Amy Julia Becker's Blog, page 52

Books About Disability and Theology

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The “theology of disability” is a topic that might sound obscure or abstract, but it has been life-changing for me. The theology of anything is just a fancy way of saying “here’s how God sees this topic.” The word theology comes from the Greek words for God (theos) and Word (logos). The theology of anything is God’s thoughts, God’s logic, God’s understanding. 

I’ve come to believe that if I understand God’s logic around disability, I’ve come to understand God’s logic about humanity. I understand myself and everyone else more clearly if I understand how God sees people with disabilities. 

So I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite books about the theology of disability. I’m including memoirs first, moving into works of more straightforward theology. These books should give you a place to start considering what it means to be a beloved human before God. (I’ve also indicated the people I’ve had a chance to talk with on my podcast. If you’re intrigued, you can listen to the conversation and then decide if you want to dive into the whole book!)

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More with Amy Julia:

My Top 10 Books About God’s Logic of Disability A Good and Perfect Gift The Truth About Disability and SiblingsHow God Thinks About Disability

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.   

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Time and the Luxury of Ethics

“Ethics becomes a luxury as the speed of our daily life increases.”

– Judith Shulevitz talking to Ezra Klein (Episode: Sabbath and the Art of Rest)

This conversation on the Ezra Klein Show about the Sabbath offered so many new insights and convictions. A few of my takeaways:

We can’t practice Sabbath alone.  Practicing Sabbath requires preparation. Practicing Sabbath teaches us to inhabit time more ethically, with more concern and awareness of people and relationships and love. Sabbath involves intentional limitations and restrictions because it is about celebration and delight and people. 

For more on this topic, I’ve had several conversations with guests on my podcast talking about time:

Spiritual Timekeeping in a New Year with James K. A. SmithHow to Receive the Time We’re Given with Jen Pollock Michel (tomorrow!)The Healing Work of Rest with Ruth Haley BartonDisability and the Speed of Love with Dr. John SwintonResting in a Restless World with Kate Rademacher

More with Amy Julia:

The Beauty of Life Together with Willie James JenningsIn Good TimeIs There Time To Go Away for a Retreat?

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.   

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Overheard on the Trail: Best Brother

“You’re my only brother. But you’re the best brother.”

We took a hike as a family over the winter break. It was mostly up a small mountain, and Penny struggled to keep up. The footing was a little slippery, with enough rocks and roots to make it feel unstable. It was the second strenuous hike in as many days. She was tired. Her feet hurt. She needed support. 

Peter lent a hand the first day. On the second day, William stepped in. He extended his hand and walked with his big sister. Every so often, he offered a word of encouragement. But mostly they talked. I stayed ahead of them by a few yards, close enough to overhear but far enough away not to interrupt. 

And then I heard her say, “You’re my only brother. But you’re the best brother.”

I am very grateful, for both of them, that they get to walk together.

More with Amy Julia:

The Truth About Disability and SiblingsHow God Thinks About DisabilityTwo-Word Family Check-In

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.   

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Vulnerable Humanity

“Curing is a physical process; it’s individual, usually (fairly) rapid, and concentrates on eliminating disease. Healing is a sociocultural process. It focuses on restoring interpersonal, social, and spiritual dimensions. It’s lengthy and ongoing because it’s a process of becoming whole.”

–Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request

I’m getting ready for a series of talks at Eastern Mennonite University next week for their series “EveryBody Belongs,” so I pulled out some of my favorite books about the church and disability. I will be delivering two, hour-long keynote talks to consider what the Bible has to teach us about disability and how the church can become a community of welcome and belonging. 

(And yes, I did have an anxiety dream about talking for two hours in which I was pacing a boxing ring with a microphone in the midst of a thousand-person cocktail party trying to keep everyone’s attention. But that was before I pulled out these books and got my thoughts organized.)

If you’re interested in these topics, Amy Kenny’s book might be the place to start (and if you still aren’t sure, you can always listen to my podcast interview with her as a primer).

I still contend that understanding vulnerable humanity, humanity on the margins of society, is the only way to understand all of our true humanity. Beginning to understand the theology of disability has meant I have begun to understand what it means to be human. 

More with Amy Julia:

Books About God’s Logic of DisabilityHow God Thinks About DisabilityS5 E22 | Disability and the Speed of Love with Dr. John Swinton

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform. 

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Small Group Lenten Guide

GET THE FREE LENTEN SMALL GROUP GUIDE

If you, like me, are looking for ways to be more intentional with prioritizing contemplation, patience, and deliberate engagement with the most important people and ideas and practices, I want to let you know about a new resource I’ve developed—a Lenten small group guide.

