Does this post look familiar? I scheduled two posts for the same date last month, and didn’t realize till they’d already gone live. I pulled this one down and rescheduled it. If you’ve already read this post but didn’t request the book from your library yet, consider this your friendly reminder.
Are you intentional about modeling how to deal with negative emotions to your kids?
Society, and our nuclear families growing up, have a big impact on how we process our emotions. Some families have certain acceptable emotions. Maybe it was OK to be angry, but sadness was mocked. Or only certain responses to negative emotions were encouraged. Snarky wit in response to feeling hurt? Cool. Crying? Not cool. Society also teaches us no one wants to see you when you’re angry or sad.
How do we teach our kids to function in a healthy way in a world full of broken people?
As I finished up Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, I was laying on the sofa with a raw throat, feeling feverish. I was surrounded by feverish, coughing kids laying next to me, on me, and across from me. And I knew I was in heaven.
The struggle to forgive reality for being exactly what is is right now often breaks us through to nondual consciousness. -Richard Rohr
That is the spirit of Rohr’s book: Recognizing the Kingdom of God is right now. He introduces Jesus from a perspective I first encountered in Breathing Underwater, and builds from there, using primarily scripture, but also the words of the mystics such as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Ávila, and his own ideas.
His object isn’t to convert his reader, just to encourage another way of thinking about the world, so even if you don’t consider yourself religious, this book is a safe place to explore ideas about God without having to feel like you’re being backed into a corner. Yet the book doesn’t shy away from big ideas.
The Kitchen House is another one of my grown up picks for Black History Month. You might remember, Black History Month is happening all year here. Each month or so, I’m hoping to feature another title. This book and the last one were both written by white women, and I intend to include titles by authors of color as the year goes on.
How does this one stack up to The Invention of Wings?
The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality, by Ronald Rolheiser, was the second of two books I read while going through RCIA this year.
RCIA is Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. It’s part of the process of joining the Catholic Church. I didn’t start the class intending the join the Catholic Church.
After I finished The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben, I was glad to learn that the author had written two other books. The first one I got my hands on was The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion; Surprising Observations of a Hidden World.
By chapter three, I knew I wanted to read it to my kids, so I started it over as a read-aloud for them for school. I figured it would count both for Literature and Science, and I love extra credit.
