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Who's Got Time?: Spirituality for a Busy Generation
Meetings. Doctor appointments. Carpools. Job interviews. Not to mention meals and sleep-and more meetings. Who's got time for anything else? Where does daily devotion time fit into our 24/7/365 living? In Who's Got Time? Spirituality for a Busy Generation , Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman suggest new ways of incorporating spiritual practices into the busy lives of Generations X, Y, and beyond. Whether you're a student or working several jobs just to stay afloat, single or with a family, or just seeking something else you can't quite put your finger on, the authors help you find "the holy in the mundane." Contemporary, hip, conversational, and practical, Who's Got Time? helps you find time to feed your soul. Part of the Young Clergy Women Project
- GenresSpirituality
137 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2013
4 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Amy Fetterman
4 books4 followersAmy Fetterman is a pastor, writer, wife, mom, music listener, animal lover, and laughter causer. She serves as a pastor for a Presbyterian Church in the Shenandoah Valley. She's collected degrees from Austin College, Columbia Theological Seminary, and Drew University. She loves traveling, napping, cooking, and geeking out over Joss Whedon, Harry Potter, and BBC.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 20, 2013
In a time when the media is abuzz with stats about young adults and religion - why we leave, why we stay, what we want, who we are - Amy Fetterman and Teri Peterson provide a much-needed bridge between generations and lifestyles. For those seeking to understand Gen Xers and Millennials, their introduction is an insightful and accessible primer that creates a window into the hopes, dreams and realities of "The Missing Generation." For young adults who feel the competing pressures of busyness and spiritual longing, they provide twelve chapters of everyday oasis - ways to engage the Sacred in rest and work, community and solitude, new technology and ancient ritual. This living water is perfect for those parched places that young adults know so well, yet there is enough of it for all seekers of all generations. Each area of spiritual practice has room for you and me, no matter who we are. Fetterman and Peterson have crafted a blessing and delight.
May 18, 2015
Who's Got Time is a thoughtful, funny, insightful, challenging, terrific book. Teri and Amy have written a book that helps us understand ourselves and each other and points to God, most of all. Highly recommend!
September 1, 2014
I finished both “Encounters with Orthodoxy: How Protestant Churches Can Reform Themselves Again”, by John P. Burgess and “Who’s Got Time?: Spirituality for a Busy Generation (The Young Clergy Women Project)”, by Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman almost 5 months ago… and am in danger of falling off my New Year’s resolution to write a review of every book read in 2014 and post to Facebook. The only saving point for my resolution is that in those subsequent months I have been trekking through 1916 Arabia with Lawrence himself, reading his “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, and also enjoying a wonderful summer outdoors away from a bookish lifestyle, so I’ve not yet fallen “really behind” and not yet started dragging a backlog of reviews to do” along with me.
Anyway, “Orthodoxy” is a Protestant theologian’s personal account of his years spent living with and studying Russian Orthodox practice, parishioners and priests, an outside-looking-in account of a different-but-similar religious tradition. “Who's Got Time” is a collaboration of two young female Protestant ministers, full of suggestions, ideas and meditations on how to generate “true”, “relevant” spiritual practices, that somehow fit to the lifestyle and worldview of their (35-and-under) generation.
“Orthodoxy” came as a parting gift to me when John, the author, a college classmate (almost 40 years ago!) came to Boston last November for a conference of some Russian culture-and-history-and-politics-and-whatever academic conference where he made a presentation; something about the position of the Russian Orthodox faith in the “new Russia”. The interstices of the conference gave some time for us to talk and walk around Boston and update our friendship. Memorable was his discussion, as we walked through the Boston Public Garden, of the Putin/Orthodox relation from the Orthodox perspective, something generally reported in US press from the “Putin perspective”.
Shortly after my walks around Boston with John, I suffered a catastrophic injury that left me bed bound for 3 months. During that time, our associate rector kindly emailed with me a few times. “Associate rector” is an Episcopal church title, though she’s a Lutheran. I forget the context, probably responding to some homily notes from a service she led that I couldn’t attend, anyway one time something prompted me to suggest to Karen that she might consider John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” as a meditation on “The Divine”. A month or two later, while I was still bed bound, for the Lent season, Karen organized an on-line book study of “Time”, where she was to (and did, I suppose) host a blog on the book’s topics. Now, while I’ve been paying the bills by working in the computer industry for more than 35 years, I’ve never been a “blog follower”, so I thought it might be a Lenten study open to my home bound situation as well as a chance to experience a bit of 21st century dialog.
