Wondering Presbyterian

            I love reading. I was the kid who used to get in trouble in school for reading under the desk instead of paying attention in class. I even tried to set my room up as a library once. I organized my desk and made my dad come in and check one of my books out. Luckily, he returned it before I had to issue him a late fine.             I read for many reasons. Sometimes it’s to relax. Sometimes it’s to learn. Sometimes it’s because I’m a glutton for emotional punishment (seriously, some plots just make me anxious and I read the book anyway because I need to know how it ends!). Very, very rarely do I leave a book unfinished and I usually have three or four books going at once (I’m not advocating this…I think it probably contributes to my memory issues).             In a recent issue of a magazine I love to read, F...

The adult coloring book craze seems to be winding down a bit, but I jumped on that bandwagon when it first started a few years ago. I have about seven adult coloring books in my house, some of which I’ve started and others that are completely blank. Sitting down to color does bring a little relaxation and calmness to me when I’m feeling anxious. Using artwork for meditation wasn’t that big of a leap, but it was a unique experience to sit in a circle in the sanctuary and pray through scripture and artwork with other people. I actually really enjoyed it. For Lent this year, we used an art-based devotional resource from a group called A Sanctified Art (https://sanctifiedart.org/). Each week, we offered a meditative service. We spent half the time in Lecto Divina , reading and meditating on the Gospel story of the week, and the other half of the time in Visio Divina , using the weekly artwork for meditation, and always closed with the weekly poem. We also had coloring sheets so we coul...

There are moments when things in the universe line up too perfectly for it to mean anything other than God. In this story, it starts and ends with a book.             My husband and I binge-watched “Russian Doll” on Netflix. In the show, two characters keep reliving the same day and have to team up to figure out why and how to break the loop. The main character, Nadia, wants to give a book to her ex-boyfriend’s daughter: Emily of New Moon . As we watched the show, I thought to myself, Self: I have this book somewhere. I bought it at an antique mall in El Paso (IL) years ago. It’s a beautiful hardback copy and as I searched up and down for it, I realized a horrible truth: I probably decided since I hadn’t read the book, it was time to pass it on. Though I can’t remember specifically doing it, I can picture myself putting the book in the box to give to the church yard sale. But because of the show, I want to read the book.  ...