Main description:

Christianity Today's 2020 Book of the Year Award of Merit - Spiritual Formation

What if our memories are like shells we gather on a beach?
According to pastor and spiritual director Casey Tygrett, "We-and all those who have come before us-pick up the experience and we sense it: we feel its edges, notice its color, we smell the distinctive character (for shells it is the sickly seafood salt smell) of the experience and we try to make sense of what it is. Is it beautiful? How would you describe the color-the tones, the shades, wrapped around the ridges and swirls? Has it been damaged? Does the hard edge scrape our hand, leaving a blemish or a mark?"
How we hold and carry these memories-good and bad-is a part of what forms us spiritually. In this way we have a common bond with the people of Scripture who also had a sensory life, gathering shells and trying to make sense of them. In these pages Casey Tygrett explores the power of memory and offers biblical texts and practices to guide us in bringing our memories to God for spiritual transformation.

Contents:

Introduction: A Question Before Remembering

1. How We Got Here

Practice: Narrating a Memory

2. The Art of Noticing Shells

Practice: Journaling

3. Living with Shells

Practice: Staging a Memory

4. The Weight of Shells

Pause

5. Every Memory Belongs

Practice: Writing A Spiritual Autobiography

6. Remembering Who We Are

Practice: Finding Sabbath Rest

7. Coming Back Again

Practice: The Examen for Memories

8. I've Felt Like This Before

Practice: Writing Your Own Psalm

9. A Familiar Table

Practice: Opening Your Table

10. Remember, Be Here Now

Pause

11. A Future Memory

Pause

12. A Closing Post-It Note

Acknowledgments

Notes