That’s the background. The common thread between the two books is their offering perspectives on Christian spiritual practices that are not mine, and that are not really are practices for me to “pick up” at my advanced age. NONETHELESS I’ve always been one to value seeing “other perspectives”. The college where I met John was at the foot of Pikes Peak, in Colorado. One of the wonderful things about this 14,000 foot mountain is that, as one travels around it, it changes radically in appearance, almost discontinuously radically. Your view of the mountain is deeply connected to your perspective. By contrast, Mt. Fuji in Japan or Mt. Hood in Oregon change a bit from point to point but the view remains consistent. So maybe Pikes Peak taught me to look for and enjoy those other perspectives.
Can I try to use a third book as an illustration of the common thread of perspective that unites “Orthodoxy” and “Time” for me? At a church library de-acquisition, I picked up a copy of “God’s Minute”; a prayer-a-day compilation of, yes, 60-second prayers written by various North American divines and lay writers; PUBLISHED in 1916. I really enjoy the glimpse it gives across the 100-year gulf between North American thought and prayer in the 1910s and the 2010s. Today’s, September first, starts: "In Thy mercy and love, O God, we are permitted to greet another day. Thy guardian angels have watched over us when we have not been able to care for ourselves. Sweet sleep has refreshed us, and now we look into another day confident that Thou wilt guide and strengthen". Like the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” of my youth, the book's prayers are made of thoughts and phrases and theologies not much heard in most 21st century North American churches.
So, on to “Orthodoxy”. It starts with John’s engaging account of a Protestant theologian’s year spent, more than a decade ago, in the chaos of newly post-Soviet Russia; with his wife and teenage daughters, brought by a sketchy thread of inspiration to a truly sketchy life on the wrong side of the tracks in St. Petersburg (or was it Moscow, I forget, as I said I read the book a few months ago and passed it along to my sister who lives on the other side of the country, so I can’t double check as I write this).
This scary, personal history sets a good tone for the rest of John’s book: you know that he’s writing from the sore-knees-from-kneeling-and-teeth-chattering-from-cold perspective of an American Protestant not used to either kneeling or hardship cold; and you know he’s NOT pontificating from the academic, meditative heights of his gig at the august-sounding, 1910s-sounding “Pittsburgh Theological Seminary”.
Given all the media attention that Putin and the New Russia and whatever-the-Putin-Orthodoxy-interface-is, I want to note that John’s book does not ignore the political interface BUT is refreshing in that this political accent is never more than a backdrop. The great theme of the book is what a Protestant academic sees in Russian Orthodox practice that might be helpful to North Americans, both for “understanding” as well as “enlightenment”.
Beyond the account of hard times in post-Soviet Russia, the BIG INSIGHT for me in this work is his discussion of Russian Orthodox icons If you have ever seen these and, like me, “just not quite gotten it”, the book is a value just for that chapter. Here in Central Massachusetts we’re lucky to have the new “Museum of Russian Icons” in Clinton, and I’m eager to go back now that I’ve learned from John’s analysis.
Russian Icons are NOT like the religious artwork of Renaissance Europe where it seems that, really, the important thing was the ARTWORK: the image, the drama, the skill of craftsmanship. The “religious” element in Renaissance art often, to me, seems somehow secondary… somehow just the assignment that the artist had to fulfill in order to express his artistry. No, John explains that the important thing in a Russian icon is NOT the artwork, but is the portal, the pathway it offers into the divine reality that Orthodoxy sees as somehow next to our daily reality, linked to us by a mystery channeled by the icon. It’s a bit like a rosary in Catholic prayer practice: the rosary can be a beautiful work of art or a simple bit of junk jewelry; the important thing is the prayer path it offers towards connection with Mary.
The other chapters in the book: on fasting, Eucharistic practice and so on explored elements of Orthodox practice already half-familiar to me, as an long time attendee of Episcopal services, with their Eucharist and their liturgical calendars. If you do not have your own experience with these practices, I guess John’s personal discussion of them may be as helpful to you as his discussion of icons was to me.
