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Book Update: We Have A Title & A Release Date!

Posted on February 11, 2014 by Tara Owens

Friends, you’ve been with me on an arduous journey.

This book has gestated for longer than a baby elephant, and you’ve been with me, for me, praying for me and beside me in each phase of this process. What began as a twinkle became a few classes became a book proposal became a book contract became a deadline and (after missing it badly a few times) became a rough draft and finally a mansucript. That manuscript is now being refined in the capable hands of InterVarsity Press, it’s publisher, and it is working it’s way into your hands from there.

I am so grateful to you, and so excited to start spreading the great grace-filled message of the redemption of our bodies, of how good they are, of how God speaks so intimately and beautifully in and through the very stuff of our selves.

I am so grateful for my guides and helps along the way, many of whom I’ll be talking about in more detail as the release date approaches.

So, enough baiting you. We have a release date! This book will be in your hands in December 2014. That’s right—this year! I’m looking forward to getting advance copies out, running a few promotions, getting to meet some of you in person, and talking to you about what it means to live well in our bodies.

Speaking of living well in our bodies, this seemingly incorporeal thing called a “book” finally has a name. It has real words put to real paper, and a real and finite title that encapsulates what I believe to be an important and redeeming message of wholeness:

Embracing the Body:

Finding God in Our Flesh & Bone

(*whispers proudly* I love it? Don’t you love it?)

It’s going to be a long 11 months until I have this baby in my hands, but I’m excited to share bits and pieces as I can, and have you be part of the process.

In that light, I’d like to invite you to pray with me over these words, this message. Will you pray that it gets into the right hands, that it goes to the people who need it most? I don’t care if that’s 50 people or 50,000 people (my publisher would prefer the latter, I’m sure, but I just want it to bring wholeness, shalom, to those who are longing for it), but I want these words that wove themselves from God’s heart through my body and into this story to heal, to bring hope, to create more spaces for Jesus to move and the Kingdom to come. So, would you pray that? Would you pray God’s Kingdom over this book even now? Would you pray over the pages to be printed and the ink to be spilled? Would you pray over the paper and the dyes and the stamps and the envelopes? Would you pray over the words inspired by the Word, that this book would be more than just another heavy yoke on an already burdened people but instead would be freedom and life and light? Would you pray that this book would be incarnational, sacramental, a real, tangible sign of God’s goodness in the world?

Pray however you’re lead, my friends, but please pray. Big or small, I’m excited to see what God’s going to do with this project of my heart.

So what do you think? What does the title elicit in you? What does it make you hope for? What does it make you wonder about?

A Snow Day Sort of Prayer

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Tara Owens

Because it’s blizzardy here in Colorado today…

May you know the white fall of forgiveness
settling quietly onto the branches of your soul
made bare by hurt and betrayal.
May you be blanketed by a hush so deep
that every doubt about your belovedness
holds quiet in the holy silence.
May you experience a covering of grace
that kisses your nose, your cheeks,
your face up-turned with hope with the kind
of crystalline love that melts into Living
Water, heated by the fierce strength of
the Spirit within.
May you laugh with delight,
painted pure by the sacrificial fall,
lamb’s wool cast down, cast down,
cast down for us all.

Guest Post: A Different Kind of Grace

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Tara Owens

I’m over at Addie Zierman’s place today, sharing about my One Small Change for her series on social justice. It’s an honor to be hosted by such a warm, engaging, deep and thoughtful writer. While the piece made me squirm, the practice helps me keep my heart oriented toward God’s heart for me and for His world. (img source)

* * *

When I first came to faith, I was living as an alien in a large metropolitan city. Holding citizenship in a different country was a continual reminder that I was different from those around me, and my conversion pushed me further out into what I perceived as the margins of power in a power-centered town.

So I took up little acts of rebellion.

Correcting people’s grammar when they referred to the United States as “America”, asking co-workers not to use “Jesus Christ” as an expletive, insisting on saying grace over meals in public places.

This last I did wherever I was, whenever I could. Although I’d perfunctorily ask others if they minded, I rarely listened for the response before launching into a kind of prayer-speech designed more to discomfit the people at the table than to give thanks to God for what we were about to receive.

I thought myself so courageous, a defender of the faith, when the only thing that was “so” about my actions was self-righteous. I was more interested in keeping myself comfortable than caring for others, more interested in my position (and defending it), than meet people where they were.

I look back at my younger self with kindness and chagrin, continually made aware that each stage of the spiritual journey comes with its own wisdom and blindnesses. But I’ve also come to believe that I was close to getting something right in my early fervor: grace should make someone uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, back then, the someone I wanted to make uncomfortable over salad and sandwiches was my meal mate. Over the past few years, I’ve come to realize that the person shifting uncomfortably in her chair, holding her napkin to her knees should best be me.

Hang with me here.

Read the rest of the post over at Addie’s place.

A Prayer for the Feast of All Souls

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Tara Owens

For all those whose journey of faith preceded ours,

Lord, we give thanks.

For those we have lost in this past year and miss dearly,

Lord, we give thanks.

For Christ’s power that brings victory over the grave,

Lord, we give thanks.

For Your presence in the valleys of shadow and death,

Lord, we give thanks.

For Hope that does not disappoint,

Lord, we give thanks.

