May & June 3 for 3 [2022]: the book & sabbatical edition
View from the pathway Brian and I walked together to celebrate signing my book contract
Dear friends,
The past two months have been full of life - the simply good, the hardest hard, the extravagantly generous, and the complete surprise. I couldn’t begin to tell everything so here are two highlights for now.
SABBATICAL
In the normal course of ministry soul care, I'll be taking a sabbatical for the months of July, August, and September. I typically take off only the month of July for rest and vacation with my family. This year, however, I'm privileged to join Brian in a ministry sabbatical that our church generously and wisely provides for our clergy every seven years. We'll be taking time to rest, play, read, travel, and cease our normal rhythms of work and productivity. (You can read a little bit more about the sabbatical here.)
Made possible by the generosity of Apostles and a few close friends, Brian and I will be traveling together in the Finger Lakes region of New York, the United Kingdom, and Ireland for most of the thirteen weeks that we are away.
I won’t be active on social media during my sabbatical, but occasionally I hope to share a few photos and stories with my Daybook Meditations members. (Please feel free to join us by subscribing here!) In a very real way, the monthly membership is acting as a kind of patronage for our sabbatical and I look forward to sending a little thank you post from the various beautiful locations in the US and UK providing us rest in the coming months.
I may also want to share progress on a very exciting dream project God sent my way just in time for the coming months of rest and creative renewal…
MY FIRST BOOK
Last week I signed a contract with Herald Press to publish my first book, The Spacious Path: Practicing Rhythms of Rest in a Fragmented World, due to release in spring 2023.
The Spacious Path is about orienting our days in a disorienting world.
It’s a personal, practical, and pastoral guide to a Rule of Life as a way to move in the direction of Jesus, others, and our own souls.
More than an instructional resource or inventory of personal habits and goals, The Spacious Path will offer companionship in a book format to help you practice a Rule of Life as a way to integrate what’s already true about your life with what’s always true about Jesus’s life.
Or, to put it simply in the words of a spiritual leader who has influenced me deeply, I hope this book will help you “Look for God in the reality of your life.”
So I’ll be offering stories about how taking Jesus seriously when he offers for us to come to him for rest looks in my own life. Whether we’re at work or rest, enjoying a season of quiet living, or pacing the hospital hallway, Jesus says we can rest. For me, no other practice helps train me better to receive this invitation than a Rule of Life. Maybe that could be true for you too.
Thank you for caring deeply about worshiping God, loving people, and enjoying beauty with me. Peace of Christ to you, friend. May your feet carry you on the spacious path today.
Peace to you, body and soul,
Tamara
p.s. In place of links, I’m sharing a few more recent projects and collaborations. Enjoy!
Podcast collaboration
Me: When I’m Free
In March my sister Kaley interviewed me on her excellent podcast: Like A Road to Meet Me with Tamara Murphy - Part 1 & Part 2 We talk about each other’s superpowers, least favorite jobs and I share my story of calling that led me to become a Spiritual Director through twists and turns and God’s divine timing.
In June, Kaley switched seats and I interviewed her about the same thing. (Yes, my sister is also a spiritual director and I’m so happy for what she offers the world.) You can listen to the two-part interview here - Part 1 & Part 2.
MasterClass collaboration
Vibrant Faith
How to Embed Spiritual-Direction Practices In Your Church
I’m grateful for the work Vibrant Faith does to encourage the big-C Church through training, coaching, and leadership development and delighted to be one of the instructors in their MasterClass series this fall.
Class description: “So much of our ministry life is formed in a “doing” model—gathering for worship and fellowship, giving service and resources, counseling, equipping, and teaching fill our calendars and our time together. In these normal activities of church life, we most often follow a pre-determined curriculum for continued life and growth in Jesus. Spiritual direction is a practice that flips the perspective from doing to being, from spoken communication to active listening, and from creating agendas to creating space for silence and honest questions. At its core, spiritual direction is growing in our capacity to be with God and to bear witness to God’s movement in our lives. The gifts that come from spiritual direction might be the simplest and most needed for parishioners of every age and season of life, particularly as we emerge from the collective suffering of global pandemic and upheaval. In this class, I’ll offer practical and pastoral guidance needed to not only embed spiritual direction in our church ministries but to also experience, firsthand, simple but meaningful practices of silence and listening to Jesus, each other, and our own hearts.”
Thursdays, November 10 & 17, 2022
12:00 - 1:30 PM EST
Purchase here (While you’re there, you can browse through all of the MasterClass options or purchase a season pass.)
Book collaboration
On the Eighth Day: Praying Through the Liturgical Year
Last year I contributed a week of reflections for a daily guide to prayer shared by 12,000 people from around the world who’ve gathered to pray for 8 minutes at 8 pm each day since the early days of the pandemic. The book, master-minded by authors Sally Breedlove, Kari West, Willa Kane, and Madison Perry is a compilation of 8@8’s daily calls to prayer ordered around the liturgical seasons.
On the Eighth Day gives voice to a wholehearted response to the depth and breadth and width of God's loving presence to us in daily Scripture readings throughout the liturgical year. Each reflection helps readers move beyond intellectual assent to the truth of Scripture into a heartfelt, prayerful response for the sake of the whole world. This is a book to keep on the shelf next to your prayer book, journal, and Bible. It's liturgical companionship in book form.
This yearly guide to prayer is available for purchase now! (You’ll find my reflections in the season of Advent.)