By way of transition to “Who's Got Time”, in our family, as we were raising our children, we found Lenten and Advent fasting to be a fun (yes!) and helpful practice that put our eyes on the Christian parts of the stories as our culture built towards secular Easter and (100x more loudly) secular Christmas. Somehow “Christmas shopping in a mall” while conscious of one’s fast helps keep in perspective all the wonderful Bing Crosbys and Frostys and Drummer Boys.
And, that is my take away from “Time”. The authors start by listing all the factors that they see as making their lives different from any before: social media, job transience, new lifestyles, and then meditate on practices that create meaningful spiritual experience and rituals for them. One of my personal epigrams is “There’s nothing newer than whatever ‘old church tradition’” the pastor or priest says will make for a more meaningful Christmas or Easter or long summer break or…. But, I’m a cynic I expect, and Teri and Amy’s book is nothing if not optimistic, and encouraging and “give-it-a-try” enthusiastic.
They have many good suggestions… that is, good if you, your family, your friends whatever find them helpful. My happiest moment reading the book was their discussion of music and spirituality. They make a case that whatever contemporary music “floats your boat” can, with just a little guidance, push that boat over towards the divine. It made my 60 year old’s music soul rejoice, though, when they had a page or two on the powers of jazz as inspiration and concluded citing Coltranes’ “A Love Supreme”.
Some of their suggested practices were new to me and sounded worth trying if I was 30-something again, and some sounded a lot like things our family did 30 years ago as we were discovering the joy of bringing the spiritual into the late 20th century American day to day. One sounded awfully close to the Japanese practice of the BoNenKai (literally “Forget the Year Party”): to meet at the end of a year with friends, coworkers, club members, whatever, and review the year’s pluses and minuses with an eye towards next year. The Japanese version is typically alcohol-fueled. But that’s their culture. Whether the practices are new, old, borrowed or blue… I thought their emphasis on “finding something that works for you! That is helpful for you!” was the take-away of the book. Very contemporary, not only in the “for you” focus but also in its DIY foundation.
Well, on the topic of “blue” I wish I could pull an author or two from 1916’s “God’s Minute” into a time machine to discuss Teri and Ami’s excellent, but oh-so-21st-century comments on the spirituality of sexuality. That would be fun. Almost as much fun, I guess as putting Teri and Ami into a time machine and taking them to 2114 to discuss whatever is the hot topic over there.
As to “Who’s Got the Time”, and DIY spirituality, personally I found the time to read and enjoy Teri and Amy’s book; but, to my regret, I did NOT find the time to join, read and enjoy the blog that Karen moderated. I’d “want” to feel bad about that, maybe, but as I’ve learned from another old school days friend, for us entering our 60s, “Stewardship of Time” can be a very helpful perspective, or maybe a helpful excuse.
Anyway, “Orthodoxy” is a Protestant theologian’s personal account of his years spent living with and studying Russian Orthodox practice, parishioners and priests, an outside-looking-in account of a different-but-similar religious tradition. “Who's Got Time” is a collaboration of two young female Protestant ministers, full of suggestions, ideas and meditations on how to generate “true”, “relevant” spiritual practices, that somehow fit to the lifestyle and worldview of their (35-and-under) generation.
“Orthodoxy” came as a parting gift to me when John, the author, a college classmate (almost 40 years ago!) came to Boston last November for a conference of some Russian culture-and-history-and-politics-and-whatever academic conference where he made a presentation; something about the position of the Russian Orthodox faith in the “new Russia”. The interstices of the conference gave some time for us to talk and walk around Boston and update our friendship. Memorable was his discussion, as we walked through the Boston Public Garden, of the Putin/Orthodox relation from the Orthodox perspective, something generally reported in US press from the “Putin perspective”.
