Spring has officially arrived at Augustana.

And I am super grateful.

All of our other local trails have now closed, so we are walking at Augustana every day.

I notice new flowers opening up every day.

Even if a lot of the trees are still bare,

the grass is green.

On our street, this tulip tree has more flowers blossoming every time we walk under it.

I have loved getting to walk with my boys.

Cole was here for a couple of weeks from Arkansas.

He got to hike with us in the woods once more before the trails closed.

Getting outside for a little walk each day has been a lifesaver for me during this season of sheltering at home.

Even getting caught out in the rain one day this week didn’t bother me. Ben said it was just like we were in Scotland.

Also I’m still baking sourdough bread every single day.

And sprouting mung beans.

We went to a Zoom Powerpoint Party where everyone had to do a 3 minute presentation on whatever they wanted. It was a super fun idea, and I did mine on sprouting mung beans. So if you need a little tutorial, here you go. (Basically, you just soak them for one day and then drain them and rinse them every 12 hours or so while you let them sprout. So easy!)

I’ve also set up a little yoga corner in my house. My bread bakes for 35 minutes in the morning, and you turn the oven down for the last 10 minutes, so my routine has been to do yoga for 25 minutes and then have shavasana for 10 minutes after I turn the oven down. There are tons of free yoga classes online right now. Usually I just turn on a playlist or some gentle drums and move on my own, but if I’m feeling ambitious, I might do a practice from this Arkansas yoga teacher. (Her accent reminds me of home.)

I’m also using the practices of lighting candles, diffusing essential oils and playing music to mark the different points of the day. Little tiny routines that remind me to stay in the present moment.

My last candle of the day marks a time of praying for those who are sick and for the ones who are helping people to heal.

Here are a few other things I’m grateful for at the moment.

A Quarantine Resource List

Books, of course. I finished Sensible Shoes and Wolf Whistle this week. I started Deep River this morning, and am still working my way through The Surrender Experiment.

I’m listening to this recording of a man playing a piano in a German coffee shop while I work. In addition to drowning out the noise in my house, it makes me feel like I’m in a coffee shop in Germany where someone is playing the piano. These are all three experiences I can’t have at the moment, so it’s sort of a fun mind trick. I heard about this recording in Austin Kleon’s newsletter, which is another fun resource in and of itself.

I’m finding myself drawn to sweeter movies at the moment. It seems like a season for rewatching old favorites. I have made everyone in my family watch the French films Un peu, beaucoup, aveuglément! and C’est Quoi, Cette Famille (They’re both on Netflix and both precious.)

We’ve also loved Onward and are in the middle of laughing through every episode of Kim’s Convenience.

Richard Rohr’s Daily Mediations are a breath of fresh air in the mornings. (I’ve especially enjoyed the Holy Week ones.)

And my friend Jane is sending out lots of new free mediations.

One of my favorite artists is telling stories behind her travel sketches. Plus she hosts a monthly sketching weekend online that produces all kinds of beauty.

I am enjoying listening to our pastor from Aberdeen preach from his office.

Our friend Chris Shelton is doing Facebook live concerts on Friday nights.

Looking at these photos of Jupiter is a beautiful dose of perspective.

Leigh Shulman is a writing coach and she’s sending her subscribers lots of free resources for writing during quarantine.

Back in February I hosted a letter writing course via email. That course is now available to download as an ebook if you want to catch up on some letter writing during quarantine.

Also I have unearthed the MOST massive stack of old postcards while cleaning out boxes, so if you want an old postcard with one of my favorite quotes written on it, send me your address (contact form at the bottom of that page) and I’ll pop one in the mail for you. (I’ll wash my hands first, I promise!)

What are your quarantine resources?

Sending love from my shelter to yours.

XO
Alison

The post Spring’s Arrival at Augustana + My Quarantine Resource List appeared first on Alison Chino.

I am already pumped for all that’s coming in 2020.

It’s going to be an AMAZING year, I can feel it.

