in public spaces,
far from the neck-craning on the highway of consumption.

This blessing will never say, 
"Well, at least you have...."
or "On the bright side..."
So, it's a small mercy, I guess.

This blessing is for the ache in your chest,
the tears you cry in the car so no one can see you,
the stories you never tell out loud,
the secrets you keep,
the harder details behind the general answers you offer
for public consumption because you've learned the hard way
some things just can't be said to everyone.

This blessing knows there are depths 
to which we descend alone. 
People can come with us so far, but no further,
and so here you are, with this blessing.

Read more

Hi friends,

When he was in kindergarten, his first pair of glasses were navy blue and there was a little green squid along the arm of them. At his graduation from high school last week, I couldn’t stop thinking of that little face and those silly squid glasses and the unique kid who wore them, all the stories only we know together. All day, I kept welling up every time I looked at him. I keep my children’s stories private, I know, but his has expanded and deepened every corner of my life. Now he towers over me in his cap and gown, his university acceptance letter is in my keepsake drawer. Loving the particularity of him has set up a thousand altars for encountering Emmanuel, the one who is God with us. God spare us all from sentimentality over raising children, when what we need and have always needed is a sturdy, steady, humble love. I have made an offering of my life to this work.

Last week, I hit SEND on a milestone edit for my new book. I printed off the manuscript so my husband could finally read it - we are old, we still like paper - but then I ended up in the chair near my desk to read it myself, one last time. I actually like it. I think some of my best writing ever is in here but who can tell at this point? It is the seventh book I’ve written and after this, I am taking a little break of sorts, so I want to make sure these pages contain everything I am desperate to say about loving the world even when it breaks your heart. It’s a weird thing to keep offering up your deepest stories and truest beliefs for people to review on Amazon. I’m not sure I pulled off what I hoped for entirely, but I believe in books and in telling stories and in loving our God, our neighbour, ourselves through these pages. I have made an offering of my life to this work.

Okay, I am realising now that last week was actually a big one - no wonder I’m tired today - because we also celebrated our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. We fell in love when we were 19; married when we were barely 22 years old. We grew up together. Now his hair is salt and pepper and I am reading books about menopause. Our eldest daughter is wildly in love with her sweetheart and so she keeps reminding us “you were engaged at my age!” like it’s an endorsement and we look at each other in disbelief, I guess we were that young once? How did our parents let us get married? Who could have stopped us? We have built a whole sanctuary in twenty-five years. Again, nothing about real love is sentimental and it’s not a fairy tale but now, all these years later, I think this ordinary mystery may actually be our true vocation. We have made an offering of our lives to this work.

In the mornings, I often get up early with our sweet dog, Lucy. Feed her and our remaining cat, Amy; Rory our giant ginger softie having gone where all good cats go in the end. I change their water and make the first pot of coffee for us all. I open all the blinds even though it’s been daylight since 5:30 a.m, put the dog in the yard to stretch her legs, crack open the windows even though it’s still cold outside because I like a little fresh air. Once all the creatures are settled, I get my coffee and sit down with my old Bible and my journal along with whatever book on spiritual formation I’m reading at the moment. The rest of the house will wake up soon, but I still like the idea of quiet time, bless my own heart. Right now, I’m re-reading Howard Thurman’s classic book Meditations of the Heart and it is even better now, when I am 47-years-old, than it was when I last read it at just 35.

I’ve got a list of names in my journal of the people I hold in prayer: remember this one, God, hold them close like the good Mother you are to us all. I’ve written the names of my friends and their children and grandchildren; countries; leaders; enemies (always a good reminder); my children; my parents; my sister and her family. Hold us all close, Jesus, I say. I still like making direct eye contact with God in the morning, re-entering the conversation we’ve been having all my life. It’s old-fashioned and even a bit cringe or performative to some folks, I know, but I keep making my mornings an offering.

I haven’t been open, online or otherwise, about how hard the past year and a bit has been on me, physically. I’ve had repeated relapses of chronic illness and flare-ups of fibromyalgia in a way that I thought had been managed (LOL). Bodies rarely cooperate with our plans. And I still hate talking about it so please don’t ask me about it and do not expect me to mention it again, but I suppose, after fourteen months of it and the fact that I am finally emerging from the fog of it, I should at least make an acknowledgement of this: it hasn’t been great. Also I have a teeny bit of arthritis in my hands now and just whatever, man. I am trying but mostly failing to dedicate this part of life to God, too.

Lately, I keep thinking of those old lines from the Bible as I first learned them: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.1

Jesus, man. Every time. And what a sentence. Some things just need the old King James, don’t they?

What a gorgeous vocation. What a simple and completely impossible thing. What an offering. I could walk any aisle and make a declaration of fidelity to such a thing.

“The answer to all this reaction of deep anxiety and anguish is, says the poet: “thy life to God an offering make, and to Him dedicate.” And the meaning of this?” writes Howard Thurman. “If I make my life an offering and a dedication to God, then this dedication will include all of my entanglements and involvements. There follows, then, a radical change over my entire landscape and miraculously I am free at my centre. It is for this reason that it is well, again and again, to re-establish my dedication, to make repeatedly an offering of my life. I must keep my dedication up to date with my experiencing.”2

These lines, I underline. I dog-ear the page. I write the lines out in my little earnest journal. This is three pages over from another list of petitions I’m holding up to God like a promissory note I want honoured by the management.

Everything, all of it, is an offering. And our dedication to offering our lives to God has to keep up with our experience of our own lives. Thou shalt love God and love thy neighbour and love thy life. Make an offering of it all.

When I was little, growing up in the church, the elder saints often referred to an altar call as an invitation for “dedicating your life to God.” I rolled by eyes at that language for a decade or two but now I like it all over again. I keep dedicating my life to God, over and over again, not because I’m afraid of hell - which I don’t believe in anyway - but because I am learning how to love God and love my neighbour and love my self in real time.

I am dedicating this, everything, all of it, all of me, to God. I am offering it all like a gift even when it feels more adjacent to a curse sometimes. I am offering up my joys and my pride, my wins and my losses, my worries and anxieties, my best work and my memories of little boys in squid glasses, my ordinary life. I am running down the aisle of my life like it’s a church and in return, God keeps telling me to love it all.

It’s hardly optimal but it is beautiful.

That cheeky eldest daughter also has a little white board in her bedroom for her uni schedule, her assignments, and her reminders. In her girlish printing, she has included the lines from 1 John 4:16: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” Every time I wander into her room to rescue dirty dishes or find a lazy cat who needs to be fed again, I see those words and I am brought up short again. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

Well, hallelujah to that.

I would walk any aisle in any church now or any avenue of trees that does the same kind of holy work of leading us to an altar of sorts. And I would say, yes, I want to re-dedicate my life to this kind of love all over again.

I’m not afraid, I’m not anxious. I am, in Thurman’s word, often “centred down” in a way that I wasn’t when I was younger. In fact, I am filled with love and gratitude for it all today. Right now, anyway.

It turns out that it is actually an abundant life when it has the capacity to break your heart and mend your heart at the same time. It’s all an offering. I’ll keep re-dedicating it all, including me. I’m just trying to keep the hope of it all up-to-date.

Leave a comment

From the middle of it all,

S.

My Books | Field Notes | Instagram | Facebook | SarahBessey.com

• The Worst Marriage Advice: And hopefully some better advice instead

• 25 New Breath Prayers: The liturgy of loving others / is a joy to me

• The Books I’ve Been Reading Lately: My recent ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reads plus all the books I finished recently

• You Asked, I Answered: Our yearly Q&A on everything from making time for rest to the practices for staying gentle, from skincare to Instagram follows to why Christians believe differently about things and beyond

• I am going to live like there is hope: I’ll act like the underdog of love always comes from behind to win by total upset.

My husband Brian and I are celebrating a milestone anniversary today: our 25th wedding anniversary.

It sounds like such a grown-up one, doesn’t it? I mean, your parents and their friends had things like “silver anniversaries.” How do we qualify? This sounds like we are properly middle-aged. Which…I guess we are!

In the lead-up to this milestone, we’ve had so many good conversations reminiscing about our beginnings and many milestones, all the versions of us that we have each been over the years, where we started and where we are now as well as where we dream of being someday. It’s been the most beautiful experience of my life to be Brian Bessey’s wife and partner; I’m greedy for another twenty-five, fifty, years. There isn’t a day of my life that I am not grateful for the sanctuary of us.1

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours, Jeremy Duncan said, “The miracle isn’t that we fall in love, the miracle is that we find a way to stay there.” And that got a big YES, SIR from me. The miracle of us doesn’t feel like simply “congrats on STICKING IT OUT FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF HARD WORK, GUYS.” No, the miracle is that we have stayed in love for all these years and, as he said, this somehow “hints at the kind of love that holds the universe together.”2

But then that reminiscing somehow led to laughter - and some groans and disbelief - over the worst marriage advice that we had absorbed in the early years of our relationship. Between marriage-obsessed family-first churches and marriage conferences run by unqualified experts, premarital counselling and ‘wisdom’ from twenty-two-year-olds-who-have-been-married-all-of-ten-minutes, saints preserve us.

Alas, commemorative plates for the silver anniversary have gone out of fashion but unhelpful and unhealthy advice about marriage remains ever in fashion.

So this week, I thought I’d share some of the unhelpful/untrue/worst advice about marriage that we picked up in evangelical church culture, you know, for funsies!

Sometimes it feels like the bad advice about marriage is like a lie, it can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts on its shoes.3 So rather than just saying what isn’t great, I wanted to make some room for some better advice or something more helpful, too so I’ve tried to counter some of the unhelpful advice with some possibly better perspective or practice.

Worst Advice: Marriage isn’t supposed to make you happy, it’s supposed to make you holy.

