Our guest this week is Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, and he is sharing his new book and his process of writing about faith. Bruce is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church USA, a speaker, and the author of five books addressing topics of faith, culture, parenting, race, and technology. He writes and podcasts on Substack through his newsletter, “The Amalgamation.” In this episode we are talking about his faith montage in Everything Good about God is True: Choosing Faith (Broadleaf, 2024).
Conversation with Bruce Reyes-Chow
Have you ever had a time in your life when things were particularly chaotic or upsetting? How about a time when losses and grief seemed bigger than you could manage? Or perhaps a season of uncertainty and big transitions?
Most everyone who lives past childhood experiences some or all of these kinds of moments. As a minister you are likely called on to bear witness in such seasons and moments of life as people in your care are walking through them. And you walk with them. When you do, some of that chaos, uncertainty and grief also sticks to you. That sticky stuff can be an aspect of vocational loss and grief. I’ll be talking about vocational grief next in January. Join me if you like.
When I look around in this season typically focused on giving thanks and counting blessings, I see a lot of the people feeling adrift. Having a hard time counting anything, much less blessings. I also see some good wisdom and powerful words to meet such moments with grace and care.
One tried and true approach to seasons of uncertainty, loss and transition, is to return to one’s sense of meaning and purpose. Life’s difficult moments can become a good occasion to ask ourselves compassionately questions like…
- What brought me here?
- What is my vocation asking of me at this moment?
- How is my faith and my sense of purpose grounding for this time?
Communal loss, uncertainty and transition
As a person who leads a community of faith or supports ministers or teaches them in classrooms or gives spiritual care and health care university setting, maybe you are daily in the midst of shared loss, collective uncertainty, and communal transitions.
You are likely a person that others are looking to for direction. For answers. To be a presence or point the way. At very least, you are being called upon to bring folx together to pray.
This is why you are here. This is the work to which you are called. To bear witness to the sacred among the people and in the world. To speak words and hold silence. And to embody a sense of love and grace. To bring your awareness of the holy forward in your writing or your speaking or while you are sitting over coffee, tea, or something stronger.
This week we are sharing the first of my conversations from earlier this year with Bruce Reyes-Chow. He will help us return to purpose. In his new book Everything Good about God Is True, he shares his own faith montage. And when he does it he asks all of us to join in this creative and reflective way of returning to our own sense of purpose.
Writing about Faith
As Bruce and I discuss in today’s video, something happens when we externalize what it is we think, believe, and feel, in relation to the sacred. When we begin putting words to what we understand about Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Creator and our lives, we start a dialogue with ourselves that might go in many directions.
Writing about faith is not just a task for your ordination exam. It’s a living, breathing relationship with the holy and with your community of faith. By asking questions of our faith (however firm or tenuous) and reacquainting ourselves with our sense of meaning and purpose, we prepare ourselves in ways that may sustain us through the difficult times.
The Longest Night
Another tried and true response to seasons of great challenge and difficulty is to gather with other people of faith. To bear witness to the Spirit with one another. We hope you’ll save the date of Sunday, December 22. We will gather virtually for the longest night of winter. We’ve planned this service for the evening. We hope that it may be a space for whatever you are carrying these days.