But before we get too far into 2020, I want to  I want to take a minute to record some favorites from 2019.

So here are some of the books, movies, songs and moments that captured my heart and widened my thinking in 2019.

2019 Favorites: Books 

Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women by Susan Burton

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Rabbit: A Memoir by Patricia Williams

On The Come Up by Angie Thomas

Educated by Tara Westover

Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii by T.W. Neal

Leaving Church by Barbara Taylor Bradford

Holy Envy by Barbara Taylor Bradford

The Universal Christ by Richard Rohr

2019 Favorites: Songs 

2019 Favorites: Movies

The Sun is Also A Star

This Beautiful Fantastic

Avengers: Endgame (Obviously)

Where’d You Go, Bernadette

Little Women

2019 Favorites: Podcasts 

White Lies

The 1619 Podcast

Dolly Parton’s America

Ear Hustle

DuoLingo Podcast

2019 Favorites: Experiences 

Helping to Lead a Hike + Yoga Retreat

Returning to Italy

Honoring My Mother-in-Law’s Life

Living Near My Sister

Walking from Logrono to Burgos

Want to see more favorites (mostly books) from past years? Here’s 2009, 2012, 2013, 2017, and 2018.

The post 2019 Favorites appeared first on Alison Chino.

It’s been about two months since we moved to Rock Island, Illinois, which is one of the Quad Cities.

(The other three are Moline, Davenport and Bettendorf. The jury is still out on whether or not we picked the right one.)

Taido took a job at beautiful Augustana College. He is teaching theology in the building pictured above, which is Augustana’s Old Main. (so fancy!)

We enter the campus by walking over this lovely little bridge and through the woods.

The college is the nicest place I’ve found to go for walks, so I keep going back there.

There’s even a little path along a slough, which I don’t think is such a nice word, but it’s beautiful even if it is a “swampy area.”

Sometimes Simon walks with me around the campus after school,

and sometimes I walk by myself.

My parents have already been up for a visit! And my sister has been over as well, so we’ve gotten to show off the college a bit.

In 2013 we moved to Scotland as a family of six.

Then in 2016 we moved to Germany as a family of four.

And now we are three.

It’s been a challenging set of changes for me for sure, doing another move and sending Ben off to school all at once.

But we’re only a few hours away from Ben and Mary Polly (as well as my sister and her family), so that helps.

And I’m slowly trying to explore my new surroundings. Bit by bit.

We’ve gotten out on the Mississippi River bike trail a few times. The river is the border between Illinois and Iowa in the Quad Cities, so I find that I’m crossing back and forth often between the two states.

When I’m not out with the Taido and Simon, I’m exploring on my own.

I made use of this bench for a long afternoon one day to write.

I’ve gotten a library card and am already a regular visitor, of course.

I’ve been to the local farmers’ market and to health food stores.

I visited a farm that was in full fall festivities.

I went to pick raspberries, but they were very buggy.

However, I persevered and managed to bring home a couple of pints of berries without bugs on them.

Plus I bought a few other treasures at the farm store, including fresh apple cider and cider doughnuts.

And miraculously I did not break down and cry when I saw all the wagons full of preschoolers visiting the petting zoo and picking out pumpkins. (I find I am breaking into tears at the littlest things these days.)

But mostly I have been puttering around the house we have rented.

I’m working a bit. (I edited a big project last month, as well as a few smaller ones.)

I’m having a go at keeping house plants, which is new for me.

I’ve framed some prints of the Lake District that I’ve carried around for four or five years.

They remind me of some of my favorite walks.

In fact, I’ve started to make some walking plans for next year and I think having these prints hanging up might be the inspiration.

I’m making my own sprouts.

I’ve expanded my kombucha brewing.

And of course, I’m still baking sourdough bread.

Every. Day.

I’ve starting doing one small sketch every day.

I’m using this curriculum I’ve had from my Mama Polly since the kids were young.