This was a popular one for sure. This is a classic of seemingly church-y language disguising a harmful idea. I mean, I do believe marriage can make you holy. Our relationship has certainly made both of us holier; by which I mean, marriage has absolutely developed love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in us. It’s just that… marriage has also made us happy.

Making it seem like holiness is to be preferred over happiness or somehow pitting them at odds with one another instead of a cooperative relationship is a way of glossing over red flags, opportunities for growth, and invitations to deeper intimacy. This kind of language wants to reward people for staying miserable instead of pursuing joy. When our sadness, grief, discontent often leads to resentment more than holiness. In my experience, if someone is trying to convince themselves to stay married with an argument like this, both the happiness and the holiness are already gone. It’s more fun to be married when both people involved are happy, promise. And if one person isn’t, don’t dismiss it with spiritual sounding platitudes: chase after rediscovering and enjoying happiness together.

Better Advice: Happiness does matter and it particularly matters in your marriage. Don’t give up on being both happy and holy.

Worst Advice: Divorce or separation is always a failure.

I have never forgotten a conversation with my own mother (herself happily married for more than 50 years to my father) when I was a very young woman. One morning, I was reading a news article about some Hollywood actress who had gotten married and divorced in less than a year. I rolled my eyes at the kitchen table and went on a sanctimonious rant about how “nobody takes marriage seriously anymore” and “what about a covenant before GOD?” and “that’s the problem with this culture” and all that know-it-all language from the wisdom of what it takes to be married from my vantage point of, oh, twenty years old and a born baby.

My mother let me rant and then, very quietly but very clearly, she told me I didn’t have the first clue about marriage and to take several seats. She said something like, “You have no idea how long a single day is when you are miserable or being treated poorly or are trapped. No idea. So for that couple, maybe a year a felt like twenty years. You don’t know. Nobody knows what goes on in a marriage. But you don’t get to judge just because you have no clue, little girl, that when you are dying inside, a day feels mighty long.”

I shut up rather quickly.

Now the longer I’ve been married, the more compassion I have for those whose marriages needed to end. And as a devoted wife and mother, I’ll just tell you: some marriages do just need to end. It’s not a failure, it’s reality and God can meet us there, too. In fact, the longer I’m happily married, the more freedom I want for others. If it isn’t good, I don’t want it for you, me, or anyone. Witnessing friends of mine be set free from unhealthy marriages - not simply abusive ones, but those too - has been revelatory. God’s goodness met them in deep pain: it was death and resurrection somehow. Not every marriage is good for everyone. Admitting that takes a lot of courage.

Better advice: God’s grace is there for endings, as well as beginnings. Some marriages need to end. And that is not always a failure, it’s often very real and tangible grace in the end.

Worst Advice: The husband is the head of the home.

Read more

“God can take my most fumbling, faltering prayers and make something lovely of them.”

- Madeleine L’Engle

Hi friends,

As our title indicates, it is once again time for a few new breath prayers. If you’re a newer subscriber to Field Notes, I usually share a little round-up of my own breath prayers every quarter or so. Last time we did this, it was breath prayers For when your heart is heavy but your resistance is steady.

As usual, these prayers are rooted in some of the things I’ve been working through or meditating on in my own life. For context, it’s been a rather busy season on this side of the computer between the usual things plus work deadlines (my new book’s final development edits are due in a matter of days - prayers much appreciated!) and family life (our Joe is graduating high school! can you believe this? I cannot. Please do not make eye contact with me about this if we encounter one another in the wild or I may well up and become a cliche about “days are long but years are short” which every mother of tinies loathes to hear from us more seasoned parents).

All of which is to say that breath prayer is, as always, the faithful companion to me in daily life. Kingdoms may rise and fall, but still a beloved son has a milestone, the weather is changing to spring, work deadlines loom, family dynamics must be navigated, ordinary altars spring up, heartbreaks splinter, and the load from the dryer needs to be folded for the love. In those moments, breath prayers travel with me through tasks and turmoil and turning points alike.

But because these are the ones that I wrote from my own life right now, they may not meet you where you are at. If that’s the case, I hope you jump into the comment section to share your own prayers. It’s a gift you all often offer to one another - and to me!

First, A Reminder: How to Practice Breath Prayers

Breath Prayer is an ancient form of prayer, passed down through the Church in many streams and still widely practiced today. It is easily adaptable and you can find this type of prayer in almost every faith tradition in some form or another.

Simply choose one or two lines to meditate on and inhale and then exhale through them in a way that feels steady to you. It really is that simple.

• You can pray a breath prayer literally anywhere without any special rituals or whatever. I used to like to find a quiet corner for a few minutes and I’d start by lighting a candle, being quiet and getting all centred in my soul. But these days? Man, I pray them in the street, in the minivan, on the train, at the courthouse, wherever.

• Take a moment to quietly become aware of your body. Sit in a way that is comfortable for you, a position that will allow you to take a deep breath in and out. Close your eyes.

• Breathe slowly and deeply for a moment to slow your racing thoughts.

• Then begin to pray, one line for an inhale, one line for an exhale. You can do this internally or aloud, I’ve done both. You’ll find your own rhythm of how this works with your own breath. I promise you do not need to overthink it.

• Pray the prayer on the inhale and then the exhale.

• And then simply repeat this practice with five good breaths in and out.

• I like the repetition to really help the words sink into my own heart for the day or the moment.

As an example, one historic form of breath prayer is known as The Jesus Prayer. So, with that as our basis, here’s how it works:

Inhale. Fill your whole self with breath. Feel the air in your lungs. And then pray aloud or to yourself:

“Jesus Christ, son of God,”

Exhale slowly and fully.

“Have mercy on me.”

And then simply repeat this practice. Start with the five good breaths in and out, with the words being spoken aloud or quietly held in your mind, it’s up to you.

New Breath Prayers

Each couplet of inhale/exhale stands is its own stand-alone prayer. Don’t see this as a litany of words to just gallop through as a huge recitation, but simply pick one or two that speak to you and adapt it you like for your own prayer practice.

Inhale: The liturgy of loving others
Exhale: is a joy to me.

Read more

It’s the quarterly “let’s talk about books!” edition of Field Notes this week. First, a warning: it is a truth universally acknowledged by all who have read this newsletter for even a hot minute that I never read more books than when I myself am under a book deadline. It is a quirk of my nature that I read a lot of other books in order to write a lot myself. The less time I have? the closer the deadline? the more demanding our home life? the more I read. The math doesn’t math but here we are.

I understand this makes zero sense.

I also understand that at a certain point one must simply accept, nay embrace!, the idiosyncrasies of the self. This is just how I work when I am stressed out and overwhelmed. Some people turn to drugs and drink and deep-dives of real housewives, I turn to the library. Case in point: my poor little sister has never recovered from watching me blithely and belligerently read novel after novel in our dorm room, all while knowing that my senior paper was due in a matter of weeks. The second-hand stress of it nearly did her in. My husband chooses to believe this is part of my process and not avoidance, bless his optimistic heart. Alas, I have not changed in that habit at least in twenty-six years: the busier I am, the more I read and then the more I get done. If it ain’t broke etc.

As such, this is the warning: I have been working on my own book edits over the past few weeks all while experiencing a higher level of demand in our off-line life (all is well, just you know, LIFE) in general.

Basically, today you must brace yourself for too many books. I’m sorry. This is just how I am.

But before we jump into all that, an invitation!

Life is Hard, Being Honest Helps

I’ll be in conversation with the beloved content creator and fellow Canadian author Libby Ward at Found Books in Cochrane this May 13th. We’ll be discussing her bestselling memoir Honest Motherhood: On Losing My Mind and Finding Myself. I hope a few of you can join us to say hello!

You do need a ticket to attend and they are going fast so if you’d like to join us, grab a ticket for you and a friend. (Your ticket includes a signed copy of the book.) We’ll see you there!

Tickets for Libby Ward Event

Busy? No time? Deadlines? Demands? Apocalypse? Ans: Read more.

In these quarterly book posts, I like to share (most of) the books I’ve been reading lately along with my honest thoughts. (Hence, the paywall below.) If you’d like to get an idea for my taste, you can check out my favourite books of 2025 or last quarter’s bookish round-up right here which includes a bonus rant about why reading matters still/always.

Open up your library’s Request Hold page or your online retailer of choice,1 let’s get chatting about books!

My Two Tip-Top Favourites This Quarter, Non-Fiction and Fiction

Non-Fiction Fave

Joyful, Anyway by Kate Bowler ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It is not fair, truly, that Kate is both so wise and so funny. She is so deeply loving and yet unsentimental, kind and big hearted with a dash of vinegar. For the sad and the aching who somehow still know how to laugh, this is the masterpiece. I know I might not be the most unbiased reviewer2 but how can I help but trust someone who calls me out like this: “…even though I openly despise toxic positivity, I usually lie to people about how terrible I feel.” DAMMIT, KATE.

“Joy can come in when you least expect it. But it is more than just a feeling, it is an argument for life itself. Joy is the idea that, yes, it is good to exist - even now.” - Kate Bowler

Fiction Fave

Read more

Hi friends,

In what has become an April tradition1 it’s Q&A time. Earlier this week, I opened up ye old question box on my Instagram Stories and my Facebook Stories for your enquires to help build this week’s Field Notes. Hundreds of questions rolled in - far more than I can answer in this newsletter, I’m afraid - but I tried to choose a good cross-section that represents frequently-asked questions as well as a wide spectrum of topics, so buckle up.

In the spirit of AMAs, these responses are pretty “off the top of my head” answers with the intention of quick-takes. Plus I am making my best *attempt* at keeping each answer short and to the point in order to answer as many as possible: brevity has never been my strong suit but I’m trying! All of which is to say, each of these could be their own Field Notes essay altogether but I’ll keep it moving today. You are very welcome to chime in through the comment section to offer more perspective, too.

