Let’s face it: life is really kind of a drama queen these days! And we need all the help we can get when we are going through the hardest parts of being human.
Our lead pastor Rev. Molly survived cancer while parenting small children and resurrecting a struggling church, only to move to 3,000 miles to Berkeley to watch her new church (that’s us!) burn down, support several of her closest people through mental health calamities, the death of a sibling, and a whole bunch of other *stuff* along the way, including something Californians call Smoke Season?!
As a pastor she has walked with a number of people through their own hard seasons: illness, incarceration, violence, PTSD and suicidality.
And yet she’s seen them also rise from those ashes, and go on in gorgeous ways.
How to Begin When Your World is Ending is Rev. Molly’s attempt to reverse engineer post-traumatic growth with a spiritual lens–telling the stories of some extraordinary people, and the story of her own faith which is always evolving to keep up with the latest catastrophe. With fresh wisdom on prayer, theodicy (why bad things happen to good people), illness, and life after death, it’s like having a pastor in your pocket. And while it deals with weighty issues, it’s also laugh-out-loud funny because, in the words of Anne Lamott, laughter is carbonated holiness.
There’s something for everyone in this book–cancer patients and people who are well for the moment (don’t get too attached to that), people of all faiths as well as ‘spiritual-but-not-religious’ and curious atheists, and Doomsday Pollyannas who keep the dance party going no matter what!
It’s a no-BS guide to how to stay on speaking terms with the Divine even when life is falling apart, and a set of stories and practices that may help you to keep resurrecting yourself–and others–even if you’re not sure what you believe.
We hope it can help you or someone you love!
You can buy How to Begin wherever books are sold, like Amazon, Indiebound or Bookshop. Or you can stop by our church’s Little Free Library out front and hope to score a free copy, or buy a discounted copy directly from Rev. Molly almost any Sunday at church.