She wrote it for fourth graders, so that’s about right for me.

I love seeing her handwriting and reading her instructions.

The lessons were written to accompany her television program from long, long ago.

I’m also learning Spanish on DuoLingo. I’ve become obsessed with staying at the top of my leader board. Join me?

A few other things I’m reading/watching that I’m enjoying/finding interesting:

When They See Us: This is the Netflix series about the five men who were wrongly accused as The Central Park Five, who are now known as The Exonerated Five. It’s brilliantly done. Excruciating and so important. I love everything Ava DuVernay directs because she is always telling more than the story that is right in front of you. In When They See Us, she’s telling a story about every young man who’s ever been wrongly accused. And she’s telling a story about how hard it is for family members to hold up those they love who are in prison. She’s telling a story about what it’s like to try to find a job after you’ve been released from prison. She is telling the story of these five young men, but ultimately, she is telling a story about America.

The 1619 Project: 400 years ago the first African slaves arrived in America. Nikole Hannah-Jones spearheaded a project to release a collection of essays that are an opportunity to pause and consider how the decision to allow and depend on slavery in America has shaped our nation. There is also a podcast version of the project. Particularly compelling is the episode on how our American economy has been and continues to be shaped by the legacy of slavery.

Jemar Tisby’s account of the opening of The Elaine Massacre Memorial:

100 years ago this week, there was a racially motivated massacre of over 200 black men, women and children in the small town of Elaine, Arkansas. I went to Elaine a couple of years ago to see if there was any evidence of the violent events that took place there in 1919 and only found a small plaque. I’m hopeful that the new memorial will be a help for all Arkansans in reckoning with the insidious racism that so often remains buried.

I found both The Sun is Also A Star and This Beautiful Fantastic to be absolutely delightful to watch. I’ve also been writing to the soundtracks of both films.

And a few books I’ve loved lately include:

Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor

Kindred by Octavia Butler (I can’t believe I’ve never read anything by her!)

My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure by Alistair Humphreys

That’s about it for me. We’re headed for the woods this weekend to kick off Simon’s fall break. I’m happy about some time around a campfire.

The post Update from the Quad Cities: Rock Island Days appeared first on Alison Chino.

Y’all, I’ve been walking in the early mornings and I found a red UK phone booth in a yard in my neighborhood. Right here in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Isn’t that crazy?

I painted it as part of trying to stretch my creative muscles in a new way for Candace’s Moment Sketchers project. So fun.

I started a personal yoga challenge for myself this month. I’m attending classes all around the Little Rock area as I continue to work through my teacher training. I’ll finish training in August, but I have a lot more practice teaching to do so I’ve got my sons being my guinea pigs. They’ve been great sports.

It’s summer, so I’m begging my kids to read instead of play video games. Which is probably why I enjoyed this piece about why we need readers.

Summer is for reading novels by the pool. Here are four I’ve already read and LOVED:

Leopard at the Door and The Fever Tree by Jennifer McVeigh

City of Thieves by David Benioff

At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen

I’ve also been exploring Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, both the book and on YouTube. It’s kind of making my head explode.

My dear friend, Amy, celebrated the finish of her PhD in Theology by walking the West Highland Way, and she wrote this beautiful piece about her journey. It made me miss Scotland for sure.

I’ve participated for the last three weeks in the Poor People’s Campaign. The first week, I got arrested with 14 of my new best friends for singing in the streets. The second week I dragged my kids along. And last week I went by myself to lie down on the Arkansas Capitol lawn for a Pray In + Die In. I’ve wanted to write more about this experience, but for now it’s all super new to me and I am just taking it in. Learning. Observing. I read a book by Dr. Rev. William Barber last fall in a Bridge Builders book club. When I hear him speak, I think, “This man is about seeing the kingdom of heaven come on earth.” And I want to be a part of it. That’s the main reason I keep showing up. (There are still three weeks left if you want to join me!)

Other than that, I’m hanging at the pool as often as the boys will go.