But first: Faith Without Certainty

There is a new podcast episode with Kate Bowler, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and yours truly now available! I love these two women so much. I think we forgot that we were recording a few times but whew, this was just what I needed on that day and I hope it brings some goodness to you too. It’s available everywhere you listen to your podcasts or you can watch it on YouTube.

Now to the AMA… You asked:

• If we all (Christians) have the same Spirit in us, how do we land so differently on big issues?

• What’s your current knitting project?

• What practices help you stay soft (open, kind, gentle)?

• We are in the middle of a potential house move. How have you coped with life’s transitions?

• As a fellow ORU grad who also had to “detox” do you keep in touch with college friends?

• I struggle to make time for rest and play. Any tips? (Fussing at myself just doesn’t work…)

• Why do you delete posts from Instagram?

• Best marriage advice?

• Tell me more about your affirming LGBTQ+ journey in the church.

• Favourite cookbook for family life? tired of making the same things.

• What is so life-giving about Elizabeth Goudge?

• Can you drop some scoop from your alchemy weekend? Like the notes about shows, makeup, etc.

• What is your college degree in and do you wish you had studied something different?

• Canmore or Banff for vacation with adult children/spouses and one baby?

• Helping connect teenage boys with God when their friends are not interested?

• Who are you rooting for in the Stanley Cup playoffs?

• What’s bringing you hope lately?

I answered

Read more

Dear friends,

Well, against all odds and advice from experts, I’m going to live like there is still hope. In fact, I’m going to be downright ridiculous about it. I’ll be defiant and stubborn, an absolute curmudgeon for hope.

I will be gentle with all my fears and heartbreak, the anxieties of being a person in this age at this moment. I’m going to take deep breaths and relax my jaw. I will remember that the Gospel is not in danger; it has survived everything from fascism to Christian nationalism to tradwives discourse before. The Good News isn’t nervous yet.

I will abandon everything that whispers that it’s best to give up, to stop trying, to give in to the despair. Everything holy has a bit of dirt on her chin and blood on her knuckles anyway.

Today, I will trust in the wisdom of elders who have seen it all and still speak of hallelujahs. I will assume faithfulness wins. I won’t forget that the outsiders are God’s insiders.

I’m going to make the coffee in the morning and hug my tall beautiful complicated children. I’m going to love these people in this house on purpose, with particularity, in completely ordinary ways. Watch my eyes light up when they walk in the room.

I’ll remember that I’m not alone, not by a long shot, because you are here and you are here and you are here and we are all doing our best to tip the scales towards goodness still. I’ll make plans like the world will survive us.

Today my friend became a grandmother and so I am going to pick out the yarn to knit that baby a sweater. It takes so much hope to have a baby, at the very least such a choice deserves a tiny sweater.

I’ll bless my appetites and my own hunger, I’ll gulp in the north wind that purifies and cleanses us. Then I’ll order some bedding plants for the garden because I still believe spring is coming.

I’m going to live as if everything will actually be made right someday and justice will prevail, tears will be wiped away and every exile will lead the dancing. Oh, I’m going to live my life like God is trustworthy. I’ll act like the underdog of love always comes from behind to win by total upset.

I’m going to say yes to the possibilities of participating in the renewal of all things even when they wear very small, ordinary disguises. I’m going to stay informed and stay sane at the same time.

I’ll keep loving this world until it breaks my heart and then I’ll sit in the pieces, holding onto love.

Today, I’ll write a poem and I’ll pray like it matters. I’ll practice resurrection1 and I’ll build a habit of peacemaking and I’ll remember to take the meat out of the freezer for supper later.

I’ll go for a walk and when I see the bare trees beginning to bud after this long cold winter, I will consider a whole sermon. My heart will wave hankies and I just might shout Amen! at the clouds in the sky.

Today, I’m going to live like there is hope. It’s all I have and no one will take this from me.

Share

Love S.

My Books | Field Notes | Instagram | Facebook | SarahBessey.com

Leave a comment

• 70+ Favourite Books for Kids: By request: our family read-alouds for little and big kids, a few faith-based books, and even the solitary reading faves for quiet afternoons

• For the Congregation of Veronicas: A few thoughts on Holy Week, collective tears + rage, still caring, and everywhere we can see Jesus right now

• How to carry all the heavy things: A conversation about Counterweights with author Shannan Martin

• Keep Not Quitting: Sometimes the greatest act of faith we have in our arsenal is our stubbornness

• The Prayer You Wrote For Each Other: We have all offered something to this prayer, even if it was simply our willingness to be present to it

Share Sarah Bessey's Field Notes

Over the years of writing Field Notes,1 I have grown to love this rhythm of sitting down, every week, just to write you a note from life or share a big old-fashioned essay or even explore a few things together. I’m here in Calgary this morning with my favourite tea beside me, our dog curled up on my feet. Snow is STILL falling outside the window (how long, O Lord??). And like you, I do have a few complicated and big thoughts swirling in my head about the topics of our days from the current memoirs discourse to politics to Artemis II to existential dread - what else is new? all of which has resulted in about six half-finished essays in my Drafts folder. But I’m also aware that last week’s essay was a more demanding read for everyone.

So with that in mind, I thought we could take a breather through this email together and talk about our favourite books to read-aloud.

What prompted this? Well, a few days ago, I shared this on social media:

Reading aloud with my children is an old favourite pastime. They grew up in old books and pictures books, library books and graphic novels. I have one last baby - fine, she's in middle school - who still likes a read aloud and I tell you I am *cherishing* it. We finished another novel last night together. Listening to her laughter over the escapades of the characters, their now familiar foibles, comforting her tears over fictional characters, the satisfying melancholy of the words "The End."

The world is changing so fast these days, most of it worries me. It feels like such a hard time to be a person, let alone raise one or four. But the rites of readers are still intact.

Stories still work magic, empathy, wisdom, courage, grace. Sometimes it just takes a snowstorm filled spring break, a head cold to ground me at home, old children's lit favourites, a snoring dog, and a kid who keeps saying, "One more chapter??" to make my heart steady again.

May your weekend bring a good book your way.

And then a few folks asked via comments, emails, and messages for our favourite family read-alouds.

Twist my arm, eh? and so here we are at today’s missive.

Honestly, my sincere thanks to you all for this prompt because I wandered over to the keepsake children’s lit shelves in our family library and promptly lost myself in memories and good stories. What a joy it was to read aloud with my children, every night before bed and throughout their days! Some of my best memories.

These books on our shelves have broken spines and sticky fingerprints and battered edges but they are among our treasures.

These are the books that were beloved by my own four kids 2in various measures and stages (not every book is for every kid, obviously). You’ll see that I clearly steered towards classics that I loved myself for our reading time often plus these were all readily available books at thrift stores and libraries.3 If you have newer or other titles/authors to share, please do so in the comment section for everyone’s benefit.

I could write a paragraph about each one of these books - how little Anne memorized Madeline in its entirety when she was two years old; how our Joe loved Ferdinand because he felt so “seen” as a kid who also enjoyed the beauty of the world rather than stereotypical competition with peers; how we laughed over Ramona Quimby’s antics; how I changed the names of the Owl Babies for the kids’ names - but I’ll keep this to a simple list for the sake of your sanity and hold my memories in my heart.

What to Expect Below

I’ve shared a few of our favourites for

• Big Kid read-alouds - 23 total,

• Little Kids read-alouds - 30 there,

• 6 faith-based books that won’t give your kid religious trauma,

• 11 Solitary Favourites that the tinies used to spend literal afternoons paging through because the illustrations or information were so riveting, resulting in a quiet house for a tired mother, a win all around.

(If this cuts off in your email inbox due to length, just head over to the post itself to finish reading it.)

Let’s talk about children’s lit for today, shall we?

Read more

Hi friends,

During Holy Week, our church typically sets up make-shift Stations of the Cross1 in our sanctuary. Anyone is welcome to simply come throughout the week, whenever you have a moment, no appointments needed, and just move through the stations at your own pace. There are little clusters of chairs and benches before each station so you can sit as long as you like before each modern day icon, meditating on the moment it represents. The room is quiet, dimly lit, even holy. This is meant to be an intentional slow down pause in a week that most of us like to skip in an eagerness to get to the Easter joys.

It had been a few years since I last did this exercise myself but two of our teenagers were keen to experience it all for themselves. So last year during Holy Week, we three showed up at church; I figured I’d trail behind the kids while they moved through the stations and we’d be on our way.

But, as always, God has other plans.

Before long, I was balling up shredded tissues in my hands, quietly weeping before each icon, overwhelmed once again by this ancient story that disrupted everything, including me.

But it took me a year to understand my tears that day.

At the midpoint, one icon in particular caught my eye: Saint Veronica. I couldn’t remember ever paying much attention to Veronica. But now? that evening? I couldn’t seem to move on from her station in the pilgrimage.

Prior to my journey into the traditions of the Church in my thirties, I had never heard much about Veronica since her story is an extra-biblical or apocryphal one. But as you may recall from our Unexpected Jesus series, I do love learning the stories of women in the Church whose names or stories have been lost to us.2

Veronica was a widow from Jerusalem who happened to be standing alongside the road when Jesus, carrying his cross, beaten and bloodied and already condemned, passed by. She was deeply moved with compassion for Jesus and she offered him her own veil to wipe his forehead for relief.

After wiping his face with her veil, Jesus thanks her and moves on but the legend tells us that her veil now bore an image of his face. It’s a relic known as the Veil of Veronica which has its own interesting legends.

Me being a low-church sloppy Protestant to my bare feet, I’m not too fussy about relics, so that miraculous part of the story isn’t actually what caught my imagination that day.

