Our Story Isn't Over

This book is a collection of poetry* by seven young people** at [past & present] the Amber Project in Cardiff, a Church Army project working with youth at risk of self-harm. The poems in the collection reflect this, and draw heavily on themes of one's own self in relation to mental and bodily wellbeing, exploring trauma, identity, renewal and growth; I bought a copy of this not out of artistic interest but genuine solidarity as the creativity unleashed by these brilliant young people at Amber is truly inspiring. I went to see their pantomime with colleagues from the Church Army head office over Christmas and it was SO FUCKING DOPE, LIKE - I've never actually enjoyed a pantomime until I saw theirs and even beyond enjoying it blew me away with how funny, confident, clever and subversive the whole thing was. Anyway I'm rambling about a pantomime but in all honesty several of the poems in this collection brought a tear to the eye & a lump to the throat also; and further some others are resonant with sheer determination to overcome their struggles and grow into the joy they've found through community, creativity, and hope. Definitely some rough stuff in here so major content warning for mental health and self-harm theme in poetry, but builds on these elements to make an overall booklet that is life-affirming to a grand degree, and I'd heartily recommend getting a copy if there's any left.***

* Didn't want to figure out where to mention this in that horrendous run-on sentence but it also has some lovely intricate illustrations by Aimee Taylor

** Ryan, Nicki, Channing, Louise, Adam, Hanna & Maryanne

*** All proceeds go toward the Amber Project's work with Cardiff's youth.

the Art of War

This ancient Chinese text by Sun Tzu has, purportedly, been high-ranking among the most influential books in the history of military, political, cultural, corporate, &etc kinds of strategically-navigated arenas of conflict for like, ever. However upon reading I found for my own taste a surprising amount of it is ridiculously practical pointers on logistics and supply lines, a furtherly surprising amount quasi-mystical poetic ruminations on various types of ground; on the whole though, there is depth & subtlety in every [stanza?] of it - and it's all online for free anyway, so in the spirit of a decisive tactician I am going to withhold sharing precise information from my own perspective so that others are forced to send spies out for themselves - only for your camp to find itself under my cunning ambush. You never expected that, did you?

Hit the Ground Kneeling

This book, by Bishop Stephen Cottrell, is an extremely helpful series of practical Bible-and-life-experience grounded reflections on the natures of and interplay between prayerfulness and leadership. Everyone in my office got given a free copy, and I've been going through it bit by bit over the last couple of weeks - would strongly recommend to any Christians in positions of leadership, be that in church life or the secular realms.

Quakers: Advices & queries

This booklet (available as text online) comprises the introductory guidelines to what it means to be a Quaker or participate in the community, worship or otherwise life/activity of the Religious Society of Friends - 42 short reflections laying out the roots, gists, and thrusts of Quakerism generally - if you can even call it an ism, which I'm growingly sure you can't, not accurately at any rate. I'm still very new to & relatively suspicious of this whole Quaker thing [wQt], and while this short book by no means answered any let alone all my questions it laid out a fruitful groundwork of understanding by which I can now approach the wQt. If you don't know much about the wQt - whether you are irreligious, or a Christian, or whatever - I'd be interested to hearing people's first (or current etc) broad impressions of it in the comments, as I'm still very much an explorer here myself. But as with all things I'd hasten to add a warning that you can't dismiss something out of hand if you don't know what it is from a nuanced, unbiased perspective; and I've not found it very easy so far to get these kinds of views from other Christians about the wQt.

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