Our summer routine: Walk + Yoga + Work + Lunch + Pool.

I do love me some hot Arkansas summer.

Pass the watermelon.

XO
Alison

PS. We sang this song in the choir yesterday and it’s the most fun!

The post Books + Links Loved Lately appeared first on Alison Chino.

4 favorite essays,

2 books and 1 song.

Happy Friday friends.

I’ve made several jars of my two favorite salad dressings (Goddess and Ginger) so I’ve been eating salads for days.

Ben: Let me guess what’s for dinner? Salad again? 

It’s been a minute since I did any kind of life update. I think that’s partly because I am working on several projects I haven’t been ready to publicize, but mostly because I keep waiting for the shift in the transitional nature of our lives.

Clearly, that shift is a futile thing to wait for so I’m moving on forward with being present in this crazy, unpredictable life of our family being split between countries and states.

By moving forward, I mostly mean that I go for a walk every day and I write every day.

So…business as usual.

I have been working on more client projects in 2018 than I’ve ever had before, which is exciting. I’ve been doing a bit more ghostwriting and lots more editing. I love both immensely because they allow me to indulge in my great love for words AND get paid at the same time. Which is LOVELY. (I have a few more openings for ghostwriting eBooks this summer in case you know of anyone who needs help with that sort of thing.)

The books that have rocked my world this week are Gabor Maté’s In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted.

I’m also reading The Power of Breath and Chakra Yoga because I am currently doing Yoga Teacher Training. (Cheers to the pursuit of long held dreams, friends!)

This essay, Walking While Black, is the most beautiful thing I’ve read on the internet in a long time.

And this one reminds me why I oppose ALL the wars.

Our white supremacist society is aversely affecting the pregnancies and childbirths of black women in surprising ways.

I’m pretty sure every high school and college graduate, plus anyone else who is experiencing a career shift (raises hand), should read this lengthy, but helpful guide to picking a career that actually fits you in this modern day society.

This song is my favorite right now. (Hamilton renditions for the win, y’all.)

It’s supposed to be hecka gorgeous around here this weekend so cheers to feeling the sun on our faces!

Happy weekend!

XO

Alison

The post Links Loved Lately appeared first on Alison Chino.

MLK50: Gospel Reflections from the Mountaintop

“There’s a wreath at the Lorraine Motel.”

“We are not children of God apart from loving one another.” 

“This is a great conference but it’s still just a conference. Let’s not give finish line praise for getting to the starting line.”

 “The reason that you are so comfortably able to honor the prophets is that they cannot speak to you any longer.” 

The post MLK50 appeared first on Alison Chino.

It’s no secret that I love traveling. In the last few years, I have really been digging the kind of travel where you get to soak up time, culture and life in one single setting, like The Cinque Terre or The Northwest Highlands of Scotland.

But also, I think it’s super fun to add an activity to traveling that I already love or that stretches a creative part of my brain. A few examples: Travel + Yoga, Travel + Cooking Classes, Travel + Hiking, or Travel + Art Classes!

If that sounds delightful to you too, you might be interested in these yoga retreats that have come across my radar lately. They are all being offered by folks I know and love, and for that reason I can say with a good degree of certainty that they will be fabulous! So if you’re looking for a new way to travel to a new place to do new things in the near future, here are my recommendations:

Dreamy Trip #1: A Yogi’s Journey to Peru

When: October 6-13, 2018

Where: The Sacred Valley of Peru

Who: Adriana Robertson is a phenomenal yoga teacher and a delight to be with. I met her in Guatemala last year and am grateful to now consider her a friend for life. She is part-Peruvian so I know that her guidance in the Sacred Valley will be a rich and mind-blowing experience!

Dreamy Trip #2: Yoga Retreat in Tuscany

When: May 27 – June 2 OR September 9-15, 2018

Where: Italy!