Instead, it was Veronica’s simple act of defiant courageous ordinary care in the midst of great suffering that took my breath away. I stood before that icon in our unfussy sanctuary for what felt like an age, unable to even name what it stirred up in me.

The kids had finished their own journeys and retreated to the youth room in the church basement with their pals. Eventually I kept moving through the stations, becoming more emotional at each icon, letting myself enter into the experience of our Jesus in a way that I hadn’t done in a long time.

To be honest, I’m still processing a lot of that evening’s pilgrimage, a year later, for all that it seemed to heal in me, the permission it unlocked, and even the path I’m still walking now at a time of great suffering in our world.

More of that experience began to come into focus at last just a few weeks ago. My husband and I went out for the rare treat of dinner just us two and a concert at the Jubilee Auditorium here in Calgary. This was supposed to be a fun time of rest and music and joy, a Christmas gift looked forward to for weeks until that night

Instead, I cried my heart out in the booth at our local sushi place.

Why? Because of the Epstein files.

(How many women have done this? hundreds. millions. legions. congregations. arenas. parliaments. flocks. broods.)

I lacked the fortitude to read the files themselves but a couple days prior to our evening out, I had decided to read an overview of the details from trusted news sources. And even just those few high-level stories, the few photos that I wish to this day that I hadn’t seen, the stories that just kept coming in the days afterwards, all of it was enough to absolutely break me.

Throughout the days, I could not stop crying about these girls. I could not stop thinking about what they endured and what they still endure. I could not stop lamenting and raging about men and power and all they get away with and the grotesque horror of it all.

At the restaurant, I kept trying to articulate to my husband the betrayal and grief I felt for the women and girls who had endured this evil, who still live with it, and my rage over the men in power who just keep using and abusing women, always have and it seems always will, without any consequences, let alone justice. I kept trying to say, “it’s not just this, it’s all of it, it’s all of it.”

I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I wanted to burn down everything. Like Florence + The Machine, I wanted to dig a hole just to scream into it. I wanted to unknow everything I knew about it all. I knew I would never forget it. I haven’t. I had nightmares for a while.

So I cried with rage and sorrow at our little booth in the restaurant, balling up tissues like I had over the Stations of the Cross a year previous. I couldn’t seem to stop verbally processing everything I had learned about this particular evil and my rage over the systems - the powers and principalities - that continue to gobble up and devour the vulnerable without consequence. It all poured out of me and he listened, kept passing me more thin paper napkins, kept saying, “keep talking, it’s okay, say it all.”

Now it is Holy Week again.

A year after my tears over the Stations of the Cross, particularly at the icon for Veronica, and weeks after that moment in the restaurant, and all that in the context of, well, everything. And I think I might know why.

Read more

I am so excited to welcome my friend and fellow writer, Shannan Martin to Field Notes! For those of you who don’t know her yet, Shannan Martin is the bestselling author of several books, including Counterweights, Start with Hello, The Ministry of Ordinary Places, and the popular Substack The Soup. Shannan is a wannabe gardener, a news geek, a fighter for justice, and a fellow thrift store stalker. She and her family live as grateful neighbors in Goshen, Indiana, USA where Shannan is on staff at the local community kitchen.

Shannan and I have known each other for years, both online and off. She’s the real deal, the love-your-neighbour kind of Christian, and a consistent voice of reality on social media. Her new book is called Counterweights: An Essential Practice for Holding Hope in a Heavy World.

After reading an advanced copy a few weeks ago, I knew that I wanted to share this one with you. It’s about how to carry all the heavy things of our days. Basically, this one was made for such a time as this for folks like us. And for all of us who have felt like lonely in the weight of the world, this will be a kind friend to you.

So for this week’s Field Notes, I’m sharing our conversation about everything from what counterweights even are to how this practices differs from ye olde “gratitude lists" or “counting your blessings.” We chat about justice, grief and lament, what an abundant life even MEANS right now, how we can stay open and tender-hearted, what it means to build community, our love for a chain grocery store, the joy of thrifting, telling honest stories about the church communities who broke our hearts, and so much more.

If you are looking for ways to carry everything that’s heavy right now, I hope you find some goodness that helps in that work here.

A Conversation with Shannan Martin

Sarah: For readers who are just meeting this book for the first time, how would you describe the idea of “counterweights” in your own life? What first made you realize you needed them?

Shannan: Life has never been easy, but it started to feel like the heaviness was compounding. Every hour, there was a new terror to contend with. The anxiety in the air thickened into a fog. Everyone was mad at each other and people were growing meaner by the day. And that was on top of the regular demands of being human. It started to feel like too much. I knew I needed to find a way to redistribute the weight so I could carry both the challenges and the goodness.

A counterweight is any little thing that lifts us up and tilts the scale toward goodness. Most of us are looking for ways to survive, but the counterweights practice reminds us that it’s about more than that. There’s so much we can’t control, but there are tiny pockets in our days where we still have a say. There are moments where we can choose delight, carve out rest, and pursue beauty. Those counterweights keep us breathing through the chaos. We only get to do this once. We owe it to ourselves and each other to be as whole and healthy as possible. We can’t create a better world if we don’t remember why, in spite of it all, there’s still so much to love about life.

Sarah: You start us off with the no-nonsense very literal advice from your blue-collar father about heavy things: “carrying something heavy becomes more efficient, more doable, if we carry something equally heavy in the other hand.” Right now, everything feels incredibly heavy especially if you’re paying attention to the world.

You use that notion of counterweights to frame the entire book: “If our grand plan is to find a way to keep going, the answer is to double up on the weight. Redistribute the weight. Get back to work.” As a prairie kid, this? I understand. Counterweights is very honest about the weight of the world now and yet you aren’t glib about “counting blessings” either. How is Counterweights different from a lot of the “count your blessings” or “be content and grateful” books that are often - let’s be honest - geared towards women?

Shannan: Yeah, I’ve done the gratitude lists a time or two. There’s nothing wrong with them, but they don’t tell the whole story. Personally, I find gratitude to be meatier when I hold it up against the struggles and sorrows. It’s grounding to take stock of it all, the good and the bad. Doing this orients me to the white-hot center of my reality. If I can love my life there, I can carry on in hope.

My dad and his two heavy buckets gave me a mental image that really stuck with me. We can picture our lives as a scale. On one side of the scale are all of the heavy hardships we didn’t ask for and can’t control. But there’s another side to that scale. We can choose to load it up with heavy goodness. When we do, it lifts us up and pulls us back to center, so we have momentum to keep going.

We can only counter what we’re willing to weigh. Giving both buckets our sacred attention is a simple but profound way to show up for ourselves.

Sarah: In my early years, I was discipled in the prosperity gospel/Word of Faith movements who absolutely loved John 10:10 (that “abundant life” promise). So maybe that’s why I immediately noticed your opening take on that verse. You write “The abundance is not just the good stuff. We get it all. Every drop, every dreg - the good, the terrible, the “Who even knows?” That’s the deal.” This is such a reframing of the promised abundant life. How has your understanding of an abundant life shifted?

Shannan: Hey, me too! Many of my most formative years were spent in charismatic, prosperity gospel spaces. It never really “took” for me. I always felt skeptical and even uncomfortable, which, in turn, made me doubt myself. Even as a child, though I didn’t have the words yet (not to mention the voice,) I couldn’t make sense of an abundant life that promised only “good” and bountiful things – health, wealth, and comfort – when reality proved much more complicated. My family of origin struggled financially for many years, but we were told to claim the promise of wealth. I watched people who professed perfect health die of cancer they refused to acknowledge out loud. It seemed like a hyper-spiritualized form of Christian “voodoo,” which was, naturally, a word too dangerous to mention.

When I was sixteen with a driver’s license, I made my escape to a less dramatic denomination. It wasn’t until decades later, after our family moved into the neighborhood and found community with incarcerated people, that I began to understand “abundance” differently. I now had proximity with people who struggled deeply but honestly. That honesty that shifted something in me. I had to learn, for the first time, that my faith and my relationship with Jesus is not separated from reality. There was no need for magical thinking and no space for keeping secrets from God. Our friends taught me the freedom of telling the truth about grief, disappointment, pain, doubt, and failure. Only then did I begin to experience the nearness of Jesus, my companion, through it all. Only then did I understand the richness of a community committed to not playing games. True abundance means we get it all. Our job is to figure out how to carry it, preferably together.

Sarah: Many of us feel overwhelmed by the heaviness of the world right now. How have you learned to stay tender and open-hearted without becoming exhausted or numb?

Shannan: Unfortunately, I have a very “all or nothing” mindset. When difficult things are happening, I believe they’ll stay that way forever. I have to fight my way out of that. At times, my hardest work is against becoming cynical. When I feel that creeping in, I know I need some resets. And I know no one can do it but me. I was taught that my heart was wicked and my body was selfish and sinful, but I know better now. I’m learning how to listen to my body to understand what I need. I often ask myself – sometimes out loud – what are my counterweights? They are always happening, hiding in plain sight around us, waiting to be noticed, waiting to help. I might need a quick nap. Hydration. Silence. A walk. I might need to go stick my face in a flower or stare up at the sky. I might need to sit around a table with trusted friends. I might just need something to look forward to. No one can love my life for me. Gathering up counterweights throughout my days keeps me in the rhythm of appreciation for the small, accessible things that make life so dang juicy and delicious.

Sarah: Some of my favourite passages in the book are about your community - the soup kitchen where you work, the friends on your street, the neighbours we encounter. You are very embedded in your place. Why do you think belonging to a particular place and people is such an important spiritual practice right now?

Shannan: Our family moved to this community 14 years ago. I didn’t know a single person in this city. I had a language barrier with most of my neighbors. It was all very new and unfamiliar. And exciting! Now, this place is vitally home.

