Summer is in full swing, and we're curious: What has everyone been reading?

Whether you've been catching up on a book you've been eyeing for a while, sharing Network posts about conflict resolution with your church council, or discovering something that challenged or encouraged you, we'd love to hear about it. 

What's been your favorite Network post so far this summer? Share the title (or drop a link!) in the comments and tell us why it stood out. Your recommendation might be exactly what someone else needs to read next.

And if you have any other book recommendations or other media recommendations, please let us know in the comments below!

Subscribe to Comments
Mark for Review

Comments

Not strictly reading, but media: I listened to a Freakonomics podcast episode called "Ten Myths About the US Tax System (Update)." I learned more from this podcast than any other, I think. At first, I thought I was uninterested in tax policy. B-o-o-o-ring. But, no, very interesting. Good one to listen to and think about. Made me think of our country's economy in a way that's more relatable to my own personal finances, and about what politicians are doing that we are not hearing the full truth about. Seems pretty fair and unbiased. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/ten-myths-about-the-u-s-tax-system/

Flag for Review

Mavis, thank you for sharing this! You are so right - so often things that may feel boring (tax policy) are things we can learn so much more from! A similar piece of media that I've consumed lately is the Strong Towns podcast. It's about designing effective traffic patterns and public transport - again, may sound boring, but actually the way that roads and such are organized says a lot about what a community values and is invested in. And makes me think about what I want to help guide my own community to invest and support!

Flag for Review

I think the best book I've read so far this year is Glimmerings | Letters on Faith Between a Poet and a Theologian by Miroslav Volf & Christian Wiman. It was a very good book. Deep. What Titanic minds those two are. They usually take walks around Yale together, but this book is a collection of letters they wrote to each other while Wiman was undergoing cancer treatment. He's had cancer multiple times and has been close to death several times. It is full of what I call "gems," words that seem to glow on the page. Here's one passage from Miroslav Volf:

Our lives are not in our control, and whoever controls them rarely seems to have our best interests in mind…

I trust God even when God isn’t doing what seems reasonable to think that God should do…Hope is trust on tiptoes, said Charlie Moule, a Cambridge New Testament scholar…

[H]ope isn’t a reasonable expectation that some determinate positive goal, the hope’s object, will become reality. Instead,…hope is a way of living into the future with objects or expectation themselves only vaguely and tentatiely known. And lightly held, too, with a readiness to recognize as the hope’s fulfillment even things that weren’t explicit in expectation…

Hope, [Luther] writes, transfers a person ”into the unknown, the hidden, and the dark shadow, so that he does not even know what he hopes for.” And then, miracle of miracles, in the arrival of that which was beforehand not known or not fully known, I recognize with joy the object of my hope!

Christ…both fulfilled and transformed hopes. (pages 103-104)

I wrote about this book in more detail in my blog.

Flag for Review

Let's Discuss

We love your comments! Thank you for helping us uphold the Community Guidelines to make this an encouraging and respectful community for everyone.

Login or Register to Comment
Posted In

Latest in Faith Nurture

We want to hear from you.

Connect to The Network and add your own question, blog, resource, or job.

Add Your Post