Shortly after my walks around Boston with John, I suffered a catastrophic injury that left me bed bound for 3 months. During that time, our associate rector kindly emailed with me a few times. “Associate rector” is an Episcopal church title, though she’s a Lutheran. I forget the context, probably responding to some homily notes from a service she led that I couldn’t attend, anyway one time something prompted me to suggest to Karen that she might consider John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” as a meditation on “The Divine”. A month or two later, while I was still bed bound, for the Lent season, Karen organized an on-line book study of “Time”, where she was to (and did, I suppose) host a blog on the book’s topics. Now, while I’ve been paying the bills by working in the computer industry for more than 35 years, I’ve never been a “blog follower”, so I thought it might be a Lenten study open to my home bound situation as well as a chance to experience a bit of 21st century dialog.
That’s the background. The common thread between the two books is their offering perspectives on Christian spiritual practices that are not mine, and that are not really are practices for me to “pick up” at my advanced age. NONETHELESS I’ve always been one to value seeing “other perspectives”. The college where I met John was at the foot of Pikes Peak, in Colorado. One of the wonderful things about this 14,000 foot mountain is that, as one travels around it, it changes radically in appearance, almost discontinuously radically. Your view of the mountain is deeply connected to your perspective. By contrast, Mt. Fuji in Japan or Mt. Hood in Oregon change a bit from point to point but the view remains consistent. So maybe Pikes Peak taught me to look for and enjoy those other perspectives.
Can I try to use a third book as an illustration of the common thread of perspective that unites “Orthodoxy” and “Time” for me? At a church library de-acquisition, I picked up a copy of “God’s Minute”; a prayer-a-day compilation of, yes, 60-second prayers written by various North American divines and lay writers; PUBLISHED in 1916. I really enjoy the glimpse it gives across the 100-year gulf between North American thought and prayer in the 1910s and the 2010s. Today’s, September first, starts: "In Thy mercy and love, O God, we are permitted to greet another day. Thy guardian angels have watched over us when we have not been able to care for ourselves. Sweet sleep has refreshed us, and now we look into another day confident that Thou wilt guide and strengthen". Like the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” of my youth, the book's prayers are made of thoughts and phrases and theologies not much heard in most 21st century North American churches.
So, on to “Orthodoxy”. It starts with John’s engaging account of a Protestant theologian’s year spent, more than a decade ago, in the chaos of newly post-Soviet Russia; with his wife and teenage daughters, brought by a sketchy thread of inspiration to a truly sketchy life on the wrong side of the tracks in St. Petersburg (or was it Moscow, I forget, as I said I read the book a few months ago and passed it along to my sister who lives on the other side of the country, so I can’t double check as I write this).
This scary, personal history sets a good tone for the rest of John’s book: you know that he’s writing from the sore-knees-from-kneeling-and-teeth-chattering-from-cold perspective of an American Protestant not used to either kneeling or hardship cold; and you know he’s NOT pontificating from the academic, meditative heights of his gig at the august-sounding, 1910s-sounding “Pittsburgh Theological Seminary”.
Given all the media attention that Putin and the New Russia and whatever-the-Putin-Orthodoxy-interface-is, I want to note that John’s book does not ignore the political interface BUT is refreshing in that this political accent is never more than a backdrop. The great theme of the book is what a Protestant academic sees in Russian Orthodox practice that might be helpful to North Americans, both for “understanding” as well as “enlightenment”.
Beyond the account of hard times in post-Soviet Russia, the BIG INSIGHT for me in this work is his discussion of Russian Orthodox icons If you have ever seen these and, like me, “just not quite gotten it”, the book is a value just for that chapter. Here in Central Massachusetts we’re lucky to have the new “Museum of Russian Icons” in Clinton, and I’m eager to go back now that I’ve learned from John’s analysis.
Russian Icons are NOT like the religious artwork of Renaissance Europe where it seems that, really, the important thing was the ARTWORK: the image, the drama, the skill of craftsmanship. The “religious” element in Renaissance art often, to me, seems somehow secondary… somehow just the assignment that the artist had to fulfill in order to express his artistry. No, John explains that the important thing in a Russian icon is NOT the artwork, but is the portal, the pathway it offers into the divine reality that Orthodoxy sees as somehow next to our daily reality, linked to us by a mystery channeled by the icon. It’s a bit like a rosary in Catholic prayer practice: the rosary can be a beautiful work of art or a simple bit of junk jewelry; the important thing is the prayer path it offers towards connection with Mary.