I’ve learned two important things. 1) Community has to be built. It doesn’t just happen. It takes time and sweat and awkwardness, and it is always worth it. 2) It’s not about “finding your people,” but rather, “recognizing your people.” Many of my most treasured friendships don’t make sense on paper. I’ve become a big believer in looking around at who else is within reach and building from there. At a time when things feel so fraught and divided and also so AI-generated, there’s nothing like gathering with the ones who know the truest version of you. I think we all want to be known. It just requires someone to reach out first.

Sarah: You’ve written openly about justice, belonging, and community. How does the idea of “counterweights” shape the way Christians engage with social issues, grief, and collective trauma?

Shannan: One of my favorite Bible verses is Jeremiah 29:7, “Work for the peace and prosperity of your city. Pray to the Lord for it, because its welfare determines your welfare.” (paraphrase) It is a whole sermon. I love that it states “work” first, and then “pray.” It’s like God knew we were going to be looking for short-cuts or reasons to not dive into the mess for the sake of each other. The order here seems meaningful. It doesn’t allow us to get stuck or sidetracked by simply praying about injustice from a safe distance. This verse offers a Biblical receipt that humanity is fundamentally interconnected. If one of us is not safe and well, the whole lot of us is not safe and well.

A thesis for this book (and my life) is that no one should have to die to experience the kingdom of God. As Christians, our collective task is to create a better, safer, more beautiful world for everyone, right now. I write throughout the book about the idea that if the people with the least amount of power are cared for, everyone is cared for. But! We cannot do this healing, nurturing, co-creating work if we exist in a doom spiral. Dreaming and creating requires hope. We have to be able to get out of bed. We have to stay as whole and healthy as possible. We have to remember what we love about our messy lives and this injured world. Counterweights helps us do that.

Sarah: I love your unabashed love for things that aren’t cool whether it’s Kroger’s (listen, I love a chain grocery store) or thrifting or mugs or even very ordinary not-photo-worthy meals. As someone who can be a pretty basic girl, I loved the acknowledgement of these basic aspects of our lives that aren’t always Instagram-worthy. Where are you experiencing a counterweight right now that would fall into that basic/ordinary/uncelebrated category?

Shannan: This is my fourth book, but my first book tour. There are so many details involved in putting something like this together, but the one most likely to make me panic is, what am I going to wear?? Amid the hustle and planning, I’ve found time to hit up the local consignment store and thrift stores and pulled together some entirely secondhand looks. Even the elusive shoe gods smiled on this endeavor! Thrifting is an evergreen counterweight for me, as you’ll see in the book. For me, there’s something really special about the communal aspect of shopping secondhand. Beauty is often found in humble places. The world is always providing what we need to carry on.

Sarah: There’s a strong thread of honesty in this book about grief and lament. Was there anything difficult or vulnerable for you to write about in this project? How did you decide what or even how to write about what happened with your church in particular?

Shannan: When I set out to write Counterweights, I wanted to be as honest as possible about both the weights and counterweights I was experiencing. Some of them are shared experiences and some are deeply personal. The fallout with our former church was catastrophic for my family. There was no way I could write honestly about my life without including that particular grief.

I didn’t feel compelled to go too far into the weeds of the story, in part because part of the healing process has meant literally moving forward, away from all of the details that had us bogged down for so long. I also know, sadly, the story of feeling hurt, betrayed, or even being harmed by a church is widespread. Too many of us relate, and I wanted to validate that. It has been eye-opening to experience firsthand the ways powerful institutions seek to silence those who seek justice and accountability. All the while, counterweights have emerged that have restored our faith, perhaps not in institutions, but in the gathering of ordinary saints and the journey toward the way of Jesus.

Sarah: If readers finish Counterweights with only one new posture toward God, themselves, and the world, what do you most hope it will be?

Shannan: Every Sunday at Holy Alliance (our weekly gathering with the men and women who are incarcerated at the work release facility,) my jail chaplain husband says, “What is God?” The crowd echoes back, “Love!”

“And what else is God?”

“Love!”

“And what else?”

“Love!”

I think he says it as much for himself as he does for anyone. If we could really settle into the unwavering, limitless, extravagant, singular love of God, it would change everything. It’s the ultimate counterweight.

Leave a comment

My thanks to Shannan for writing her lovely book and for this conversation. You can find Shannan online:

• More information about Counterweights - out today!

• Shannan’s website for more about her, her work, and all the places to connect

• is her newsletter here on Substacak

• And make sure you follow her on Instagram.

You’re all a counterweight for me,

S.

My Books | Field Notes | Instagram | Facebook | SarahBessey.com

• Keep Not Quitting: Sometimes the greatest act of faith we have in our arsenal is our stubbornness

• The Prayer You Wrote For Each Other: We have all offered something to this prayer, even if it was simply our willingness to be present to it

• An Invitation: Collaborative Prayer Circle: You don’t need to pretend you aren’t angry, that you aren’t cynical or afraid, that you aren’t feeling a bit hopeless or uncomfortable or envious or tired.

• “I don’t want an easy faith, I want a brave faith.”: Celebrating Rachel Held Evans’ “Braving the Truth” + The Superlatives

• A Simple Lent for Everyone Who Doesn’t Really Have Much Left in the Tank Right Now: A 40-day guide for those who want to observe Lent but honestly feel like they might cry if they have to add one more thing to the To-Do list

Hi friends,

It’s been impossibly difficult, oh, I know that.

It’s been humbling and it has felt like nothing is working and it’s all uphill and you’re wondering why you even bother. It has felt like two steps-forward-one-step-back. It has reminded you over and over again that you are not in charge because if you were, you would surely run the universe better than this. It has disabused you of your idealism, leaving you to a path through reality. There is more grief than you thought you could bear. It’s messier than you thought it would be. It’s broken your heart. It has proven more complex than you could have imagined. It has hurt like hell. And it has felt futile and ineffective.

People talk about victory and success and manifesting, but sometimes it takes all of our energy to just keep not quitting.

Oh, there are days of hope, too. There are days of excellence and abundance. There are moments of brilliance and flashes of renewal. There are times when you get a glimpse – just a glimpse – of the abundant life you believe in so deeply.

There are times when right in the middle of the hard and the impossible you find yourself thinking, “I’ve never felt more alive and I’ve never been happier than right now.” There are moments when you feel the needle moving, when you feel the moral arc of the universe actually bending towards justice and love and shalom.

There are days when you feel like you’re in the right lane and you feel a whole cloud of witnesses cheering for the race you are running. You are daring to stand between what is and what will be and what longs to be, you know this.

But other days….

Well, the heavens are rather silent and you feel like you are plodding along in a dirt track without an end game.

We know all the lines from scripture that are deployed in such moments. We’re more than conquerors. We should be strong and courageous. We know that we will reap a mighty harvest if we faint not. We know that with God all things are possible.

Those grand words can feel far away from our lived reality sometimes.

And that’s when the greatest act of faith we have in our arsenal is our stubbornness.

Keep not quitting.

Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep showing up. Keep praying, keep standing, keep working.

Even if there are days like today, days when you feel like the only success was that you didn’t quit, then you are still there – I call that a victory of its own.

You are working the muscles of perseverance and selflessness, of service and dogged hopefulness. You are a sticker. You’re not someone who shows up when it’s easy and leaves when it’s time to dig in. You are committed to seeing mountains move.

On these days, you turn again to the holy reminder: hold fast.

You are not undone by powers and principalities or politicians. You are choosing to love God and love your neighbour, this is the whole deal.

You are declaring in a defiant act of faith that there is no futility, not to God’s economy where nothing – not even our failures and our discouragement and our disillusionment – is wasted.

Victory doesn’t always look how we thought it would: sometimes the victory is the seed that falls to the ground and dies for new life to be born. Some rewards only come after faithfulness. An old preacher used to say, “Without battles, there is no victory.” You understand that now.

This is not the end. Keep not quitting for today at least.

Cultivate your joy and rest and renewal as an act of resistance - it is.

Don’t underestimate your faithfulness – or your stubbornness.

Small acts of faith are still acts of faith.

Keep not quitting. Holding fast in the face of the storms and the silence and the sorrow is its own sort of victory.

Leave a comment

Holding on,

S.

My Books | Field Notes | Instagram | Facebook | SarahBessey.com

• The Prayer You Wrote For Each Other: We have all offered something to this prayer, even if it was simply our willingness to be present to it

• An Invitation: Collaborative Prayer Circle: You don’t need to pretend you aren’t angry, that you aren’t cynical or afraid, that you aren’t feeling a bit hopeless or uncomfortable or envious or tired.

• “I don’t want an easy faith, I want a brave faith.”: Celebrating Rachel Held Evans’ “Braving the Truth” + The Superlatives

• A Simple Lent for Everyone Who Doesn’t Really Have Much Left in the Tank Right Now: A 40-day guide for those who want to observe Lent but honestly feel like they might cry if they have to add one more thing to the To-Do list

• For those who need a respite of (minor) goodness: from Olympics joy to the reels I sent to my friends, a delicious cold night recipe to a movie I loved, and more, these are the good things of this winter so far

I’m tucked away, finishing another round of edits for my new book, so for this week, I thought I’d bring back a popular essay from 2017. This one hasn’t been available online for a few years and I hope it brings you a bit of goodness again. - S.

Hi friends,

Last week, I hosted a collaborative prayer circle in the comment section of Field Notes with the promise that I would create a collaborative prayer out of your comments and sure enough, that’s what you’ll find below this week.1

What you created for one another is stunningly beautiful and heart-achingly honest. As I was weaving your words together over the weekend, I found myself incredibly moved. Thank you for this, truly - I think I needed it, too! If you are at all feeling alone in prayer and longing, I encourage you to go read through that comment section: you’ll find kindred spirit after kindred spirit sharing the cries of their own hearts right now.