The church season of Lent will arrive in about six weeks, at the end of February. Traditionally, Lent is a time for Christians to do the work of self-examination in order to prepare for the memories of Jesus’ death on Good Friday and the celebration of his life on Easter Sunday. 

I’ve developed an 8-week guide to be used in small groups through Lent. Though you could use any of the component parts individually, the idea is that you would:

read To Be Made Well study a short passage from the Biblewatch a 5-minute video as a group

The lessons provide questions as well as suggestions for how to put the teaching into practice. Go here to download your free version of the study guide and videos. 

As we all enter 2023, may we do so not with the scattered and harried rushing of our distracted world, but within the gentle, healing rhythms of grace and love.

GET THE FREE LENTEN SMALL GROUP GUIDE

More with Amy Julia:

Lent Is Not About Sacrifice. It Is About Desire.An Embodied Lent for Kids and Grownups

2021 Fasting Series {Lent}:

What’s Up With FastingFasting 101Fasting From Food (Hungering for God)The Unexpected Gift of Fasting in CommunityFasting From Podcasts (Listening to God)Fasting From Busyness (Waiting for God)Fasting and Justice

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.   

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2 Intentions for 2023

Did any of you make New Year’s resolutions? Or answer copious questions for reflection from 2022? 

I started down that road, but it overwhelmed me. I decided to ask what—on the most basic daily level—I needed in order to love God, love myself, and love my neighbor in 2023. 

As a result, I turned the corner into 2023 with two intentions. One, to resume a regular peaceful rhythm of prayer and exercise. Two, to return to a daily practice of two hours of uninterrupted deliberate work. 

2022 included a lot of days where I sprinted through my “contemplative” moments in the morning, and sometimes eked out twenty minutes of running or strength training before a day of addressing a series of seemingly endless and relentless demands and distractions. 

We will be moving in 2023, so I could put all the work involved in purging our current house of embarrassing amounts of unnecessary clutter at the top of my list. But it is exactly this type of urgent demand that I am working to right-size. The organizing and decluttering and moving and unpacking will all happen. Inevitably. But if I don’t prioritize prayer, exercise, and deliberate work, they will become like dandelion puffs I try to snatch out of the air as they float to the ground and disappear. 

Unhurried prayer, exercise, and deliberate (rather than reactive) work will help me return to love. 

What do you need in order to return to love in the year ahead?

More with Amy Julia:

S6 E9 | Spiritual Timekeeping in a New Year with James K. A. SmithBig News for the Becker FamilyLooking Back Before Looking Ahead

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.   

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Curated Reading: Putting Down the Algorithm

I recently enjoyed a New Yorker essay about Metallica. That’s right, the heavy metal band that my mother’s friends fretted about during the “Satanic panic” of the 1980s. I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to one of their songs. I didn’t know I would be interested in learning their story. 

But we subscribe to the New Yorker, and I turned the page and started reading, and now I want to know.

I bring this up here not so much because I recommend the article itself, but because it reminds me of the delights of reading that has been curated by an editor rather than dictated by an algorithm. 

My phone will suggest Instagram posts and Amazon will suggest books to me based on my prior reading history. And I find lots of things I like there. I learn about books related to spirituality and healing or disability and faith. Lots of different Enneagram memes pop up. I’m introduced to other parents of children with Down syndrome. 

Curated Reading

But there is a different joy that comes from trusting an editor to put together a selection of essays and just stumble upon the unexpected ones.

Compassion grows within me just a little bit when I encounter a story of someone I wouldn’t ever read about or know about otherwise. 

Put Down the Algorithm

So here’s to putting down the algorithm and picking up a magazine, or newspaper, or walking into a local bookstore and browsing the staff recommendations. Who knows what unexpected delight might expand your heart with a story you never expected to encounter? 

(P.S. I also did the browsing-the-bookstore thing while Christmas shopping this week and stumbled upon Lost and Found by Kathryn Schulz. Another unexpected gem so far as she considers the loss of her father alongside all sorts of other concepts of loss and the hundreds of thousands of physical objects we lose on a regular basis.) 

More with Amy Julia:

Favorite Books I Read in 20226 Favorite Shows and Movies We Watched in 2022Friday Favorites and AJB Recommends

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.

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The Blessings of a Small Church

One Sunday morning, I walked in late to church, looking for our family. I spotted Peter’s head and joined him and Marilee in the pew. They weren’t hard to locate. Our church holds a maximum of 200 people, and most Sunday mornings we see 60 or so. Also, we sit in one of the four front pews on the right side. Every. Single. Week. 

