I… didn’t mean to wait until the day before the Inauguration to post the text of my sermon on hope in the face of despair. The weekend I gave the sermon was also the weekend of a funeral and near a very busy end of semester, so blogging was on the backburner. Even if I had had more time, my website-to-social media setup was a bit borked and I’m just vain enough to not post things if I think my audience is going to be diminished. I finally had some time yesterday to figure out what was going on and fix it, so now I’m trying to get back into regular posting.

I have spent far too much time blogging this week (even before the sale of the Kirtland Temple was announced), but weeks like this don’t come often, and I feel like holding onto this week’s thoughts will be important in the years to come. So, here’s another post!

A friend recently suggested that I subscribe to the daily meditations sent out by Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation, and today’s was lovely, focusing on finding God in all things. Here’s the passage that stood out to me in particular (and perhaps you’ll see why):

A friend of mine recently asked whether I had a list of books “that have been particularly impactful or interesting,” especially in the realm of spirituality and religion—and suggested that if I didn’t already have such a list, I could put one together for one of my next blog posts. It took me a while to actually put the list together, but it’s ended up being a really interesting exercise. Of the forty books that I’ve picked, some have been more influential than others. There’s also a bias toward the recent, and I haven’t shied away from the idiosyncracies of my reading habits (that is, there are plenty of comics and plenty of French books on the list—not to mention at least one French-language comic). Nonetheless, I hope this is helpful to other folks looking for a book to read in these domains!