I’ll get us started: let us pray

God, we gather here together as a make-shift community, held together through comment sections and inboxes and open tabs on the Internet browser as well as our prayers. We have felt alone in our longings for justice and for peace, in our fears and in our hopes, but now we are reminded: we aren’t alone.

We are part of a remnant, a small outpost of hope and goodness and stubbornness, still at work in this world that you so love.

We have all offered something to this prayer, even if it was simply our willingness to be present to it. You see every word we offered to one another in the comments and you hear every cry of our heart that we were unable to articulate. You see us in our different places as we read these words, scattered all around the globe, in all our diverse and unique stories, and you love us, all of us.

Perhaps the is the most radical thing we can pray together today, Mothering One, is our confession and our declaration that you love us, all of us, and you love this world. We abide within your steadfast love and every prayer of our heart today is held within that love. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Hear us, a choir of misfits, as we pray:

The Prayer You Wrote For Each Other

Read more

I have felt like I have a stone sitting in the middle of my chest lately. I just wrote and then deleted an entire paragraph of my own howling and rage and grief about everything from the unfolding war in Iran to the Epstein files to friendships under new strain as paths diverge to local provincial politics and beyond. I deleted that paragraph…

Read more

Today is a big day: Rachel Held Evans’ book Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning With and Reimagining Faith is now out and available in the world!

I was honoured to serve as the book’s editor/midwife and so it’s a milestone here, too. After two years of work on this very meaningful project, it feels so good to be able to place her words back into your hands and hearts.

At the request of her widower Dan, I have spent the last two years immersed in Rachel’s online archives to create this book. Combing through our shared past, working with an incredible community of contributors, footnoting and contextualizing, editing and crying, remembering and even laughing through tears as this book slowly came together was a heavy lift at times, but a gift all the same.

These are the essential essays. Not only Rachel’s most viral (although those are there) but also the most pivotal in her own story, the most influential, the most remembered, the most treasured by her readers who trusted her to be honest, and even the most quietly beloved by her.

To reach the day when this special book finally is placed into your story too, is a big milestone, a finish line of sorts.

I wasn’t sure how to mark the day with you all. It’s complex and emotional, sad in many ways but lovely in others. So here’s the thing I have decided, especially after all those hours immersed in Rachel’s voice, a book from Rachel is always worth celebrating.

Why? Well, on the intense book release days of our past, Rachel was always the first person to make a big deal out of the day. She was a writer’s writer and a real friend of writers. So many of us from that era can testify that there would be text messages and emails (usually with half a dozen exclamation marks accompanying), social media amplification and genuine joy as she celebrated a new book. Her ability to read and endorse widely and well was legendary. In some ways, I think she liked to celebrate the book releases of her friends even more than she liked to celebrate her own! When she released a new book, we all rallied to celebrate, to spread the word, and to honour her as our friend and guide, too.

So even though today is yet another heavy reminder day of how much she is missed and how deep the grief is over her absence, especially for her beautiful family, I’ve decided to simply try to celebrate in honour of her and all that her blog meant to so many of us then and what this book will mean to so many for the future.

(This may be dissociation of the highest form but hey, even that has a role sometimes.)

So, I decided to award “Superlatives” to certain essays within Braving the Truth.

Below, you’ll find my choices for “Wisest” and “Most Likely to Make You laugh” and “Most Likely To Upset Theobros All Over Again.” This whole construct might be a deep-cut reference just for the O.G.’s of the blogging era, but I’m going with it anyway.

But first, I’ll tell you what the book is about:

What is Braving the Truth about?

New York Times bestselling author Rachel Held Evans inspired a generation of questioning and evolving believers. This book offers a collection of her most impactful essays—in print for the first time.

For a generation finding their footing in life after evangelicalism, Rachel Held Evans was one of the most trusted and beloved voices of our time. Stubborn in her hope, courageous in her questions, and devoted to inclusivity, her online writing was a sanctuary to the millions who read her words daily. Her death to a sudden illness in 2019 invoked a global outpouring of stories of her legacy and influence.

Today, her words still speak, and now for the first time, fans old and new can experience her most viral and enduring essays in print. Braving the Truth is an anthology and keepsake collection letting readers borrow the bravery Rachel was best known for. Edited by New York Times bestselling author and Rachel’s dear friend Sarah Bessey, and interspersed with reflections from Matthew Paul Turner, Shauna Niequist, Lisa Sharon Harper, Glennon Doyle, and more, this special volume tackles topics such as:

• “An Evolving Faith:” On doubt, asking questions, and liberation from certainty

• “That Unholy American Trinity:” On patriarchy, white supremacy, and religious nationalism

• “Casseroles and Kingdom of the Hungry:” On the church

• “All right, then, I’ll go to hell:” On gender and sexuality

• “Still a Bible Nerd:” On Scripture, biblical literalism, and a better way

• and more

“If you want to understand the Church today, you need to understand Rachel Held Evans,” so writes Sarah Bessey. Thoughtful yet down-to-earth, immediate and timeless, this essay collection is a gift from the past to bring into the future—a treasury to revitalize, validate, embolden, and return to again and again.

Now available everywhere books are sold!

Braving the Truth

My thanks to our lovely contributors for their reflections throughout the book, I am grateful for your companionship here.

Braving the Truth Superlatives

Those of you who were readers of Rachel’s blog in real-time likely remember her weekly round-up feature Sunday Superlatives.

For the uninitiated, Sunday Superlatives was a popular series where Rachel shared links to anything she found that might interest her readers. She introduced her choices every week with what she called ‘superlatives,’ similar to a high school yearbook, but with made-up titles like “Best Analysis” or “Most Challenging” or “Most Likely to Say It Perfectly” or “Lightest Packer” (she jokingly awarded that one to herself for managing to get a week’s worth of luggage into a carry-on bag).

Speaking from personal experience, there were few thrills of affirmation like being included in Rachel’s Sunday Superlatives. Often playful, always interesting, Sunday Superlatives were one small way Rachel fostered community online and remained committed to her larger goal of amplifying other voices.

So with that in mind, here are a few Superlatives from the essays we featured in her new book, Braving the Truth.

Most Likely To Remind You That You Belong Here

Foreword by Dan Evans

“If you have been reading her work since the beginning, welcome back, old friend. If you just found her now, welcome to the beginning.”

Most Viral Essay

“All Right, Then, I’ll Go To Hell”

“In that moment - the one with the big bear hug - I knew what my Sunday school teachers would say. They would say that this man was most certainly not worthy to come to the Table, that I was most certainly not worthy to serve, and that daring to participate in this endeavour would surely take me one step closer to “everlasting fire.”

“The body of Christ, broken for you,” I said anyway.”

Most Surprisingly Accurate First Blog Post

Traveling Mercies for the Consummate Ass

“Spiritual pride is always a temptation for the believer, and I sincerely hope it is avoided on this blog. No one’s journey is the same. There is much to learn from one another. So instead, I would like this little spot on the Web to serve as a sort of traveler’s forum, a place for exchanging adventure stories, survival tips, and those priceless hole-in-the-wall recommendations that make a journey memorable.”

Best Use of “Turns Out, You Were Right”

They Were Right (and Wrong) About the Slippery Slope

“They said that if I questioned a six-thousand-year-old earth, I would question whether other parts of Scripture should be read scientifically and historically.

They were right. I did.”

Best Testimony

The Power of Testimony

‘“I am a Christian,” I concluded, “because the story of Jesus is still the story I’m willing to risk being wrong about.”’

Most Likely to Make You Laugh

If Men Got the Titus 2 Treatment

“…one is hard-pressed to find men kissing one another on the cheek in churches today. This is because those who do not take the Bible seriously claim these clear teachings of Scripture have a “cultural” component.”

Most Relatable for Anyone Who Can’t Go to Church Anymore

Sunday Morning

“What I feel these days is not guilt, but something far more nefarious: dull resignation. There are nearly two hundred churches near my small, Southern town, and hundreds more if we make the long drive to Chattanooga, so the fact I can’t seem to make it through a single service without questioning the existence of God says a lot more about me than it does abut church, now doesn’t it? ….

Am I selfish for wanting more?

And who will bring casseroles when I have a baby?”

Most Vulnerable

Why Calvinism Makes Me Cry

“I was upset because my single greatest fear is that God hates his creation, that he will never stop being angry with me, that he has chosen just a few for salvation, that the little girl in India is not among them, and that, perhaps, I am not among them either.”

Best Turning Point

What Now?

“So rather than wearing out my voice in calling for an end to evangelicalism’s culture wars, I think it’s time to focus on finding and creating church among its many refugees - women called to ministry, our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, science-lovers, doubters, dreamers, misfits, abuse survivors those who refuse to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith or there compassion and their religion, those who have, for whatever reason, been “farewelled.”

Best Reason to Listen to Her

I Would Fail Abraham’s Test (and I Bet You Would, Too)

“I am not yet a mother, and still I know, deep in my gut, that I would sooner turn my back on everything I know to be true than sacrifice my child on the altar of religion.”

Best Reframing of the Culture Wars

How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation

“So my question for those evangelicals leading the charge in the culture wars is this: Is it worth it?

Is a political “victory” really worth losing millions more young people to cynicism regarding the church?”

Most Thought-Provoking for Parents

If My Son or Daughter Were Gay …

“If God blesses Dan and me with a child who is gay, I would want that child to know without a doubt that he or she is loved unconditionally. I would want her to know nothing could separate her from the love of God in Christ. I would want her to know that she isn’t broken, she isn’t an embarrassment, she isn’t a disappointment.”

Most Likely To Make The TheoBros Mad All Over Again

“Is God a Man? A Brief Response to CBMW’s Accusation of Heresy

“God is not a man. God is not white. God is not American. God might not even be a ‘Bama fan. (Too far?)