Penny wasn’t sitting with them, but I wasn’t surprised to find her with a quick scan of the rest of the sanctuary. She was nestled next to our friend Deb. Penny usually scoots into someone else’s family on Sunday mornings. I used to worry that she was imposing herself or interrupting the contemplative possibilities for other people. Now I rest assured that Penny is more than welcome next to anyone. 

Sometimes I bemoan the limitations of our church’s size. There are hardly ever other teenagers in the pews. There are very few bells or whistles. Our pastor does a great job preaching, but she also manages the budget and lay visitations and youth ministry and groundskeeping and counsels couples in need and bakes the bread for communion, so her time is spread thin. 

Everyone does everything together. We don’t have small groups or a family ministry or a men’s ministry or a singles ministry. The Bible study I lead on Sunday mornings has participants from age 20 to 82. 

But those very same limitations have, over time, been what makes the church such a gift to our family. A place where everyone knows us and welcomes us as we are. A place where we are not only known but needed. A place where our kids are not inclined to show up because they will be impressed but because they will be loved. 

So I am giving thanks for the blessings of a small church in the country, for the slow and sometimes hidden ways of grace.

More with Amy Julia:

Penny Sharing in Church for DSA MonthS6 E8 | Christmas, When Church Lets You Down with Bekah McNeel

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform

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Happy 17th Birthday, Penny!

Penny turns 17 today! Happy 17th birthday, Penny!

A few nights ago at a family dinner, I asked everyone to name something they sincerely appreciate about everyone else at the table. Peter wisely suggested we each take the time to write down our appreciations, and here’s what we each said about Penny:

“I appreciate the way you always hug me when I come home.” –William

“I appreciate the way you don’t compare yourself to other people.” –Amy Julia

“I appreciate your sincere drive about the activities and people who matter to you.” –Peter

“I appreciate how you always lighten up our moods.” –Marilee

These simple statements paint a portrait of a young woman who is kind and generous, hardworking and sincere, purposeful and openhearted. 

Penny doesn’t live in the world of comparisons or social hierarchies. She loves openly and with her whole being. 

Penny is also the hardest person we know to buy a gift for, because she doesn’t care about material possessions. She cares about people. (And tickets to the Taylor Swift concert. But, sadly, we did not win a spot in that queue.)

She brings us joy and laughter and warmth and goodness. Penny, we celebrate you today!

Happy Birthday!

More with Amy Julia:

Happy Sweet Sixteen, Penny!Happy 15th Birthday, Penny! A Good and Perfect Gift

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.   

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Favorite Books I Read in 2022

Here are some of my favorite books that I read in 2022:

My favorite novel

My favorite novel was The Midnight Library. I’ve spent a fair amount of time regretting closed doors and wondering what if…, but recently I’ve had a greater sense of gratitude for where I have ended up and trust that this is where I want to be, where God has me. The Midnight Library is a great way into questions about limitations and possibilities and who and how we want to be. 

My favorite memoir

My favorite memoir was Bono’s Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, especially as a reflection on faith and art and life and love and being “in the world but not of it.” I’m also listening to the audiobook version of it now, and it’s even better.

My favorite non-fiction book

My favorite non-fiction book was The Spiritual Child by Lisa Miller. It came out in 2015, but her insight into every human’s inherent spiritual acuity and the need for parents and educators to nurture the spiritual aspect of children is a message that matters even more now than when she wrote it. 

My favorite young adult book

My favorite young adult book was one I read aloud with Marilee: Everything Sad is Untrue. This sprawling tale of a young Iranian refugee who settles with his family in Oklahoma taught us so much about the experience of moving to America and looking for grace and truth in the midst of a hard story. 

My favorite picture book

My favorite picture book was Unbound, the story of artist Judith Scott, told from the perspective of her twin. Judith was born with Down syndrome. Her sister was not. Judith was placed in an institution for many years until they were reunited. The book is unflinching in the sorrow and love experienced by these sisters.

What are some of your favorite books that you read in 2022?

More with Amy Julia:

Favorite Books for Kids and Adults That We Read in 20219 Non-Fiction Books I Loved in 2021Friday Favorites and AJB Recommends

If you haven’t already, you can subscribe to receive regular updates and news. You can also follow me on Facebook , Instagram , Twitter , Pinterest , YouTube , and Goodreads , and you can subscribe to my Love Is Stronger Than Fear podcast on your favorite podcast platform.   

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