Who: Jane Reeves has led over 50 yoga retreats and she specializes in helping you tap into Loving Kindness, which we definitely need more of the world! She has been taking yogis and yoga newbies to Italy for five years now. Also, she has scoured Italy to find the very best spots to call home for a week. Anna and I joined her last year in Tuscany and we had a spectacular week of soaking up the Italian countryside and living La Dolce Vita!

Dreamy Trip #3: Yoga and Dance Retreat in Costa Rica

When: March 9-16, 2019

Where: Blue Osa, Costa Rica

Who: Jurian Hughes teaches yoga, voice and dance. I met her in Guatemala last year and we did just a couple of sessions of a kind of yoga called Let Your Yoga Dance. It is one of the most beautiful ways I have experienced of being both present and free within my body. I would yoga dance again with Jurian in a heartbeat!

Dreamy Trip #4: Writing, Fitness and Yoga Retreat in Hawaii

When: July 15-22, 2018

Where: The Big Island of Hawaii

Who: Alexandra Franzen has been leading writing retreats and workshops for a long time. She is, in my humble opinion, one of the best writers on the internet. (Her newsletter is a delight to receive!) Over the last couple of years, she has developed this luxurious experience in Hawaii that seems to me like the ultimate dreamy trip for a writer/yogi!

Dreamy Trip #5: Sketching and Yoga Retreat in New England

When: Aug 16-19, 2018

Where: Leyton, Massachussets

Who: Candace Rose Rardon is a watercolor sketch artist who I first came in contact with at a travel conference in 2013. She has started an international project called Moment Sketchers to encourage people to take up sketching wherever they are on the first weekend of every month. She has teamed up with a yoga teacher to create some amazing-looking retreats this year. She’s hosting a second one in September in Portugal.

Cheers to traveling somewhere fabulous and doing things you love while you’re there!! 

The post 5 Yoga Retreats You Should Probably Go On This Year appeared first on Alison Chino.

Hello friends,

We’ve had a mixture of blue skies and rainy days over the last couple of weeks here in Tübingen.

We had friends come to visit and they definitely experienced a bit of every kind of weather.

We even had a bit of snow.

We headed back to Castle Lichtenstein where we had a gorgeous birthday lunch at the Altes Forsthaus. If you ever go, I strongly recommend the Maltauschen!

It was so fun to have folks here from our life in Aberdeen, and I especially adored having a bit of girl time! Living in an all male household is still a new (and sometimes harsh) reality for me. The struggle is real, y’all.

A few other bits and pieces from this week:

I went to a new weekly gathering (Sprach-Café) for beginners who want to practice their German and I met a family from Syria, so that was my daily reminder that while learning German for me is a sort of hobby and I can go back to English + The USA anytime, some people are learning this language to survive + build a permanent life in a new place.

About once a week, a movie is shown in English in a theater here in Tübingen and this week it was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so the boys and I went and y’all! I’m so happy to know that Empathy is a superpower. I finally have an answer to that party mixer question: If you were a super hero, what would your superpower be? 

We planned most of our summer travel this week, booking hostels and train tickets, and Taido has a series of hikes planned for which I seriously need to train. Time to get outside.

A dear friend of mine sent me this Henri Nouwen quote recently:

Writing is not just jotting down ideas. Often we say: “I don’t know what to write. I have no thoughts worth writing down.” But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself. As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

from Bread for the Journey, by Henri J.M. Nouwen

I’m keeping this idea in front of me as I fill up the pages of my notebooks with what always feels like drivel!

I’m going to try Rosa Parks’ recipe for pancakes. She used peanut butter, which seems like a fabulous plan.

Randomly, I found this simple, but beautiful sketch of Jesus.

We missed our friends’ Eurovision party this year but we joined via Twitter and my favorite did not win. My first choice was Romania, because yodeling! And second place goes to France for the beautiful video of Paris! But the real winners of the night were a guy streaking the stage and this tweet! Oh Eurovision!

