Dear friends,
Has there been a special day in recent months when you felt deeply alive? Maybe you felt like yourself, known and loved as such, and surrounded by kindred spirits. I desire that for all of us.
I experienced that precious gift on February 13th this year in Washington, D.C.. There was joyful laughter from open hearts. There were vulnerable tears of honest grief. Throughout, there was an ambient presence of togetherness in hope amidst a disturbing time in America.
We gathered at Anne Snyder and David Brooks’ beautiful home near the Capitol. Our purpose was to launch my book Blessed Are the Others, to listen live to Jon and Val Guerra’s prophetic EP American Gospel, and to share searching conversation. With words, songs, and friends, we explored the way of Jesus in the heart of the American empire.
Anne Snyder, editor-in-chief of Comment Magazine, warmly gathered us with words from the Prophet Jeremiah. Kate Schmidgall, my publisher at BitterSweet Collective, summoned us: “Welcome to the resistance.” I shared a brief invitation to Jesus’ increasingly countercultural Beatitudes as our integrated path of humane happiness. Jon and Val sang songs of beauty that explore this path. Then Jon and I interviewed each other and opened the living room to a time of free-flowing conversation. We talked about our cultural moment, the vocation of art and prophetic witness, heaven, grief, and human flourishing. I left with a deep sense of fullness, lightness, and hopefulness for our shared future.
BitterSweet captured the night on film, and I’m delighted to share it with you here. I hope you’ll find time to pause for 70 minutes and enjoy this special gathering. I think it will awaken your imagination, delight you with beauty, and energize you with fresh truth, joy, and hope.
Special thanks to Kate Schmidgall and Anne Snyder, BitterSweet Collective and Comment, for co-hosting this gathering; to Jon and Val Guerra for crossing the country to collaborate; to BitterSweet’s Dave Baker, Obi Okolo, and Steve Jeter for capturing the night; and to very dear friends for gathering with us. In a time of othering, deceit, and struggle for power, I feel an unsuppressible freedom, abundance, and integrity seeking to live in Jesus’s path of truth and love with all of you. Truly, blessed are the others.
Lastly, Jon Guerra has just released his new album simply titled Jesus. I’ve listened through it several times already and love each track so much. Please don’t miss this lyrical meditation on the life and way of Jesus for our time. It makes perfect listening while reading Blessed Are the Others 🙂
Yours with love and gratitude,
Andrew
P.S. If you’ve read Blessed Are the Others and enjoyed it, I’d be so grateful if you’d leave a quick review on Amazon or GoodReads to help more people discover it.
