No matter what your faith, it’s always nice to go to bed reading a chapter of a beautiful Devotional. Rather than depressing news or social media feeds. It helps to remind us that (mostly) the world is good and full of good people. And having a faith (most people do, even in remote areas of the world) can often help, when life is feeling like it’s too much to bear, especially with present events.
Sacred Belonging is a different kind of devotional, more deep and intelligent than most of the fodder churned out in bookstores. One trauma therapist says this is ‘a devotional for all of us who feel cringey about devotionals’. In 40 days, let Cuban-American theologian Kat Armas show how reading the Bible with fresh eyes, allows us to experience God in new liberating ways.
There’s a hunger for a new kind of Christian devotional that speaks to a more liberated faith that also is more inclusive to women and people of colour. Drawing from personal narrative and Scripture, Kat highlights Biblical passages that point towards themes on creation, wisdom, spirit and the feminine. A faith where we belong to God, the earth and one another.
Kat’s other book Abuelita Faith is also an interesting read, on how strong women can be inspired by the unnamed and often overlooked theologians in society and the Bible – mothers, grandmothers, sisters and daughters, whose survival, strength, resistance and persistence teach us the true power of faith and love.
Kat herself grew up on the outskirts of Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood, with her earliest theological beliefs coming from her grandmother, who fled Cuba during the height of political unrest and raised three children alone, after her husband passed away. She shows us how voices on the margins (people often dismissed, isolated or oppressed due to their gender, socio-economic status or lack of education) have more to teach us about following God, than we know.
About the Author
Kat lives in the USA with her husband (a white male with a bright red beard, who’s covered in freckles). He regularly reads black literature and educates himself on black culture, then writes short stories about how he imagines their experiences to have been. He also once walked out of a church when the pastor (his boss) told Kat she had not asked for permission to read the Bible with some girls in church. This is real Christianity!
