Field Notes for the Wilderness  ## Metadata - Author: [[Sarah Bessey]] | [[3. Resources/Authors/Sarah Bessey|Sarah Bessey]] - Full Title: Field Notes for the Wilderness - Category: #books - Kindle: [Open in Kindle](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C777HCNK) - Document Tags: [[Faith]] ## Document Notes ## Highlights - The wilderness wasn’t something for me to fear: God was already here, making a way. ([Location 177](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=177)) - “An evolving faith is simply faith that has adapted in order to survive.”[1] ([Location 209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=209)) - if we don’t change and evolve over our lifetime, then I have to wonder if we’re paying attention to the invitation of the Holy Spirit that is your life. ([Location 221](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=221)) - It turned out that what we thought was love was actually mutually agreed upon like-mindedness. ([Location 256](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=256)) - You’re not broken. You’re not bad. You’re not in need of a stronger hand and tighter boundaries. You’re not wrong, nor are you doing something wrong. ([Location 274](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=274)) - “I’m not afraid for you. If you’re honestly seeking God, I believe you will find what you’re looking for, even if it looks different than what I have found.” ([Location 279](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=279)) - You are deeply loved and God is not worried about you. You can rest and abide in that Love even as you throw a few things into the fire. ([Location 301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=301)) - The first thing we need to learn in the wilderness is generous gentleness. Toward ourselves. Toward the old versions of ourselves. Toward those around us. Toward the universe eventually. Toward the holy work of our own life. The wilderness isn’t your place for striving, not really. ([Location 309](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=309)) - Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. ([Location 328](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=328)) - It turned out that what I thought was the wilderness was actually God’s grace and goodness. What I thought was exile became home, and the misfits became my friends. What I thought was a dead religion with nothing to offer me but more burdens became a practice of faith that connected me not only to God but to my neighbor. What I thought was the wilderness turned into a homecoming. ([Location 394](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=394)) - Madeleine L’Engle writes, “We’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.”[1] ([Location 725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=725)) - Stop pretending that your church didn’t break your heart. Stop saying it’s fine that you were betrayed. Stop excusing bad behavior and cruelty and carelessness. Stop joking about your pain. Stop trying to be unmoved by the news or by tragedy. What you think is the right and faithful response could actually be the thing tearing you apart from the inside. Until you learn to stop spiritually bypassing your actual life with your good humanness, you won’t find meaning, let alone healing. ([Location 1332](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=1332)) - If we think of belonging only as membership in a club, organization, or church, we miss the point. Belonging is the risk to move beyond the world we know, to venture out on pilgrimage, to accept exile. And it is the risk of being with companions on that journey, God, a spouse, friends, children, mentors, teachers, people who came from the same place we did, people who came from entirely different places, saints and sinners of all sorts, those known to us and those unknown, our secret longings, questions, and fears.[5] ([Location 2008](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2008)) - Community is a risk; friendship and love are risks. ([Location 2030](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2030)) - Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes called out the tendency to make ourselves fit into communities where we were perhaps never meant to fit. At Evolving Faith one year, she asked, “What would it look like if I stopped trying to fit? What would it look like if I embraced being fitless?”[6] ([Location 2036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2036)) - practice being “for” things, not just against things. ([Location 2410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2410)) - We often find our way to the wilderness because of the dawning realization of our “not this,” and it becomes our Against. ([Location 2418](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2418)) - I want that for all of us in the wilderness—to keep in mind that the journey we’re on is still toward. ([Location 2472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2472)) - As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “There comes a point where we need to stop pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”[6] ([Location 2540](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2540)) - There is a Jewish concept called “tikkun olam” that has caught my imagination, and it might serve you, too. It translates as “healing of the world,” and it is considered the work of all of us. We’re all called to repair the world. ([Location 2577](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=2577)) - Diana Butler Bass, Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening ([Location 3408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0C777HCNK&location=3408))