I finished reading Africans in America, which I’ve been reading for a couple of months. It’s the companion book to the PBS series about the history of slavery in America. Each chapter is accompanied by these exquisite short stories by Charles Johnson, who also wrote Middle Passage. He brings the history alive in this achingly beautiful way. Highly recommend. It’s an older book so you can get it used for super cheap.

Now I need a book recommendation for while I’m traveling. Preferably something set in Italy!! Thoughts??

I’m packing my backpack to meet my sister in Italy and will be traveling for the rest of May and a lot of June! I’m ready to feel that Tuscan sun on my face.

Then in June, the boys and I are off to Arkansas for a visit because they have two weeks off of school for Pentecost. (Soooo many holidays!)

Because I’m heading out on the road alone for the first time in a while, I decided to hop back on Instagram.

That’s it for me at the moment. Sending you a squeeze from sunny Germany today!

XO

Alison

The post In The Pipeline: May appeared first on Alison Chino.

The boys went back to school this morning after two weeks of being at home.

It was the first long stretch of school holidays in several years where we opted not to travel.

Mary Polly came through on her way to Dresden.

We went on lots of day hikes.

We had new friends around most evenings.

So even though we were home, the time felt full. (Of course, there were also a lot of hours on computers and iPads.)

We hiked the area around this waterfall for the second time this spring last Saturday and we think it might be our favorite Baden-Württemberg hike so far.

And of course, any time there was a blue sky, I made my way to the hill above this nearby village (Bebenhausen).

Also while school was out, we made our first visit to a German dentist. Mercifully, he spoke English and so he was able to tell me in great detail about all the problems in America. Here’s just a very small sampling of my two hours at the dentist:

I can tell these boys drink too much juices. In America, people are drinking juices and sodas all the time. Even everyone drinks too much Coke Zero. You think you can drink as much as you want because it says zero calories, but your brain is thinking, ‘AH-HA something sweet is coming! I will tell the pancreas to make more insulin.’

And now every second person in your country has number two diabetes.

The problem you have in America is a lack of discipline.

No more buying juices for these boys.

But actually you are quite slim for Americans. 

It might have been offensive it it weren’t true, and more importantly, if he had not been super smiley and expressive the whole time he was telling us how wrong we are. So it was hilarious.

A few other random bits from the inside of my head and reading I’m consuming lately:

I finished reading The Good Lord Bird by James McBride this week, which is a historical fiction narrative of a freed slave who joins up (begrudgingly) with the abolitionist John Brown. I read up afterwards on the true bits of the story and John Brown was a madman for sure. But he’s the kind of mad(wo)man I think I want to be, especially in my old age. Like really, I’ve been thinking lately that I’d rather go off the deep end than just fizzle out in a fog of nicety.

I read an older article recently about the difference between being nice and being an ally, and it has me all angsty, mainly because (and saying this is a part of my commitment to calling out racism in myself when I see it) I land pretty firmly on the side of nice. Here’s a quote from the article about nice people like me:

A nice person likes to see diversity at gatherings, but may not understand that “diversity” is not just people of different complexions or lifestyles (but who all have similar assumed world views and behavior patterns). True diversity is, at times, grinding and intense and messy and loud and awkward. I have seen, on more than one occasion, people who say that they really don’t want this or that injustice to persist, but they then check out when they are confronted with its existence in their own unconscious behaviors. Nice people don’t want you to feel bad, but if someone has to, they’d much rather it not be them.        

For sure yes on true diversity being messy and loud and awkward. (You can read the full article by Nadirah Adeye.)

Also, randomly:

I love this hoodie.

I think these modern city maps are fun.

I’ve been watching this children’s program in German (because toddler is my German level.)

Best movies I’ve seen lately >>> (streaming) McFarland, USA and (in theaters) Beauty and the Beast. (All the happy feels!)

This song is my favorite right now. Our instructor used it in a “yoga dance” session in Guatemala. It was part dance + part prayer + part love.

