Book Notes, August 2021

In this series, we highlight books we think our readers may enjoy, written by authors affiliated with the Collegeville Institute.

Make a Move: How to Stop Wavering and Make Decisions in a Disorienting World
Broadleaf Books, 2021
by Stephanie Williams O’Brien, former writing workshop participant

Decision-making is part of life, and while most decisions are simple and relatively easy, many get stuck in the larger, life-altering decisions. This can lead to frustration, anxiety, and confusion. “It would be so much easier if life just came with a road map!” But life is full of twists and turns, the unexpected and the unforeseen. And yet, the uncertainty of life also brings adventure and exploration, surprises, and wonder.

In Make a Move, pastor and coach Stephanie Williams O’Brien offers practical advice and action steps for moving through the experiments of life. These steps help us narrow down the choices when it seems like the options are endless and allow us to discern God’s leadership in a way we never could while standing still.

Crisis and Care: Meditations on Faith and Philanthropy
Cascade Books, 2021
by Dustin Benac, former writing workshop participant, and Erin Weber-Johnson

A deadly pandemic. Civic unrest. Economic uncertainty. The years between the 2016 and 2020 Presidential Elections exposed the vulnerability of our institutions–and ourselves–like never before. In the wake of uncertainty, Dustin Benac and Erin Weber-Johnson offer wisdom to make sense of the recent changes. Reflecting how faith and philanthropy converge, they imagine alternative economies for faith communities, academia, and nonprofits, while also marking the unshakable encounter with grief and crisis. As we move forward, we ask: what do we leave behind, what do we bring with us, and what possibilities exist where crisis and care converge? This volume kindles philanthropic imagination in this moment of transition and change.

A Kind of Solitude: How Pacing the Cage with an Icon and The Book of Common Prayer Restored My Soul
Resource Publications, 2021
by Jamie Howison, former Resident Scholar

Six months into a deep personal crisis occasioned by the unexpected end of his marriage, Jamie Howison traveled halfway across the continent to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to engage in a unique and intense five-week contemplative retreat served in the context of the chapel community of the University of King’s College. Immersed in the liturgies of the Canadian Book of Common Prayer, mentored in the writing of an Orthodox icon of Christ Pantocrator, challenged to confront the hard truths behind his brokenness, and laid bare by the hours of silence and solitude, Howison discovered something of the power of the ancient spiritual traditions in the restoration of a twenty-first-century soul. A Kind of Solitude tells that story.

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