The other chapters in the book: on fasting, Eucharistic practice and so on explored elements of Orthodox practice already half-familiar to me, as an long time attendee of Episcopal services, with their Eucharist and their liturgical calendars. If you do not have your own experience with these practices, I guess John’s personal discussion of them may be as helpful to you as his discussion of icons was to me.
By way of transition to “Who's Got Time”, in our family, as we were raising our children, we found Lenten and Advent fasting to be a fun (yes!) and helpful practice that put our eyes on the Christian parts of the stories as our culture built towards secular Easter and (100x more loudly) secular Christmas. Somehow “Christmas shopping in a mall” while conscious of one’s fast helps keep in perspective all the wonderful Bing Crosbys and Frostys and Drummer Boys.
And, that is my take away from “Time”. The authors start by listing all the factors that they see as making their lives different from any before: social media, job transience, new lifestyles, and then meditate on practices that create meaningful spiritual experience and rituals for them. One of my personal epigrams is “There’s nothing newer than whatever ‘old church tradition’” the pastor or priest says will make for a more meaningful Christmas or Easter or long summer break or…. But, I’m a cynic I expect, and Teri and Amy’s book is nothing if not optimistic, and encouraging and “give-it-a-try” enthusiastic.
They have many good suggestions… that is, good if you, your family, your friends whatever find them helpful. My happiest moment reading the book was their discussion of music and spirituality. They make a case that whatever contemporary music “floats your boat” can, with just a little guidance, push that boat over towards the divine. It made my 60 year old’s music soul rejoice, though, when they had a page or two on the powers of jazz as inspiration and concluded citing Coltranes’ “A Love Supreme”.
Some of their suggested practices were new to me and sounded worth trying if I was 30-something again, and some sounded a lot like things our family did 30 years ago as we were discovering the joy of bringing the spiritual into the late 20th century American day to day. One sounded awfully close to the Japanese practice of the BoNenKai (literally “Forget the Year Party”): to meet at the end of a year with friends, coworkers, club members, whatever, and review the year’s pluses and minuses with an eye towards next year. The Japanese version is typically alcohol-fueled. But that’s their culture. Whether the practices are new, old, borrowed or blue… I thought their emphasis on “finding something that works for you! That is helpful for you!” was the take-away of the book. Very contemporary, not only in the “for you” focus but also in its DIY foundation.
Well, on the topic of “blue” I wish I could pull an author or two from 1916’s “God’s Minute” into a time machine to discuss Teri and Ami’s excellent, but oh-so-21st-century comments on the spirituality of sexuality. That would be fun. Almost as much fun, I guess as putting Teri and Ami into a time machine and taking them to 2114 to discuss whatever is the hot topic over there.
As to “Who’s Got the Time”, and DIY spirituality, personally I found the time to read and enjoy Teri and Amy’s book; but, to my regret, I did NOT find the time to join, read and enjoy the blog that Karen moderated. I’d “want” to feel bad about that, maybe, but as I’ve learned from another old school days friend, for us entering our 60s, “Stewardship of Time” can be a very helpful perspective, or maybe a helpful excuse.
September 13, 2018
A phenomenal book, for both pastors and church members that is fresh and deep and holy.
December 5, 2013
Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman build a case for giving spirituality a chance, aimed at Millennials and young Gen Xers. Both pastors in the Presbyterian Church (USA), they use both their theological education and their ministry experience to create a foundation for exploring spirituality in the real world of the 2010s.
I am a back-edge Baby Boomer, and the mother of three Millennials, all younger than the authors but clearly living in the same world. I entered adulthood believing that with hard work and a little bit of luck, someday I would live in the suburbs with my lawyer spouse and drive my kids around in a Volvo 240 with a golden retriever in the back.
My kids live in a very, very different world. It’s hard to imagine any of them living into that fantasy I had. The oldest lives in an urban tribe of friends from college and other actors and aspiring theatre professionals. The second is in grad school training for a career that may or may not pan out, regardless of his gifts and hard work, because symphony orchestras are going the way of the Dodo, just like churches, as the older generation that supported such institutions dies off having lost wealth in the stock market downturn of the late Oughts.
I went back to church as soon as I had a child, after a brief break for college. Now childbearing comes later, as does marriage (and not necessarily in the order my parents’ generation would have assumed). What will get my children, now adults, to go to church? And can they have a spiritual life without it?