In the next few days, we will say goodbye to a gal who’s become a dear friend in her four short months here in Tübingen, celebrate Ben’s 16th birthday (he can’t drive, but he can legally drink/purchase beer and wine in Germany), AND welcome some visitors from Aberdeen! Bring on walks with friends and late night chats!

Lots to look forward to!

The darkness in the world is so heavy, but there is light every single day.

Onward!

XO

Alison

The post In The Pipeline: April appeared first on Alison Chino.

Hello friends,

Since my last pipeline, I have been to Guatemala, had my mama (plus a few other Arkansans!) come to visit and watched the glorious arrival of spring in Germany!

It’s been a wonderful month of connecting face to face with people. Lots of eye contact and soul-nourishing talks across tables.

April will be quieter (for travel and visitors) but we have lots of spring walking planned and I have a desk full of writing projects. I am super grateful for both because writing and walking are two of my favorite ways to spend time!

Here are a few links for you!! Lots of good reading this month…

I read Race and Place which is actually written by a friend of ours in Seattle. I think that this is a hugely important book to add to the conversation about racial reconciliation in the US, and especially in the church. I’ll share a a quote from the introduction I found especially helpful in the hopes that it will encourage you to get your hands on a copy:

…I hope to map a distinctly Christian vision of racial reconciliation that challenges the church to dig deeper into the soil that structures our lives together. Only by transgressing the socially constructed lines of racial division can we begin to reimagine places that cultivate human flourishing instead of strife. If I am right in assuming that geography indeed determines much of our perspective on race, then the purpose of this book is to provide some tools to (1) better understand the “placed” contexts of our racial division and (2) practice ways of being a new kind of community that reshapes our cities and neighborhoods in the image of divine belonging. Simply put, we must be Christian in all the places we’ve located our lives, and we must do it together. 

To assume something as challenging and complex as racial division will just work itself out without serious reflection and radical praxis is dangerously naive, and for many, even life threatening. The status quo of isolation and segregation has been too costly, and too many vulnerable and valuable lives in places of exclusion have been lost along the way. Sadly, so many of the signs on our streets point to abuses of power, cries of pain and outrage, and elusive structural inequities that “all land, with great violence, upon the body.” Regardless of our color or creed, we cannot ignore how much these precious lives matter in the eyes of God. So let’s read the street signs a little more closely, dig deep with new determination, and link arms with our neighbors in solidarity and love. I hope we’ll find the courage, conviction, and creativity to follow the Spirit into uncharted territory. 

-David P. Leong, Race and Place

In other reading, I finished the novel A Man Called Ove in a fit of laughter and tears.

I love it when people mark their birthdays in significant ways. I remember one year my dad got up early on his birthday to go run at the track where he went to high school. He ran a lap for every year of his life, praising God for every year he’s been granted on this earth. In the spirit of marking birthdays, I loved Tiffany’s 36 lessons from 36 years of her life. It was hard to choose a favorite but I might have to go with
“God is faithful, even when you are not.”

I’m especially collecting more children’s book titles for my list and while searching for books I came across this inspiring 11-year old boy who started Books and Bros to get his peers reading.

I walked more miles this week just to finish listening to Radiolab’s latest reporting on police violence: Shots Fired Part 1 and Part 2

I read that the state of Arkansas is rushing to execute prisoners on death row because the drugs they use for the death penalty are going to expire. If that seems strange to you, listen to this podcast from More Perfect and it will seem stranger still. (Related: All Christians Should Oppose The Death Penalty)

As you may have noticed from my book on letters, I am a daily becoming a bigger fan of letter-writing. If you feel the same way, you might be interested to know that April is National Letter Writing Month! Joining in with a campaign to write more letters last April reignited my love for letter writing, and as a result I have been writing more letters ever since.

Related: I’ve recently discovered a website totally devoted to helping you write to a prisoner.

That’s about it for me. I hope you are enjoying the new life that is blossoming everywhere!

Happy Spring!

XO

Alison

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