ADULT SPIRITUAL GROWTH PROGRAM

I think I have never picked a self-help book for this group, but this month I am picking one. It is an easy read, and you may notice the pattern of too many chapters telling you how everything in your life will change before the one chapter that tells you the very simple thing she is asking you to do for 15 minutes twice a day. AND, and, and I think we will all need anchoring practices that quiet our nervous system. I’ve been adding her formula for meditation (and even her voice in the recordings you can access) to my morning and afternoon practices, and it is helping, so let me toss this easy read into our invitations to read and discuss together.

In this month when we kick off our annual giving pledge drive and talk and think more about generosity, wealth, and how the world of resources comes to us and what it does to and for us, how it is a blessing and an invitation, and how we even pervert our understanding of resources, wealth, and our own well-being, we have Robin Wall Kimmerer and the noble serviceberry to reground us. Her newest book is small; the themes are familiar to those who have read Braiding Sweetgrass, and it is medicine for the soul.

The theme of the month is “Joy,” and this is one of the books that the NYTimes chose as the “22 Funniest Novels,” so here we go. Written in 2016, the Times says the book, “is about millennial friends in pre-2008-crash San Francisco, thrums with Tulathimutte’s sly intelligence and unerring comic timing.” Tulathimutte got a graduate degree from Stanford, lived for a while in Noe Valley, and so we wonder: Do the characters sound familiar? Can we laugh at what is close to home? As well as what does humor have to teach us about ourselves, and how does joy change the day?

This book is the Unitarian Universalist Association’s chosen UUA Common Read for 2025. Told not through the lens of their struggles and challenges, including their political battles for legal rights, but the joy and richness of the lives of those interviewed and reflected in its stories, Authentic Selves is a beautiful compilation of life stories, photos, and reflections of trans and nonbinary people, as well as their partners, parents, children, siblings, and chosen family members. It reminds us of a lot, including the power and beauty (and courage) of living with authenticity. We will read it together with UU’s across the country!

When the theme for the month is “Imagination,” what is better than a book with a vision of apocalypse, wild and surprising? Ling Ma is a novelist and assistant professor of practice in the arts at the University of Chicago, and she takes us on a wild ride. How do her imaginings of our worst fears of the world coming to a crashing end help us hold that fear? 

Everett is a distinguished professor of English at the University of Southern California. In James he takes the story of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the classic tale by Mark Twain, and flips it, putting the runaway slave, Jim (James), at the center. Lionel Trilling called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “one of the world’s great books and one of the central documents of American culture.” Everett is not just playing with a classic; he is upending a national narrative. And does so, apparently, with incredible skill and power.