Make room for reading

Diocesan Racial Reconciliation Task Force provides summer reading list

by the Rev. Andy Andrews

Soul stirring literature can be transformative, and in a group setting, the potential is amplified. This Summer, the Racial Reconciliation Taskforce is inviting the diocese into a couple of different opportunities with Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as Christian Tradition by Dr. Christine Pohl and This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley.

In June, join in for three Tuesday lunch time sessions to process Making Room. To the early Christians, hospitality was central to the gospel mission. This hospitality did not consist of entertaining neighbors, but welcoming the stranger, especially those who could not return the favor. Yet despite urgent need, hospitality is not what it used to be. Dr. Pohl’s classic work, Making Room, first spoke to this issue in 1999. And it is just as relevant today.

The Rev. Lisa Fischbeck will be our guide. She is the launching vicar emeritus of The Episcopal Church of the Advocate in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is the author of the book, Behold What You Are: Becoming the Body of Christ, (April 2021 by Church Publishing), and a co-founder of Pee Wee Homes, Inc.

The dates are Tuesdays June 11, 18, and 25 from 11:30 AM-12:30 PM.

In July, the Rev. Ed Bacon circles back for a Train the Leader experience using This Here Flesh. This is a unique book of meditations of discovering the sacred in one’s own skin. The book invites the reader to descend into their stories, examine our capacity to rest, wonder, joy, rage, and repair.

Rev. Bacon is so excited about This Here Flesh that he wants to train leaders to facilitate their own small groups. The expectation is to have completed the book before the training, participate in both sessions, and then organize a small book study in-person or online.

The dates for Train the Leaders are Wednesday July 17 and 24, 6-7:30 PM.

These will be online gatherings. To register and to ask questions, please email andrews@dioms.org.