And as a woman, referring to God as she or Mother serves as an important, liberating reminder that I am indeed created in the image of God, not as some lesser being who exists in perpetual subordination to men, but as an expression of God’s very self.

If that makes me a heretic, guilty as charged.”

Best Reminder

You Don’t Hate Me. You Hate My Brand.

“Perhaps the most radical thing we followers of Jesus can do in the information age is treat each other like humans - not heroes, not villains, not avatars, not statuses, not Republicans, not Democrats, not Calvinists, not Emergents - just humans. This wouldn’t mean we stop disagreeing, but I think it would mean we would disagree well.”

Best Perspective for the Future

The Risk of Birth

“In 2016, the world bared its teeth and my baby giggled back.”

Most Unlikely Honesty From A Christian Writer

I Don’t Always Tell You

“I don’t always tell you about the depth of my doubt.

I don’t always tell you about how the cynicism settles in, like a diaphanous fog.

Or about how sometimes, just the thought of reading one more Christian book I only half believe exhausts and bores me.”

Most Likely to Stick With You

What I Learned Turning My Hate Mail Into Origami

“Something tells me we would all be a little more careful, a little more gentle, if we knew how long our words linger in one another’s lives, if we imagined those words sitting on one another’s kitchen tables, shaped like foxes.”

Luckiest Friend in the World

Sarah Bessey

“And finally, Rachel. I miss you every single day. God, I love you. I still can’t believe I got to do such good work with such a good sister at my side.”

YOUR TURN: In the spirit of that old-fashioned blogging prompt, what’s a superlative you’d like to offer to celebrate Braving the Truth? It can be about a book, blog post, tweet, talk or anything that Rachel offered to you.

Leave a comment

As I wrote in book’s Afterword, “You meant so much to Rachel. Whether you were alongside of us for those years or are just now getting to know her work, you are deeply loved. You were carried in her heart and then in mine as this book came together. Thank you for being part of this story, too. You were always kindred spirits.”

Thanks for supporting Braving the Truth. Truly. Thank you for buying it for yourself and for your friends or your church library. Thank you for taking the time to write generous reviews and those five-star ratings at online retailers or reading websites. Thanks for requesting it at the library. Thank you for handing it to a friend who needs to feel a little less alone. Thank you for sharing pictures on social media and tagging her account, it is much appreciated.

And thank you for making sure that this book isn’t just a keepsake but a gift from the past to carry into the future that still needs to hear from Rachel Held Evans, too.

With gratitude and grief,

S.

My Books | Field Notes | Instagram | Facebook | SarahBessey.com

• A Simple Lent for Everyone Who Doesn’t Really Have Much Left in the Tank Right Now: A 40-day guide for those who want to observe Lent but honestly feel like they might cry if they have to add one more thing to the To-Do list

• For those who need a respite of (minor) goodness: from Olympics joy to the reels I sent to my friends, a delicious cold night recipe to a movie I loved, and more, these are the good things of this winter so far

• What I’ve been reading lately: My recent ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reads plus all the books I finished recently from rom-coms to fantasy to spiritual living to poetry

• For when your heart is heavy but your resistance is steady: More than 50 new breath prayers to develop courage and resilience in us that we may walk in love and bring forth justice

• How an old legend is giving me hope right now: Or, Tending to the Fire

As I began to prepare a guide for Lent this year, I had my eye on all of us who are a bit exhausted and overwhelmed by the demands of the world and our own lives. I am highly aware of those of us who want to observe Lent but honestly feel like we might cry if we have to add one more thing to the To-Do list.1

Hence, a simple Lent for everyone who doesn’t really have much left in the tank right now.

In the guide below, you’ll find one short scripture reading a day focused on the week’s theme and a breath prayer inspired by that reading. That’s it.

This 40-day guide for Lent is particularly for the low-capacity ones who still want to make room for possibility of transformation and love in our actual lives. It’s for the cynics who need to remember why they are even bothering to try right now, too. Centred on weekly themes, it shouldn’t take more than a few minutes every day if you’re in a rush but you could stay there for as long as you need, too.

Um, what is Lent?

Lent is the 40 day, give or take, period of the Christian calendar leading up to Easter. It starts with Ash Wednesday (this Wednesday 18 February) and ends right before Easter. Usually the church worldwide will focus on themes like repentance, fasting, serving the poor, prayer, and other ways of preparing our hearts for the big week of Easter.

For this Lent guide, you need:

• Access to the Message translation of the Bible

  • For the guide below, I point your scripture readings towards the Message paraphrase of the Bible. I did this purposely because, whether folks have some baggage around reading the Bible or, alternatively, have found the Bible really intimidating and so haven’t read it much, I have found that this version to be generally more hospitable.

  • No need to go out and buy anything if you don’t have this version of the Bible handy. There are a ton of Bible websites or apps with this one available for free including The Message website itself.

• The download of the guide itself

  • Keep scrolling for the downloadable/printable version of this guide, it’s near the bottom of this.

  • I kept this all quite plain in design, so that you can just print it out on your printer easily or even navigate it on your mobile.

    • These aren’t always in keeping with traditional Lent themes or readings, I know, but they were purposely chosen with an eye on your exhaustion/capacity/realities as well as our need for clarity, gentleness, and even brevity. You’ll find a theme for each week. It ends on Holy Saturday.

• An understanding of breath prayer

  • For those who aren’t familiar with breath prayers, there’s a short primer in this recent batch of them here. If you have never practiced breath prayer, just click over there, give that first section a quick skim read, and you’ll be pretty set.

• And a paid subscription to Field Notes

  • This guide is for the paid subscribers to Field Notes, which costs $6 CAD/month (approx. $4 USD /month USD) or - very, very good deal alert - $40 CAD/year (approx. $28 USD/year) for an entire year of Field Notes, which gives you about five months of content for free. (I’ve purposely kept the subscription price here more than half the usual price of most other newsletters in order to keep this space as accessible as possible.)

  Subscribe now

  • One important thing: if you can’t swing the subscription for any reason at all, please just email assistant@sarahbessey.com and we’ll get you sorted out.2 Promise. It’s our joy to give away subscriptions to literally everyone who asks. No explanations needed. Subscriptions aren’t meant to be a barrier, just a way to support me in this kind of work as well as create a quieter corner on the Internet for deeper conversations and comments.

Alternative: 40 Simple Practices for Lent

Six years ago, I created 40 Simple Practices for Lent, too. If you want a more “embodied” practice rather than a scripture-and-prayer focused one like this, that alternative is still there for you.

DOWNLOAD LINK ⬇️

Read more

Since we talked about books last week, I figured this was a good week for us to keep the conversation open for our mutual winter-y good things. For the uninitiated, once a quarter or so, we take a little break from everything to talk about the small - or maybe not-so-small - things which are bringing a bit of goodness or relief or joy to us.1

For me right now that includes a couple good recipes - one of which I promptly made again two nights later, two films I really loved lately, a few things I spent cash money on including a pair of earrings now in daily rotation, reels that I sent to my friends (I’m old, I don’t do the TikToks), what’s been on my knitting needles, and even more good things. Then you get to share your own good things in the comments.

And just as a reminder, this is a sponsored-content-free zone because I’m nobody’s influencer.2 These are things I genuinely experienced myself organically and/or paid for myself, so I feel good talking about them with you.

Leave a comment

First, The Olympics!

And of course, the dominant good thing of the moment deserves top-billing, the Olympics! 🇨🇦 I am such a perennial sucker for the games. I love it all: the stories, the commercials, the athletes, their families, the montages, the ceremonies, all of it.

Show me the whole family in the stands! Give me every training montage! Interview everyone who ever crossed paths with the athlete! Feature the family back in Nanaimo or Moncton watching at the pub with their first skating coach! The world joyously booing J.D. Vance! All the athlete reels and lip-synching memes and little behind-the scenes info on social media (they named the moose in Canada’s Olympic Village Shane Hollander!). Yep, I want it all!

Please enjoy this 8-minute short film featuring singer-songwriter Alessia Cara and professional figure skater Elladj Baldé called The Fire Within that made me reach for a tissue at 7:30 a.m. Why is crying over the Olympics such a joy?

Okay, let’s keep going….

📖 A Good Line Worth Holding Onto

💖 Your Top 3 Favourite Reads

(AKA the most popular Field Notes since the last time we did this round-up)

📚 Reading

For my fellow bookworms, our latest Book Corner is right here with all my favourite recent reads. We’re having a great chat in the comments about books there, too!

📺 Watching

Read more

I am deeply committed to being reliably informed, staying engaged, and being present to suffering and also? doom-scrolling has never served me, my mental health, my bodily health, or my ability to stay engaged over the long haul. When I subject myself to hours or days or weeks of unmitigated suffering and trauma through my little pocket supercomputer, I end up filled with despairing anger, which doesn’t serve anyone. Despair doesn’t prove that I care more than other people, it just cedes ground to the powers and principalities of our age.

My pal often reminds us that our brains just aren’t built to withstand a constant assault like these news cycles, let alone living within their realities. I often recall a piece she wrote a few years ago in the midst of the pandemic, likening our brains to an emotional circuit breakers that are utterly overloaded because our “hardware” is built for an earlier time. She concluded, “I’m not saying we should put our heads in the sand, I’m saying that if your circuits are overwhelmed there’s a reason and the reason isn’t because you are heartless, it’s because there is not a human heart on this planet that can bear all of what is happening right now.”1

The primary antidote for despair these days is community and a steady discipline of hopefulness (for me, that’s always rooted in what I believe and experience about the love and presence of God). But I’ve learned through experience that having very simple and steady practices like reading, walking, friendship, cooking, prayer, craft, art, play, rest, boundaries on when/how I engage on social media, and so on are also far more helpful than they appear at first glance. Turns out our elders who saw some things also knew some things, eh? When things are difficult, it becomes compulsory to hold onto every small joy, every moment of respite, every glimmer of beauty. These things keep you holding on.

