Join the Rev. John Burruss
on Tuesdays from 12:10-1:00pm
online via Zoom.
Please register HERE.
The Rector’s Reading Class is a discussion class that aims to engage people with meaningful and thought provoking texts through listening and conversation with each other. On the first class of the month, the book will be divided into sections for reading.
All participants are responsible for providing their own copy of the text. If cost is prohibitive, please let John Burruss know.
September 7, 14, 21, 28: Faith after Doubt by Brian McLaren
“In a culture in which the self-appointed gatekeepers of Christianity insist that faith equals certainty; belief is adherence to an exacting checklist of principles and politics; and belonging is an insular, exclusive membership, Brian McLaren is a heroic gate-crasher. In Faith After Doubt, he invites us into an honest, vital conversation about the pain and shame created by inherited certainty, and the powerful usefulness of thought and doubt. For all those who have understood that doubt and free thinking are failings of your faith, Brian’s book will help you live fuller and breathe easier. He illuminates the reality that belief and doubt are not opposites, they are the twin sisters with whom any honest person of faith walks continuously.” ―Glennon Doyle
October 5, 12 19, 26: Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen
“The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming is a spiritual adventure story. A chance encounter with a poster depicting a detail of Rembrandt’s The Return of the Prodigal Son set in motion a chain of events that enabled Nouwen to redefine and claim his vocation late in his life. In this book, which interweaves elements of art history, memoir, Midrash, and self-help, Nouwen brings the parable to life with empathic analyses of each character. Nouwen’s absorption in the story (and the painting) is so complete that the father’s challenge to love the son, and the son's challenge to receive that love, become Nouwen's own. And Nouwen’s writing is so clear and his tone is so appealingly frank and humble that readers—no matter how far from home—will find hope for themselves in the prodigal peace Nouwen ultimately achieves.” —Michael Joseph Gross
November 2, 9, 16, 23, 30: Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World
From the publisher: From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, “multiracial” to “mixed blood,” the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and
destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery.
With writing from Jamaica Kincaid on the fallacies of national myths, Yusef Komunyakaa connecting the toxic legacy of his hometown, Bogalusa, LA, to a blind faith in capitalism, and bell hooks relating the quashing of multiculturalism to the destruction of nature that is considered “unpredictable” — amongst more than 35 other examinations of the relationship between culture and nature — this collection points toward the trouble of ignoring our cultural heritage, but also reveals how opening our eyes and our minds might provide a more livable future. The Colors of Nature comes in four alternating-color covers: red, yellow, green, and blue.
December 7, 14, 21: The Book of Forgiving by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu
From the book: How do I forgive? Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu has witnessed some of the worst crimes people can inflict on others. So, wherever he goes, he inevitably gets asked this question. This book is his answer. Writing with his daughter, Mpho, an Anglican priest, they lay out the simple but profound truths about the significance of forgiveness, how it works, why everyone needs to know how to grant it and receive it, and why granting forgiveness is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves when we have been wronged.
They explain the four-step process of forgiveness—Telling the Story, Naming the Hurt, Granting Forgiveness, and Renewing or Releasing the Relationship—as well as offer meditations, exercises, and prayers to guide the reader along the way. “With each act of forgiveness, whether small or great, we move toward wholeness,” they write. “Forgiveness is how we bring peace to ourselves and our world.”