A Beautiful Year by Diana Butler Bass Book Review

About the Book:

A Beautiful Year: 52 Meditations on Faith, Wisdom, and Perseverance offers an essay for every week in the seasons of the Christian year: From Advent and Christmas to Lent and Easter through the entire calendar.

Other than its major holidays, many people are not familiar with the rhythms of the church year, an ancient spiritual cycle of time. Yet all religions have such calendars ― and they shape our understanding of faith. In the West, we live in tension with the secular calendar (mostly an inheritance from the Roman Empire) and the Christian liturgical calendar, a cycle of sacred stories that compose a larger narrative of love, hospitality, mercy, justice, and gratitude. Bass reclaims and presents fresh perspectives for every biblical text in the church year; from musing on A Wrinkle in Time in Advent, to remembering her father’s old-fashioned blue Christmas decorations, and offering a revolutionary reading of the Last Supper.

With fresh insights on familiar stories, these essays surprise and inspire, challenge and comfort, and will be savored year after year. Beautifully designed, the book is also a perfect gift.

My Review:

I did not grow up in a church that recognized the liturgical year and was happy to read this informative book. Bass encourages readers to pay more attention to the liturgical year than the calendar one.

I was a little surprised at the beginning where she soundly criticizes the current US president and the concept of Christian nationalism. She reminds readers about living under Roman rule as opposed to living under God's rule. Her essays are thought provoking on many levels and are realistic meditations for living today. It is a good book for Christians who would like to live in the rhythm of the church year instead of the traditional calendar one.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

About the Author:

Diana Butler Bass is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, especially where faith intersects with politics and culture.

She holds a doctorate in religious studies from Duke University. Her bylines include The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, Atlantic.com, USA Today, Huffington Post, Christian Century, and Sojourners. She has commented in the media widely including on CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, CBC, FOX, Sirius XM, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and in multiple global news outlets. In the 1990s, she wrote a weekly column on religion and culture for the Santa Barbara News-Press, which was distributed nationally by the New York Times Syndicate.

St Martin's Essentials, 336 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book from the publisher. My comments are an independent review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)