March 1, 8, 15, 22:
Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts
by Kirsten Powers
(Guest Facilitator: Rev. Dr. Becky Bridges)
“True to form, Kirsten Powers refuses to allow the culture wars to cost us our shared humanity. This book is a courageous call to truth and love existing side by side.”
—Kate Bowler, author of No Cure for Being Human
“It is not often that intelligence and spirituality are put together as well as Kirsten Powers does in this highly engaging road map for pursuing a life of grace. Saving Grace is the book the world needs right now.”
—Richard Rohr, author of The Universal Christ
“A bravura book that is at once a highly personal spiritual journey, a deep meditation on grace, and a fascinating compendium of hard-won spiritual wisdom and practical advice . . . With her sparkling prose and heartfelt stories, Kirsten Powers shows us how the spiritual way is the most practical way to live.”
—James Martin, SJ, author of Learning to Pray
For years, Kirsten Powers has been centerstage for many of our nation’s most searing political and cultural battles as a columnist, TV analyst, and one-time participant in the thunder-dome of Twitter. In Saving Grace, Powers writes with wit and insight about our country’s poisonous political discourse, chronicling the efforts she’s made to stay grounded and preserve her sanity in a post-truth era that has driven many of us to the edge. She draws on lessons offered by faith leaders, therapists, theologians, social scientists, and activists working for change today. She dismantles the widespread misconception that grace means being nice, letting people get away with harmful behavior, or choosing neutrality in the name of peace. Grace, she argues, is anything but an act of surrender; instead, it is a kinetic and transformative force.
Saving Grace offers a template for a different kind of America, one where we can engage with people who hold opposing views without sacrificing our values or our passionate beliefs in the causes we care about. It’s a culture that embraces repentance and repair, a process through which those who have caused harm can take responsibility and work toward righting the wrongs in which they have participated. It’s a place where we’re empowered to see the possibility in other people, even people who are driving us nuts.