With a nod to the end of 2023, I considered compiling a top ten list of the books, art, music and more that inspired me this year as a soulful revolutionary. However, there’s no way I could narrow down the list that succinctly! So instead, I want to share just a few resources that have sustained my spirit this year, which you might find nourishing too.
I wish you a wonderful holiday season. Amidst so much suffering and injustice in the world, may we all be regularly surprised by the joy that sustains our capacity to dream of a different world, and nurtured by the love that keeps us human. See you in 2024.
Hope and Hard Pills
For several years, the Hope and Hard Pills Podcast has equipped and empowered listeners with practical insights for revolution and resilience. I highly recommend a deep dive into the archive of episodes!
As a longtime listener, I was honored to be a guest to talk about A Soulful Revolution with activist artists Andre Henry (whom I interviewed here not long ago) and TRISHES. You can listen to that episode here:
The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope by Munther Isaac
I learned about this book from recent podcast guest, Palestinian American Episcopal priest the Rev. Leyla King, and found it to be an invaluable read before our interview. It is a crucial primer on how Palestinian Christians grapple spiritually and pragmatically with the occupation of their homeland, and features a robust liberation theology, from a Lutheran pastor raised in the shepherds fields of Bethlehem.
Isaac, who serves Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, recently engaged in an act of subversive iconography by setting up the church’s nativity scene in a pile of rubble to draw attention to the suffering of the children of Gaza. “God is under the rubble,” he preached.
If you want to understand how he has the clarity and courage to profess his faith in this way, you need to read this book.
Flamy Grant’s album Bible Belt Baby
After being harassed on social media by a right-wing wannabe politician /evangelical musician, drag queen Flamy Grant got the last laugh when her wildly enthusiastic fanbase and a groundswell of exvangelicals on TikTok sent her year-old album, Bible Belt Baby, to number one on the iTunes Christian music chart.
It did my heart good to participate in this little revolution against hate by buying the album. Listening to it regularly over the last 6 months has been nothing short of delightful. It is well-produced, musically dynamic, and chockfull of capable songwriting that has led me to laughter, tears and poignant reflection virtually every time I’ve listened.
Flamy also recently participated in a poignant and powerful new project called “The Whole World is Waiting” which powerfully speaks to the longing of Advent. The music video is stunning in its portrayal struggles for justice, from freedom for Palestine to the climate justice movement.
Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judy Heumann
I read this book back in 2020 when it first came out, but it came back on my radar this week when I learned that Judy Heumann died in March of this year.
A force to be reckoned with, Heumann was part of a potent team of disability rights activists who spearheaded the longest occupation of a Federal building in US history, an act of civil disobedience which helped pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act. In the face of condescension and seemingly insurmountable structural hurdles, hers is a story of tenacity, the necessary power of community and coalition-building, and unshakeable hope, all deeply informed by her mother’s love and her own Jewish faith.
May her memory continue to be a blessing.
Parenting Forward: How to Raise Children with Justice, Mercy, and Kindness by Cindy Wang Brandt
This book was central to my life this year, as it was the text around which I gathered a group of parents in my living room biweekly for nearly six months. Wang Brandt is an exvangelical author who was in the first wave of public deconstructors of evangelicalism on social media (the late Rachel Held Evans, a leader in that movement, wrote the foreword).
Wang Brandt lays a foundation of healthy spirituality based on nurturing innate wonder, curiosity, and delight. She sees this as being as much about reparenting ourselves as it is about parenting our children, and it is on this spirituality that she layers chapters about parenting for racial justice, economic justice, LGBTQ justice and more.
At one point, a member of our parents group commented, “I didn’t realize until reading this book that authoritarian parenting is a style of parenting, and that I could choose to parent differently.”
Now that’s a soulful revolution if there ever was one.