It's Sunday! 

(And, it's the first Sunday of Daylight Saving Time)

Looking for words can take us many places. 

In this issue, we'll go to a bookstore with an amazing newsletter, a series of tweets about grief that got shared, a mural that goes beyond words, a conversation about spiritual formation and habits and prayer, and a great resource for helping grieving children. 

First, some words from me.

Hearts & Minds bookstore is in Dallastown, PA. I've never been there. But some friends sent me a giftcard and an introduction and now I am a fan. Byron Borger's BookNotes newsletter is a big reason. He sends it out monthly (unless he sends in more often) and it's amazing. He identifies books around a theme (The last two issues were about Lent (spoiler: He doesn't include Lent for Non-lent People)). And then he identifies books, writes an explanation about each that may include history, previous books by the author, why the author matters, who will like (and not like) the book. For 10 or 15 books. Wonderful. 

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I was doing some research into grief resources for our chaplains the other day and found the site for New York Life Foundation. Their focus is on education and on bereavement support for children. And there are many resources. Kai's Journey is three short animated videos and ebooks. "How to support someone grieving" is a thoughtful summary.

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The other Friday, I tweeted a series of ways to be helpful to people in grief. (Here it is all in one post). I was surprised/not surprised by the number of people who interacted with it. There are people everywhere from our mirror to our social media stream to our backyard who are having a really hard time. Little and big bits of attention can help. 

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Someone was asking me about additional resources for Lent. 

I wrote, "I'd also listen to Tish Harrison Warren on the Trinity Forum podcast from today: https://share.transistor.fm/s/83dda8f4 She's talking about spiritual formation and habits. The book she refers to, Liturgy of the Ordinary is a book that helps us think about ways that things in our daily life can become practices that teach us about God and following him." 

Also with Tish: "How Grief is our Companion in the Christian Life"

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Jason is an RN where I work. He often calls the chaplain when a patient needs support. He is a good nurse. He also created a 24x8 foot mural capturing images from the last two years at our place. It's remarkable. As I said in a comment, 

"You took the words we could not speak and put them in images that speak for us. When we are asked, "What was it like?" we can point to the first panel. When we are asked, "Why do you do this?" we can point to the faces. When we are asked, "can't we just move on?" we can point to the immensity and detail and say, "How can you just move on from this?" 

Check out the story of the mural. 

If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe for yourself!