A Prayer For All Saints Day

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Tara Owens

I’m so grateful for all the saints…

A Prayer for Aaron Alexis’s Mother

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Tara Owens

The events at the Washington Navy Yard have broken my heart on so many levels recently. I am (very) tangentially connected to one of the victims of the shooting, who leaves behind a beautiful little family—young girls who will never get to walk down the aisle on the arm of their dad or have him wave to them as they cross the stage to receive their graduate degrees. The trauma and pain each family must be experiencing is beyond words. And I am so deeply aware of the tragedy and torment of mental illness, the ways that it robs you of reason and hope, and the ways that we turn from mental illness instead of toward it (I hold myself guilty on that account, oh too many times).

I don’t wish to minimize any of this suffering, or the regular suffering going on around the world, but I have to share how deeply my heart has been caught by the sorrow of Cathleen Alexis, and how she will never know why her son did this, will walk bearing the pain of his actions as well as the pain of his loss. As I sat with that pain, and the tug of my heart toward God, toward prayer, I came across this blessing from John O’Donohue.

Cathleen Alexis, I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, on this small corner of the internet devoted to prayer and silence and hope and God. I don’t know if this will ever reach you, but if it does, I hope that it soothes the torn edges of your heart just a bit. I pray it for you today, as I pray it for every parent whose child has committed a crime. I am so sorry that you will never have the ability to ask Aaron the questions your heart needs answers to—I pray that God will meet you in that ache and fill you with His comfort and kindness.

Cathleen Alexis, and every parent whose child has gone off the rails, this blessing is for you.

For the Parents of One Who Has Committed a Crime

No one else can see beauty
In his darkened life now.
His image has closed
Like a shadow.

When people look at him,
He has become the mirror
Of the damage he has done.

But he is yours;
And you have different eyes
That hold his yesterdays
In pictures no one else remembers:

Waiting for him to be born,
Not knowing who he would be,
The moments of his childhood,
First steps, first words,
Smiles and cries,
And all the big thresholds
Of his journey since…

He is yours in a way
No words could ever tell;
And you can see through
The stranger this deed has made him
And still find the countenance of your son.

Despite all the disappointment and shame,
May you find in your belonging with him
A kind place, where your spirit will find rest.
May new words come alive between you
To build small bridges of understanding.

May that serenity lead you beyond guilt and blame
To find that bright field of the heart
Where he can come to feel your love

Until it heals whatever darkness drove him
And he can see what it is he has done
And seek forgiveness and bring healing;
May this dark door open a path
That brightens constantly with new promise.

John O’Donohoue, The Bless the Space Between Us

Cathleen Alexis, I know that those new words, those small bridges of understanding, are not possible for you, or for Aaron, now. I know that Aaron can’t seek forgiveness, and I know that breaks your heart. But I pray that beyond the breaking, there will be bridges—bright, unexpected moments of connection—that bring understanding and hope to your soul. I hope that this dark door will one day brighten, indeed, with new promise. I will be praying that for you, and for your family. I will be praying that for every parent whose child has committed a crime—every parent who remembers their son’s or daughter’s delighted giggles on the playground and ache with the agony of knowing what they have done. Because you still hold him in your heart has he was—human, flawed, broken, beautiful—and that is a great gift to us all.

Image source: Layout Sparks, door hollow way dark.

Shhh! Something New Is In the Works!

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Tara Owens

Just for my blog readers, I wanted to let you know that something new (well, lots of new things, actually, but I can’t tell you about those yet) is in the works at Anam Cara Ministries.

I’m really excited to be working on a new offering for those longing to go deeper with God.

Head on over to the Retreats & Resources page to check it out.

Oh, you want a hit?

Okay, okay. Here’s one: Retreat Curation.

(I’m SO excited!)

Ponder The Pattern My Life Has Been Weaving

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Tara Owens

I’ve been sitting with and loving John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer, which was published in 1949. The cadences, the honesty, the grace and the humility of these prayers quiet and reorient me.

Here’s one for this evening for you:

Evening Prayer

Almighty God, in this hour of quiet I seek communion with You. From the fret and fever of the day’s business, from the world’s discordant noises, from the praise and blame of men, from the confused thoughts and vain imaginings of my own heart, I would now turn aside and seek the quietness of Your presence. All day long I have toiled and striven; but now, in stillness of heart and in the clear light of Your eternity, I would ponder the pattern my life has been weaving.

May there fall upon me now, O God, a great sense of Your power and Your glory, so that I may see all earthly things in their true measure.

Let me not be ignorant of this great thing, that one day is with You as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Give me now such understanding of Your perfect holiness as will make an end of all pride in my own attainment.

Grant unto me now such a vision of Your uncreated beauty as will make me dissatisfied with all lesser beauties.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes cease to be
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

I am content, O Father, to leave my life in Your hands, believing that the very hairs upon my head are numbered by You. I am content to give over my will to Your control, believing that I can find in You a righteousness that I could never have won for myself. I am content to leave all my dear ones to Your care, believing that Your love for them is greater than my own. I am content to leave in Your hands the causes of truth and of justice, and the coming of Your kingdom in the hearts of men, believing that my ardour for them is but a feeble shadow of Your purpose.

To You, O God, be glory forever.

Amen

(from A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949. p. 27)