Baby Steps, Wise Grief, and Bits of Beauty
Three tidbits, two quotes, one question—sent to my newsletter last Friday (subscribe here to get these updates in your inbox).
Three Tidbits
1. Sabbatical begins in two weeks and two days, but Hope waits for no one! This week I met with the marketing folks at Eerdmans to talk about plans for Hope: A User’s Manual. We’ve got some good stuff planned for the summer to help get the word out about the book. I’m thankful to so many of you for pre-ordering it already. Pre-orders help build buzz about the book and juice those all-important algorithms, especially for you-know-who, which is still the overwhelming Goliath in online ordering. But wherever you order, your support is much appreciated.
2. Want a preview of Hope: A User’s Manual? I share a portion of the book’s introduction this week on the Blue Room podcast (with an upgraded microphone, thanks once again to producer Caroline Dana for always keeping me improving). Check it out, and while you’re there, subscribe, rate, and review. Our Hope Notes season is concluding, but there will be some bonus content there over the summer, so make sure you’re signed up.
3. Enough about the book–where are you seeing beauty lately? Here are some bits from around my neighborhood.
First, we have a little free art gallery in our neighborhood, and it’s always chock full of delightful goodness. Love the gnome with the Ukrainian flag:
And this birdhouse 😍 . Bless the Birds indeed!
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Two Quotes
1. In a discussion about the need to tend to our grief:
“There are small creative ways we can honor what we've been living, and if we don't honor it, it is going to hold us back… not because it is ‘mean,’ but because it is wise.”
-KJ Ramsey, author of This Too Shall Last, on the Enneagram Journey podcast
2. “I always love it when people say ‘baby steps!’ to imply they’re being tentative, when actually baby steps are a great unbalanced, wholehearted, enthusiastic lurch into the unknown.”
-Olivia Smith
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One Question
What are you wholeheartedly enthusiastically lurching into these days? Or what would you like to be?
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What I’m Up To
In addition to the podcast episode mentioned above, don’t miss the previous ep, called Art and Music for the End of the World.
And just one more live Hope Notes before sabbatical! I’m discussing Pixar's Turning Red with my friend Larissa Kwong Abazia on May 31. Register.
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Link Love
Here's one of the best things I’ve ever read about our relationship to our bodies. (Content warning: weight loss, but it’s about much deeper stuff than that.)