The Slow Way

Today my newest book Blessed Are The Rest of Us comes into the world! Today's episode is going to be a little different. I'm sharing a bit about how I came to write this book and what the big ideas are underneath the story I tell of loving and raising my son, Ace.

How did I come to realize that this wasn't just a story about my son, but a story about all of us in Jesus's poem in Matthew 5? How did I begin to recognize that the invitation to explore Ace's vulnerability was actually an invitation to explore and receive my own?

I hope you'll tune into my thoughts about Blessed Are The Rest of Us, and you'll go purchase it today, wherever books are sold!

• Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole releases one week from today!!! Find it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Bookshop.org.
• It's availble at 40% off the price of other booksellers at BakerBookHouse. Just use the code SLOWWAY at checkout!
• Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.

As Jeff Chu says, "A robust theology of the compost reminds us that death and the things of death, our sin, our suffering, the ways we hurt each other, the ways we harm ourselves— These things are never the end of God's story." What a thing: to choose to believe that God can redeem our slow-transforming lives, to believe that the Divine slammed God's own heart back into a dead body, waking it up, announcing that death and suffering is never the truest narrative.

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find Jeff Chu's beautiful Evolving Faith talk on the Theology of the Compost here.
• Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.

Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole releases one week from today!!! You can preorder it and find it waiting in your mailbox on April 9 if you order soon! Get it for one more week at 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

In a moment when his life was fading, when his suffering was at its height, I believe Jesus was responding to our suffering with his own suffering. Acknowledging our grief with his own.

Today I'm sharing an orginal poem by me, along with a practice of sacred listening to a bit of the Good Friday story.

• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

This Holy Week, we will be reminded that Jesus's answer to the reality of human pain and suffering was to suffer. It ws to gather all of us up and live out the dream of God.

• Find Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most here.
• Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

This week, I want to remind us that the movement toward wholeness doesn't have to be that complicated. Sometimes it's simply allowing ourselves to recognize that we're loved.

• Find Savannah Guthrie's book Mostly What God Does here.
• Here's a link to A Celtic Primer: The Complete Celtic Worship Resource and Collection.
• Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

When we see the world as it really is we get to live in such a way that our vulnerabilities are exposed. Vulnerability is the way we give and receive love. Vulnerability is also the way toward pain. This is not anything new in the world. It's simply love—sharing our lives, being honest about our pain, and allowing ourselves to be decentered and recentered. We don't do it so we can be an example. But when we do it with authentic generosity, we can sometimes be an invitation for others.

• Find Michael Rudzena's recent sermons here, here, and here.
• Learn more about Micha's other podcast The Lucky Few at their website and instagram.
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

We always have an invitation to learn from the wise ones among us, and the turtles and tortoises of the world may not be sexy, but they carry a knowing that just might settle our souls. When we're tempted to speed up simply because everything around us says to hurry, let's remind ourselves that this Lent we're living in Turtle Time. Slowing ourselves so that we can explore the questions that matter, pursue the life that truly satisfies, use our resources with wisdom and love for the people, land, and creatures among us.

• Find Sy Montgomery's book On Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell By Shattered Shell here.
• Find Brian Doyles essay "Joyas Vladoras" in his collection One Long River of Song
• Here is Walter Bruggemann's book A Way Other Than Our Own.
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.
• Micha's other (award winning!) podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

Repentance is the acknowledgment of our missteps, and the adjustment of our stance so we are in line with Divine Love. And this, according to Sarah Bessey, requires vulnerability and grief.

Can we get serious this week? Serious enough to acknowledge to ourselves, to God, and to one another how we have missed the path of Love? May we carry the weight of God's transformative kindness, believing Sarah's words: "There is no place you can go where you will outrun God's love and longing for your wholeness."

• Find Sarah Bessey's new book Field Notes for the Wilderness here.
• Micha is offering a zoom workshop for her Substack paid subscribers this February 24. Today is the last day to sing up, Here's a link to learn more about it!
• Micha will be hosting a weekly virtual book club for paid subscribers this spring, following the release of her new book. If you're interested, become a paid subscriber and support her work! Here's a link to learn more.
• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.
• Micha's other (award winning!) podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

What makes Lent powerful is its insistence on not celebrating, on demanding a season of restraint. What makes Lent powerful is that it invites us to make a choice toward honesty with God and ourselves, a choice to get solemn about what we discover in our core, and live that restraint on the outside. It's a forty day invitation to move from the edges of our lives to the deep, heavy center of us.

• Read Jesus's words in Matthew 23
• Sarah Bessey's new book Field Notes for the Wilderness releases today!
• Brian McLaren's book is Faith After Doubt
• Micha is offering a zoom workshop for her Substack paid subscribers this February 24. Today is the last day to sing up, Here's a link to learn more about it!
• If you're interested in participating in the workshop and/or future online interactive conversations with me, become a paid subscriber and support my work! Here's a link to learn more.
• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.
• Micha's other (award winning!) podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and "The Lucky Few" temporary tattoo. So fun! Jump over there and get your preorder in.

Ash Wednesday sounds morbid to some, but it exists to tell us the truth, to ask us to come close to the reality of this life: we are always transforming, growing toward wisdom. And it will end. But I love that in the Christian tradition death is understood as a both/and. It is a result of brokenness in the world and it is also a threshold, a transition to fullness of life. As the Apostle Paul wrote, death is still with us, but through Jesus it has lost its sting.

• Read Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most
• Here's the "further up and further in" qote from CS Lewis.
• " a voice behind us whispering" comes from Isaiah 30:21
• Micha is offering a zoom workshop for her Substack paid subscribers this February 24. Here's a link to learn more about it! If you're interested in participating in the workshop and future online interactive conversations with me, become a paid subscriber and support my work! Here's a link to learn more.
• This reflection and practice were also published this week in The Slow Way Letter on Substack.
• Find a transcript of this episode here.
• Find Micha's website and sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
• Find Micha on Instagram.
• Find Micha on Threads.
• Micha's other (award winning!) podcast, The Lucky Few, is all about Down syndrome advocacy. She cohosts it with Heather Avis and Mercedes Lara.

Preorder Micha's new book Blessed Are The Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole for 40% off at BakerBookHouse.com. The first 200 people to preorder from Baker will also receive a signed copy of the book and a fun little gift. Jump over there and get your preorder in.