All of that is to say this: if you need help taking a break from doom-scrolling but don’t want to simply “bed rot” as my 14-year-old says, then today’s Field Notes may be helpful, if for nothing else than giving your own ‘emotional circuit breaker’ a rest so that you can stay engaged for the long run. Perhaps this will serve as permission to restore yourself through something as simple as reading.

I believe so deeply in reading as a transformative practice, yes, but also as a restorative one. A year ago, I wrote an intro to a book corner post like this about why reading is one way we are reminded to stay human: “These stories, this solidarity, this empathy, this wisdom, even this laughter and joy is part of what keeps us tethered to why we fight, why we resist, and who we will be in this moment.”

Basically, if you somehow needed a permission slip to head to the library and just get a book for yourself to enjoy, please consider yourself empowered.

Preorder Bonus: Braving the Truth

But first, I wanted to let you know that the kind folks at HarperOne have put together a little bonus for everyone who has preordered Rachel Held Evans’ Braving the Truth: Essential Essays for Reckoning with and Reimagining Faith. If you have preordered, just head over here and fill out this form for the opportunity start reading an advance peek at the book.

Preorder Bonus

So many ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ reads this time!

In these quarterly book posts, I like to share the books I’ve been reading lately along with my honest thoughts. (Hence, the paywall below.) If you’d like to get an idea for my taste, you can check out my favourite books of 2025.

Below, you’ll find a smattering of everything from rom-com novels to a hyped up literary thriller that did the impossible and actually lived up to the accolades, devastating character studies, Celtic wisdom and even a fantasy book I actually loved a lot(!) plus much, much more. Open up your library’s Request Hold page or your online retailer of choice,2 let’s get reading!

My Favourite Recent ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Reads

Read more

It has been an intense week. There were dozens of news stories that would have been the undoing of us all but now I guess it’s just another day in the apocalypse and so we carry on. As a Canadian, it has felt a bit surreal: our Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a pragmatic, wise, and ultimately hopeful speech at Davos that truly spoke to our moment in time … but we were newly threatened by the American president as a result. The world order continues to rupture. And our friends in Minneapolis are showing us what it looks like when a people who understand neighbouring as a verb stand up and resist together. I have many friends in the area and the way that they all - mothers, pastors, journalists, teachers, business owners, nurses, everyone - are counting the cost and then showing up and doing the right thing. This work, even from afar, has both devastated and strengthened so many of us.

As I began to gather up these particular breath prayers for us this week, I noticed a theme emerging: these seem to be prayers for when your heart is heavy but your resistance is steady. Now is not the time for our voice to shake or to wonder about nuance or to misquote Romans 13 about obeying government authorities. Now is the time for peaceful resistance, steady witness, revolutionary neighbourliness, learning about non-violent resistance, and embodying peace making that disrupts the lies and cruelties while also caring for one another. It is a time to reject lies and embrace truth. It is the time for our highest ideals and our most rooted convictions to show up in our everyday lives. I see this in so many of you and it gives me hope, resolve, and determination to do the same.

I hope that one or two of these more than fifty prayers will meet you well.1

(For paid subscribers, I’ve included a simple printer-friendly PDF download of these prayers for you. It’s at the bottom, just after the last breath prayer.)

Subscribe now

First, A Reminder: How to Practice Breath Prayers

Breath Prayer is an ancient form of prayer, passed down through the Church in many streams and still widely practiced today. It is easily adaptable.

Simply choose one or two lines to meditate on and inhale and then exhale through them in a way that feels steady to you. It really is that simple.

• You can pray a breath prayer literally anywhere without any special rituals or whatever but I’ve found that I like to find a quiet corner for a few minutes and I usually start by lighting a candle. But these days? Pray them in the street, in your minivan, on the train, at the courthouse, wherever.

• Then just quietly become aware of your body. Sit in a way that is comfortable for you, a position that will allow you to take a deep breath in and out. Close your eyes.

• Breathe slowly and deeply for a moment to slow your racing thoughts.

As an example, one historic form of breath prayer is known as The Jesus Prayer. So, with that as our basis, here’s how it works:

Inhale. Fill your whole self with breath. Feel the air in your lungs. And then pray aloud or to yourself:

“Jesus Christ, son of God,”

Exhale slowly and fully.

“Have mercy on me.”

And then simply repeat this practice. Start with ten good breaths in and out, with the words being spoken aloud or quietly held in your mind, it’s up to you.

For when your heart is heavy but your resistance is steady

Each couplet of inhale/exhale stands is its own stand-alone prayer. Don’t see this as a litany of words to just gallop through as a huge recitation, but simply pick one or two that speak to you and adapt it you like for your own prayer practice.

Inhale: Braid our righteous anger together,
Exhale: with steady love and defiant hope.

Inhale: Equip us for what lies ahead,
Exhale: prepare our hearts for peace making.

Inhale: I embrace what is true,
Exhale: I resist what is false.

Inhale: Heal what is broken
Exhale: around us and in us.

Inhale: Your peace is disruptive,
Exhale: Jesus, disrupt us.

(inspired by MN pastor and chaplain Matt Moberg's sermon)
Inhale: Sometimes the most faithful thing I can do
Exhale: is to stop praying around the pain and start standing inside it.

Inhale: May we be peace makers,
Exhale: never just peace keepers.

Inhale: Awaken love in us,
Exhale: Your love never fails.

Inhale: Remind us who we all are,
Exhale: beloved and free.

Inhale: Every empire falls,
Exhale: Jesus, You remain.

Inhale: May our voices rise,
Exhale: in a song of liberation.

Inhale: Bring us to wholeness, God,
Exhale: heal all that is broken.

Inhale: Bring justice to our streets,
Exhale: bring mercy to our hearts.

Inhale: May we be loving and generous,
Exhale: compassionate and courageous.

Inhale: My roots go down deep into your love,
Exhale: I will not be moved or shaken.

Inhale: I bear witness and serve joyfully,
Exhale: I will not turn away from those you love.

Inhale: May we never settle for silence or chaos,
Exhale: may our song of freedom rise over the noise.

(The following is excerpted from The Breastplate Hymn of St. Patrick:)
Inhale: Christ above us, Christ beneath us,
Exhale: Christ beside us, Christ within us.

Inhale: Awake, my soul,
Exhale: and know the sacredness of all.

Inhale: Make us your midwives,
Exhale: for the new world being born.

Inhale: We do not wait for permission,
Exhale: we will be faithful and courageous.

(inspired by Mary's Magnificat in Luke 1)
Inhale: He bring down rulers from their thrones
Exhale: and have lifted up the humble.
Inhale: You have filled the hungry with good things
Exhale: but have sent the rich away empty.

Inhale: May we love our enemies,
Exhale: I pray for those who persecute us.

Inhale: We will not deny what our soul knows,
Exhale: You have placed eternity and truth in our hearts.

Inhale: We practice rest as resistance,
Exhale: Joy is our birthright and our rhythm.

Inhale: May our lives cooperate
Exhale: with all the Spirit is doing here.

(inspired by Romans 12:9 MSG)
Inhale: I will love from the centre of who I am;
Exhale: I run from evil and hold onto good.

Inhale: This place is your cathedral,
Exhale: our worship is on the streets.

Inhale: We will tell the truth,
Exhale: Your truth will set us free.

(inspired by Psalm 3:3)
Inhale: You are a shield around me,
Exhale: You lift my head high.

Inhale: Peace in our hearts,
Exhale: True peace in our streets.

Inhale: Bless the peacemakers,
Exhale: Protect the peacemakers.

Inhale: I place my body in Your hands,
Exhale: I place my spirit at Your feet.

(inspired by Psalm 34:18)
Inhale: You are close to the brokenhearted
Exhale: You rescue all who are crushed in spirit.

Inhale: We believe, help our unbelief,
Exhale: May our prayers move mountains.

Inhale: Hope can see in the dark,
Exhale: Give us eyes to see what is good.

Inhale: You hear the cries of the helpless,
Exhale: You bring justice to them.

(inspired by Prime Minister Mark Carney's speech at Davos last week:)
Inhale: May we name reality,
Exhale: and act consistently.

Inhale: I will not surrender my hope,
Exhale: You are making all things new.

Inhale: We behold the image of God,
Exhale: in every person we encounter.

Inhale: May we be found faithful,
Exhale: joyful and courageous.

Inhale: Resolute and steady,
Exhale: I will love without surrender.

Inhale: Awake in us your sacred compassion,
Exhale: may we love others as You have loved us.

(inspired by Psalm 5:8)
Inhale: Tell me clearly what to do,
Exhale: and show me which way to turn.

Inhale: Keep our hearts steady,
Exhale: You are our refuge.

(inspired by Jesus' instructions in Matthew 10:16)
Inhale: May we be innocent as doves,
Exhale: and as wise as serpents.

Inhale: Nothing is impossible for you,
Exhale: bring the wicked to repentance.

Inhale: Make a pathway in this wilderness,
Exhale: create rivers in this desert.

Inhale: Melt the hardness of their hearts,
Exhale: as the spring melts the ice.

(inspired by Ephesians 5:16)
Inhale: I make the most of every opportunity
Exhale: for doing good in these evil days.

(inspired by civil rights activist Dorothy Height)
Inhale: I want to be remembered
Exhale: as someone who tried.

(inspired by 1 Corinthians 13:13)
Inhale: Faith, hope, and love,
Exhale: these will endure.

Inhale: Develop courage and resilience in us,
Exhale: that we may walk in love and bring forth justice.

Paid Subscribers, you can download these prayers ⬇️

Read more