Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved by Kate Bowler

Via Zoom (Noon time) study – Monday, Starting June 12th– July 10th.

All are welcome to join in on our weekly group discussion.

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Meeting ID: 817 2513 7097
Passcode: 549771

Facilitated by Michelle Riley (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Michelle with any questions)

Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward “blessing.” She is thriving in her job, married to her high school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son. Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.

The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with “a surge of determination.” Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you “can’t do” and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. Kate is very sick, and no amount of positive thinking will shrink her tumors. What does it mean to die, she wonders, in a society that insists everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way it never has been before.

Frank and funny, dark and wise, Kate Bowler pulls the reader deeply into her life in an account she populates affectionately with a colorful, often hilarious retinue of friends, mega-church preachers, relatives, and doctors. Everything Happens for a Reason tells her story, offering up her irreverent, hard-won observations on dying and the ways it has taught her to live.

June 12

• Chapter 1 (Diagnosis)
• Chapter 2 (Object Lesson)
• Chapter 3 (Magic Tricks)

June 26

• Chapter 4 (Seasons)
• Chapter 5 (Surrender)
• Chapter 6 (Christmas Cheer)

July 10

• Chapter 7 (Certainty)
• Chapter 8 (Restoration)
• Chapter 9 (Ordinary Time)

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer – Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Via Zoom study – Monday, Beginning — April 17, 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm

All are welcome to join in on our weekly group discussion.

Click here to join zoom meeting
Meeting ID: 817 2513 7097
Passcode: 549771

Discussion Leaders:

Amanda Rhodes (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Richard Loeppert (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Author Robin Wall Kimmerer is a member of the indigenous Potawatomi nation and a distinguished professor of botany and biology at SUNY. In the book Braiding Sweetgrass, the author skillfully weaves three separate narratives -– indigenous wisdom, the expectations of scientific objectivity, and her personal life experiences as an indigenous American --- into considerations of the tapestry of creation and life, of which humans are a part. The additional themes of beingness, reciprocity, gratitude and family are prominent throughout the narrative. The book begins with the Haudenosaunee creation story of Sky Woman, and then proceeds through a series of interwoven, easily readable essays – a great read, a wonderful book for discussion, and very pertinent in consideration of the on-going climate crisis.

Refugia Faith by Debra Rienstra

Via Zoom (Noon time) study – Mondays, Starting March 6th– March 27.

All are welcome to join in on our weekly group discussion.

Click here to join zoom meeting
Meeting ID: 817 2513 7097
Passcode: 549771

Facilitated by Richard Loeppert (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Richard to receive a study guide)

Refugia Faith – Seeking Hidden Shelters, Ordinary Wonders, and the Healing of the Earth
by Debra Rienstra Fortress Press (2022)

This book explores how Christian spirituality and practice must adapt to prepare for life on a climate-altered planet.

Refugia (reh-FU-jee-ah) is a biological term describing places of shelter where life endures in times of crisis, such as a volcanic eruption, fire, or stressed climate. Ideally, these refugia endure, expand, and connect so that new life emerges.

Debra Rienstra applies this concept to human culture and faith, asking, In this era of ecological devastation, how can Christians become people of refugia? How can we find and nurture these refugia, not only in the biomes of the earth, but in our human cultural systems and in our spiritual lives? How can we apply all our love and creativity to this task as never before?

Rienstra recounts her own process of reeducation — beginning not as a scientist or an outdoors enthusiast but by examining the wisdom of theologians and philosophers, farmers and nature writers, scientists and activists, and especially people on the margins.

By weaving nature writing, personal narrative, and theological reflection, Rienstra grapples honestly with her own fears and longings and points toward a way forward — a way to transform Christian spirituality and practice, become a healer on a damaged earth, and inspire others to do the same.

March 6

• Introduction (The Great Work and the Little Work)
• Chapter 1 (From Despair to Preparation)

March 13

• Chapter 2 (From Alienation to Kinship)
• Chapter 3 (From Consuming to Healing)

March 20

• Chapter 4 (From Avoiding to Lamenting)
• Chapter 5 (From Resignation to Gratitude)

March 27

• Chapter 6 (From Passivity to Citizenship)
• Chapter 7 (From Indifference to Attention)