Fall Book Recommendations Specifically Curated for our Spiritual Seeker
For those of you on a spiritual journey with open hearts and curious minds, this fall offers a chance to dive deep into self-discovery through thought-provoking books. We've put together a selection of enlightening reads designed to fuel your spiritual exploration and help you gain deeper insights.
December new releases
Religion of Sports: Navigating the Trials of Life Through the Games We Love
by Gotham Chopra - Joe Levin
From the acclaimed director who has gone behind the scenes with many of the greatest athletes in the world, a memoir-meets-manifesto featuring never-before-heard stories about Tom Brady, Simone Biles, Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams, and many more.
Sports is religion.
No, really. From pilgrimages and cathedrals, gods and fallen angels, holy wars and holy ghosts, sports has every aspect of an organized faith. In fact, it might be even better: all it takes to believe is to stand and cheer.
Nobody knows this better than the preeminent sports documentarian Gotham Chopra, who just so happens to be the son of world-renowned spiritualist Deepak Chopra. While his father taught him to find faith through prayer, Gotham felt pulled towards the Boston Garden and Larry Bird instead. Tracing his unique path from being a diehard fan to witnessing miracles alongside the gods of sport, Gotham makes a compelling case for sports as a modern-day faith. And like any worthy religious text, he also doles out wisdom, which comes in the form of never-before-heard stories about some of the biggest names in sports.
You Matter: The Human Solution
by Delia Smith
We know science is awesome, as are its achievements. Yet so far scientists have managed to sidestep the most awesome reality of all, the true nature of human life, the source of their own genius. How is it that in the overwhelming immensity of the cosmos, on microscopic earth, human beings exist? We have not yet looked reality in the face and perceived the nobility and grandeur of who we are, each of us having a responsibility in the universe and being part of a vast and continuing process, which can only emerge from the shadows and darkest corners of our thought when we step aside away from all the noise.
'You Matter' encourages people to think more deeply about the phenomenon of existence, what it means to be a unique human person, and how in unity with one another we can build a future in these uncertain times.
November NEW RELEASES
Just Once
by Karen Kingsbury
In 1941, beautiful Irvel Holland is too focused on her secret to take much notice of the war raging overseas. She's dating Sam but in love with his younger brother, Hank--her longtime best friend--and Irvel has no idea how to break the news. Then the unthinkable happens--Pearl Harbor is attacked. With their lives turned upside down overnight, Sam is drafted and convinces Hank to remain in Indiana, where he and Irvel take up the battle on the home front.
While Sam fights in Europe, an undeniable chemistry builds between Irvel and Hank but neither would dare cross that line. Then, two military leaders pay Irvel a visit at the classroom where she teaches. The men have plans for her, a proposition to join a new spy network. One catch: She can tell no one.
Envy: A Big Problem You Didn't Know You Had
by Mike Fabarez
Envy. It's insidious. Pervasive. Corrosive. In the age of materialism and social media, it's difficult not to feel the creep of this increasing and ever-present temptation. Pastor and teacher Mike Fabarez diagnoses the problem of this pervasive sin. He brings the reader to biblical stories with often-overlooked ties to envy that expose and demonstrate the seriousness and harm caused by our unexamined motives. When envy is allowed to reside unchecked in our hearts, there are internal, relational, and societal costs--Envy explores all of these.
I Am Weak, I Am Strong: Building a Resilient Faith for a Resilient Life
by Jay Hewitt
After receiving a devastating brain cancer diagnosis, Jay Hewitt had a decision to make: Should he give up on faith or practice what he preached and trust that with God all things are possible? In I Am Weak, I Am Strong, Jay chronicles his journey of turning toward Jesus even when circumstances urged him to turn away. Faith in action for Jay included competing in an IRONMAN triathlon while undergoing cancer treatment. His race was a grand gesture of love for his young daughter--and a call to resilience for all of us.
For anyone who is searching for hope in anxiety and grief, needs validation and compassion in times of doubt, is curious about faith in the face of death, or longs for a more authentic relationship with God, I Am Weak, I Am Strong will teach you that faith grows from the freedom to doubt.
We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence
by David Dark
From one of the most respected thinkers and public intellectuals of our day comes a book that is both a cultural critique of the state of our country and a robust summons to resist complicity. As we move through the world, we constantly weigh our conscience against what David Dark calls ""deferential fear""--going along just to get along, especially in relation to our cultural, political, and religious conversations. Dark reveals our compromised reality: the host of hidden structures and tacit social arrangements that draw us away from ourselves and threaten to turn us slowly into what we decry in others.
We Become What We Normalize counsels a creative, slow, and artful response to the economy of reaction, hurry, shaming, and fearmongering. Dark offers a deep analysis of the ways our conceptions of ourselves and our use of technology often lead us away from what we believe, reinforcing the false narrative that we must humiliate others in order to survive. ""I suspect we become what we sit still for, what we play along with, and what we abide in our attempts to access more perceived power and more alleged influence,"" Dark writes. We Become What We Normalize calls for a new kind of struggle, ethic, witness, and spirit that helps us step away from the infinite loop of normalizing harm into effecting true change for ourselves and the worlds we inhabit.
October NEW RELEASES
Is God Real?: Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life
by Lee Strobel
It's no coincidence that one of the most asked questions on any search engine is: "Is God real?"
When life feels overwhelming, we want to know if there really is a deity who loves us, knows us, and cares about what happens to us. Join investigative journalist and former atheist Lee Strobel on a quest to determine whether we can know with confidence that God is real.
Lee Strobel's landmark book, The Case for Christ, is one of the most respected defenses of Christianity of all time. Now in Is God Real? Lee weaves together material from his previous books with the latest evidence from the most brilliant scientific and philosophical minds to answer the pressing questions on our hearts and minds.