Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith Hardcover – February 20, 2024
Purchase options and add-ons
“This is the perfect guide for all those of who need to be reintroduced to a faith full of grace, mercy, and love.”—Kate Bowler, author of Good Enough
It’s hard to leave a faith that has raised us. Maybe it’s even harder to stay. But what can feel impossible is living in the tension. Living with a faith that evolves.
Sarah Bessey is an expert at faithfully stumbling forward. As a New York Times bestselling author and co-founder of Evolving Faith,the foremost community for progressive Christians, she has been trusted by thousands of people to pursue a reconstruction of faith centered on compassion, truth, and inclusion. Bessey has found a deeply underserved and underestimated remnant in the wilderness of Christianity who are still devoted to Jesus, deeply rooted in the Gospel, fascinated with Scripture, and committed to reimagining their faith.
Field Notes for the Wilderness guides us through multiple principles to live by for an evolving faith, including
• practicing wonder and curiosity as spiritual disciplines
• mothering ourselves with compassion and empathy
• making space for lament and righteous rage
• finding good spiritual teachers
• discovering what we are for in this life, and moving in that direction
In this groundbreaking and nurturing book, Bessey becomes a shepherd for our curiosity, giving us a table for our questions, tools to cultivate what we crave, and a blessing for what was—even as we leave it behind.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherConvergent Books
- Publication dateFebruary 20, 2024
- Dimensions5.95 x 0.87 x 8.55 inches
- ISBN-100593593677
- ISBN-13978-0593593677
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together
Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
From the Publisher
|
|
|
---|---|---|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Sarah Bessey shines. A book full of gentle wisdom and stunning empathy for all those of us who are bruised by the faithful but want to keep our faith. Faithful without being pious. Useful without being bossy. This is the perfect guide for all those of who need to be reintroduced to a faith full of grace, mercy, and love.”—Kate Bowler, New York Times bestselling author of Good Enough
“In a time when so many of us feel like we are spiritual wanderers, Sarah Bessey reaches out a hand and offers wise and careful company on the journey. Through the tenderness and intimacy of letters, this book shows us the many ways we might survive together in the liminal.”—Cole Arthur Riley, New York Times bestselling author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies
“If you forced me to pick one book in the whole world to walk someone gently through their faith evolution—one writer, one thinker, one human being out of all the marvelous leaders who’ve done this hard and holy work—it would be Sarah Bessey’s Field Notes for the Wilderness. A gorgeous, expansive offering from beginning to end; a love song to God and every searching heart.”—Jen Hatmaker, New York Times bestselling author of For the Love and Of Mess and Moxie and host of the For the Love podcast
“In a space where nothing can make sense, Bessey offers guidance and direction that feels like a true hug and high-five from God. And by offering it, the wilderness does not feel so wild and lonely after all. For the moments when I wanted to give life the side-eye, I needed this book. I am so grateful we all have it now.”—Candice Marie Benbow, author of Red Lip Theology
“Bessey encourages readers to cultivate hope, grapple with grief, and repent for mistakes made in the name of faith. . . . Readers will draw strength from these openhearted musings.”—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Welcome to the Wilderness
Dear Wanderer,
Welcome, welcome, my friend. Here you are, at the beginning. Isn’t that a sacred place to be?
There are a lot of reasons why folks like us find ourselves in the wilderness. And right now, it’s even feeling a bit crowded. We are in the midst of a shift in the Church that has resulted in many of us here, outside the city gates, exhausted and scared, sad and angry, and yet just a little relieved.
You don’t have to have it all figured out right now. You aren’t required to have all of the answers you seek when you aren’t even quite certain of your own questions just yet. You certainly don’t need to know where you will end up by the end of this experience. But being willing to begin takes great courage, especially when your heart is a bit battered and broken, when your story hasn’t worked out the way you thought it would.
I’ve loved the metaphor of the wilderness for many years now. It just seems to fit with what I understand of the world and my place in it. If the city is a metaphor for certainty and belonging, then the wilderness is for our questions and our truth.
You wouldn’t have picked up this book if you didn’t understand the wilderness in some way. If you hadn’t found yourself out here, beyond the city gates, on your own or with a ragtag little company of makeshift companions.