The answer to the latter is clearly yes, and Peterson and Fetterman, while not discouraging church-going at all, don’t hammer on it either. In thematic chapters, they invite the reader into a way of looking at all areas of life for their spiritual potential. They refer to popular culture and tell their own stories to illustrate the grace offered by yoga, the frustration of trying to find God in a garden when a groundhog has eaten the tomatoes, the value of confession (if not in Real World style for most of us), the palpable reality of relationships we form online and even a list of things to consider when gathering your own in-person spiritual community. Each chapter ends with suggestions for spiritual practice and recommendations for further reading.
Here’s a thing I love: the footnotes. If you want to know more about something they’ve written, it’s almost always expanded upon in a footnote.
Here’s a thing I didn’t love: the print is ever-so-tiny. This is a publisher’s issue, not an author’s issue, but it did cause me to put the book down when I really wanted to keep reading.
I would highly recommend this book to both its target audience and to the parents of its target audience, as well as to church leaders considering meaningful outreach to them. Not only do Peterson and Fetterman effectively communicate the possibility and desirability of a spiritual life to their age cohort, they paint a picture of the world that generation inhabits with honesty and authenticity. They also achieve a consistency of voice I appreciated, identifying themselves in the context of a particular anecdote, but otherwise managing a style that did not distract with obvious changes of viewpoint.
I am a back-edge Baby Boomer, and the mother of three Millennials, all younger than the authors but clearly living in the same world. I entered adulthood believing that with hard work and a little bit of luck, someday I would live in the suburbs with my lawyer spouse and drive my kids around in a Volvo 240 with a golden retriever in the back.
My kids live in a very, very different world. It’s hard to imagine any of them living into that fantasy I had. The oldest lives in an urban tribe of friends from college and other actors and aspiring theatre professionals. The second is in grad school training for a career that may or may not pan out, regardless of his gifts and hard work, because symphony orchestras are going the way of the Dodo, just like churches, as the older generation that supported such institutions dies off having lost wealth in the stock market downturn of the late Oughts.
I went back to church as soon as I had a child, after a brief break for college. Now childbearing comes later, as does marriage (and not necessarily in the order my parents’ generation would have assumed). What will get my children, now adults, to go to church? And can they have a spiritual life without it?
The answer to the latter is clearly yes, and Peterson and Fetterman, while not discouraging church-going at all, don’t hammer on it either. In thematic chapters, they invite the reader into a way of looking at all areas of life for their spiritual potential. They refer to popular culture and tell their own stories to illustrate the grace offered by yoga, the frustration of trying to find God in a garden when a groundhog has eaten the tomatoes, the value of confession (if not in Real World style for most of us), the palpable reality of relationships we form online and even a list of things to consider when gathering your own in-person spiritual community. Each chapter ends with suggestions for spiritual practice and recommendations for further reading.
Here’s a thing I love: the footnotes. If you want to know more about something they’ve written, it’s almost always expanded upon in a footnote.
Here’s a thing I didn’t love: the print is ever-so-tiny. This is a publisher’s issue, not an author’s issue, but it did cause me to put the book down when I really wanted to keep reading.
I would highly recommend this book to both its target audience and to the parents of its target audience, as well as to church leaders considering meaningful outreach to them. Not only do Peterson and Fetterman effectively communicate the possibility and desirability of a spiritual life to their age cohort, they paint a picture of the world that generation inhabits with honesty and authenticity. They also achieve a consistency of voice I appreciated, identifying themselves in the context of a particular anecdote, but otherwise managing a style that did not distract with obvious changes of viewpoint.
December 31, 2013
As a Baby Boomer and parent of a Millennial, who also happens to be pastor of a church that has a number of Millennials as members and leaders, I am interested in what makes a young adult tick. I'm especially concerned about their spiritual lives. We are told that increasing numbers of young adults are opting for "none" rather than adopt a traditional formal religious tradition. This choice doesn't mean that Young Adults are opting for atheism or don't have any spiritual inclinations, they're just coming at these things from a different perspective. That is true of those both inside and outside traditional congregations.
