Denounce the government: Practice Resurrection Stories
Denounce the government: Practice Resurrection Stories

The latest installment in my series using the Mad Farmer’s words to inspire my own storytelling. I write in hope that something I share will encourage you to think differently about your own life and to respond to that new way of thinking with joy and courage and new ways of living. As a reminder, here’s a description of my current Stories series.

Today’s excerpt from "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" by Wendell Berry:

“So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.”

Read More
Practice Resurrection, Resurrection StoriesTamara Hill Murphyfinding Tamara
Take all that you have and be poor: Practice Resurrection Stories
Take all that you have and be poor: Practice Resurrection Stories

The latest installment in my series using the Mad Farmer’s words to inspire my own storytelling. I write in hope that something I share will encourage you to think differently about your own life and to respond to that new way of thinking with joy and courage and new ways of living. As a reminder, here’s a description of my current Stories series.

Today’s excerpt from "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" by Wendell Berry:

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

anymore. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Read More
Resurrection StoriesTamara Hill MurphyPractice Resurrection 2021, finding Tamara
What I Read August - December [From the Book Pile 2020]
What I Read August - December [From the Book Pile 2020]

You can see all my reading lists since 2006 here.

I discovered two things in fall 2020: my local library offered personal appointments to pick up book requests and my local library was within walking distance from my home. Right up there with the best things that happened to me last year. I’m so grateful for the librarians who are keeping the lights on and our reading lives flourishing.

Three questions as you browse this post:

  1. Which titles grab your attention?

  2. What've YOU been reading lately?

  3. Any suggestions you want to send my way?

  4. Drop me a comment below!

Read More
From the Book PileTamara Hill MurphyFrom the book pile 2020, book reviews, book lists, books, reading, kathleen norris, wendell berry, annie dillard, joan chittister, makoto fujimura, justice, plough publishing, Englewood Review of Books, flannery
'Into your hands I commit my spirit' by Andrea Bailey Willits [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'Into your hands I commit my spirit' by Andrea Bailey Willits [Retrieve Lament 2021]

Often, the middles and even the endings of our personal stories are tragic. They don’t make any sense, in and of themselves. On Holy Saturday, it looked like Jesus was dead for good. That’s why our personal stories need to be situated in a larger story, the one in which we are always safe because God’s purposes ARE prevailing. The Anglican liturgy has helped me re-saturate my imagination in that story. For me, lament has been cleansing. It required grappling with my idols and laying down lies—and welcoming a life that looks, to many people, like a failure. I place my own little story in the story of the community’s suffering, and I think our suffering Savior is there too.

Read More
Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill MurphyRetrieve Lament 2021, holy week, guest post, Into your hands I commit my spirit
'It is finished' by Karen Hutton [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'It is finished' by Karen Hutton [Retrieve Lament 2021]

Jesus spoke the words "It is finished" just before he died on the cross. One of the meanings of these words was that his earthly life was over. Death, a cruel enemy, is the end of all our earthly lives. I am lamenting my loss that will never be undone. I am grieving and angry that I never had a dad. I mourn for all who are mourning, and for every life cut short.

Read More
Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill MurphyRetrieve Lament 2021, holy week, guest post, It is finished
'I thirst' by Aimee Sylvester [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'I thirst' by Aimee Sylvester [Retrieve Lament 2021]

Christ experienced trauma, and He never tries to dress that up; I resonate with His exhausted two-word prayer "I thirst". The precious ones in Christ's family who encourage me to re-name myself have shown me that my feelings weren't designed to be brushed aside or toughed out, they can be invitations to hearing God more clearly.  My angry impatient wrestling with God will never drive Him away; somehow it makes Him move in closer.

Read More
Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill MurphyRetrieve Lament 2021, holy week, I thirst
'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" by Natalie Murphy [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" by Natalie Murphy [Retrieve Lament 2021]

My God, My God.

Not just any old God, but my God. They had a history, he and David. We had a history. This wasn’t the first time I cried out to him, but it was the first time I heard nothing in return. I cried all night. I found a golf pencil and scribbled “God, God, God” on my intake paperwork. Could he not hear me? Was there a glitch in the signal? Were these walls too thick? Literal padded walls, that must be what it took for him to finally just give up on me.

Read More
Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill Murphyholy week, Retrieve Lament 2021, Why have you forsaken me
'Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!' by Todd Hill [Retrieve Lament 2021]
'Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!' by Todd Hill [Retrieve Lament 2021]

It was almost a year after Jacob’s sobering request that I saw him for the last time. Rachel and I lifted his frail body into a hospital bed that had been set up in his bedroom. Jacob was unable to do it himself. I stopped and rested my hand on his head, covered with stubble that had begun to grow. Rachel went about the business of organizing the space for Jacob while calmly giving the kids instructions about how they should play in the room where daddy was resting. Of course, Jacob, it will be my great honor to help take care of your wife and children.

Read More
Lament Stories, LentTamara Hill Murphyholy week, Retrieve Lament 2021, Behold your son / mother
Practice lament with me this Lent and feed people in Austin at the same time
Practice lament with me this Lent and feed people in Austin at the same time

Our congregation is practicing lament this Lent. Our pastor (who also happens to be my good husband, Brian) recognized that all of us are carrying the weight of accumulated loss and needing to learn how lament is both an act of worship and a gift for our own souls. We’re also reading W. David O. Taylor’s excellent book Open and Unafraid: The Psalms as a Guide to Life which points us toward the Psalmist as our model for expressing the full range of human emotion in the presence of God.

I feel compelled to look deeply into lament, beyond my preconceived notions, to grow in my understanding of lament as more than an idea but an expansive and healing language we’ve been given by our Creator. The language that Christ, in the words of the poet Rilke, came to retrieve. Like any language, we can learn just the bare minimum for survival or we can immerse ourselves in its full expression.

If lament is a forgotten language for most of us, how have we been expressing our sadness, anger, and grief, and depression up to now?

Walk with me through Lent one of two ways (or both!)

  1. Subscribe to a Daybook Meditations membership to follow along with the daily meditations online.

  2. Donate and request the Lent Daybook 2021 as a one-time download. Keep reading to see how using this option will help folks in Austin right now.

Read More
LentTamara Hill MurphyLent Daybook 2021