We're all busy, but the younger generations face issues of busyness that previous generations, including mine, have not. Finding time to address one's spiritual needs is not easy. So, if one wants to incorporate the spiritual what should they do?
Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman are young Presbyterian Pastors who not only understand the realities of their generation, but have provided a wonderfully written and very insightful book that addresses the complexities of the age, and offers thoughtful suggestions for incorporating the spiritual into one's life, ranging from sacred worship to exploring nature to engaging in civic life.
As Brother Lawrence taught, for busy generations, the key is finding ways of incorporating the spiritual into one's daily life. Yes, it's important to stop and pray, to read, to worship, but there is more than one way of accomplishing this.
I'll have more to say in my blog review, but I do want to note that this book is the latest in a series of books that Chalice Press has published in partnership with the Young Clergy Women Project.
We're all busy, but the younger generations face issues of busyness that previous generations, including mine, have not. Finding time to address one's spiritual needs is not easy. So, if one wants to incorporate the spiritual what should they do?
Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman are young Presbyterian Pastors who not only understand the realities of their generation, but have provided a wonderfully written and very insightful book that addresses the complexities of the age, and offers thoughtful suggestions for incorporating the spiritual into one's life, ranging from sacred worship to exploring nature to engaging in civic life.
As Brother Lawrence taught, for busy generations, the key is finding ways of incorporating the spiritual into one's daily life. Yes, it's important to stop and pray, to read, to worship, but there is more than one way of accomplishing this.
I'll have more to say in my blog review, but I do want to note that this book is the latest in a series of books that Chalice Press has published in partnership with the Young Clergy Women Project.
July 4, 2014
Spirituality for a Busy Generation
Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman
Publisher: Chalice Press
A conversation about the busyness of life and its impact on world and its spirituality. This book has been written intentionally for those in their 20s and 30s who just continually run out of time.
It is not a time management book, or a book full of hints and tips, more it’s a recognition that life is busy, and that there are many competing time demands.
The book gives a selection of spiritual practices that can be incorporated into existing life style, not totally restructuring the current life style.
While I found nothing new in the book, many will find the honest of Teri and Amy refreshing, and take some of their ideas for incorporating into their worlds.
An easy read, filled with real world examples.
Teri Peterson and Amy Fetterman
Publisher: Chalice Press
A conversation about the busyness of life and its impact on world and its spirituality. This book has been written intentionally for those in their 20s and 30s who just continually run out of time.
It is not a time management book, or a book full of hints and tips, more it’s a recognition that life is busy, and that there are many competing time demands.
The book gives a selection of spiritual practices that can be incorporated into existing life style, not totally restructuring the current life style.
While I found nothing new in the book, many will find the honest of Teri and Amy refreshing, and take some of their ideas for incorporating into their worlds.
An easy read, filled with real world examples.
May 18, 2015
I read this book knowing that it wasn't meant to speak to my baby-boomer generation. Even so, I really appreciated the way the authors gently guide you to spiritual practice ideas without beating you up for not already employing those practices.
I work with a young woman whose life pretty much defines the Busy Generation. All the way through this book I kept thinking "I must share that with K..." By the end of the book, I thought, "I must buy this book for K..." and I did.
She is a school teacher, mother of three active children, and our church musician. She found the book really helpful, as did her partner. I highly recommend this book for the busy people in your life.
I work with a young woman whose life pretty much defines the Busy Generation. All the way through this book I kept thinking "I must share that with K..." By the end of the book, I thought, "I must buy this book for K..." and I did.
She is a school teacher, mother of three active children, and our church musician. She found the book really helpful, as did her partner. I highly recommend this book for the busy people in your life.
March 6, 2014
I was excited about reading this book, because the description talks about spirituality, not about any one particular belief system.
So I was disappointed when there were multiple mentions of the Christian God and bible in the first chapter.
However, as I read on, the book captured me. The suggestions and ideas presented by the authors can be applied to anyone, anywhere, regardless of what their belief system or religion is.
The book is so well written, and is like a breath of fresh air.
So I was disappointed when there were multiple mentions of the Christian God and bible in the first chapter.
However, as I read on, the book captured me. The suggestions and ideas presented by the authors can be applied to anyone, anywhere, regardless of what their belief system or religion is.
The book is so well written, and is like a breath of fresh air.
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