The wilderness can be a strange, disorienting, lonely place for a soul, I know. It can be filled with danger and loss. But along the way, we do find each other. We come across little clearings, like this, where we can spread our quilt for a while, sit around the fire together, and share some time, maybe a thermos or two of tea.
I’m glad you’re here by my quilt and campfire. You’re so welcome here.
I don’t know what propelled you to embark on this journey. Some of us, like myself, very consciously found ourselves leaving the city and entering the wilderness because of our questions, our doubts, our but-what-about questions.* Others of us were never welcome in the city to begin with; the wilderness has been your primary address for as long as you can remember. You have much to teach us. However we found ourselves here, look up, look up, you can see the stars out here in a way you never could inside the city gates. You’re not as alone as you feel.
* It’s worth noting that I am writing to you as someone who was made for that city of certainty and belonging. I mean, I’m a nice white lady who is married with kids. The “city” usually loves women like me. So when I left the city gates, it was on purpose and it was a choice in some ways. But for many of us, we never belonged in the city—maybe it’s because of our sexuality or gender identity, maybe it’s because we are not neurotypical, maybe because of how we were raised or how we look or our body, or how we move through the world. The city tends to value conformity, and for people like me, that’s an actual possibility until it isn’t. But for a lot of us, conformity isn’t even possible and so the city was never our home, which is important to name.
This book is my own hopeful offering of what has served me in the wilderness, the practices and postures I have found to be good companions when danger feels close and losses have accumulated and loneliness a constant. The tools you actually need or eventually use might be different—because you’re gloriously, wonderfully different from me. That’s one of the reasons why I tend to steer clear of prescriptive advice and how-to manuals or instructions: you will discern what will serve you and what you can release without my interference. What I’m offering are the knowings I arrived at the hard way, through mistakes and missteps and outright failures. These are the practices I still embrace in my daily life, the things I wish I had known when my back felt the final close of the city gate behind me with nothing but wilderness ahead. I hope to simply be alongside you as a companion for this time.
Some of the practices might meet you right where you are. Others you’ll remember in a few years when you need them. A few might not work for your own journey, and that’s okay.
In a lot of ways, I may be writing the book I wish I would have had twenty years ago. Back then, I was in the early stages of what folks would now call “deconstruction,” but back then? I had no such language. It was just after 9/11 and I was a young pastor’s wife, a fish-out-of-water Canadian in south Texas, and everything I thought I knew about God was disappearing like campaign promises. In the years since then, I’ve spent a lot of time out here in the wilderness. This big sky and wide-open space have become a second home to me, even when I feel alone. It’s here I discovered that the wilderness isn’t a problem to be solved, it is another altar of intimacy with God. I never would have imagined that would be true all those years ago.
Water in the Literal Desert?
About twenty years ago, my husband and I were driving through Arizona, not quite halfway between our old life in Texas and our new life back home in Canada, towing a seen-better-days U-Haul stuffed with our worldly goods.*
* Note: “worldly goods” in our case meant particleboard furniture and secondhand books.
The August heat was radiating off the road, but we kept the windows open because our air conditioner was never able to keep up with the American Southwest. Hot air thundered into our Chevy, whipping my hair out of its ponytail; my legs were stuck to the seat. It felt like I had been hot for years, and maybe that was true. This Canadian gal had never managed to acclimate to the temperature properly. The years we spent in south Texas had been a bittersweet roller coaster with beauty and sorrow, devastation and joy. The one constant was my inability to handle the heat well.
Brian had just resigned from pastoral ministry, and we were limping home to Canada to reimagine our future, more than a little brokenhearted and burned out. Once idealistic, I had become cynical about fog machines and voter guides. Brian may have been the one to leave his Jesus-y job behind, but I was the one losing my faith altogether. We were still grieving our latest miscarriage and questioning many of our experiences in full-time vocational ministry and the ways we were taught—or expected—to be in the world. Everything I knew about God had become a gigantic question mark, and everything I thought about Christians had become a howl of betrayal and frustration.
The sky was blue, the horizon endless, our pain immense. We talked (okay, fine, I ranted) all the way across the red desert. My soul was as parched for water as the landscape around us.
God had once felt as near as my breath; now there was only space, space, space.
When we stopped for gas and lunch, I opened the car door and stepped onto the shimmering pavement, a river of perspiration snaking down my spine. “Ugh, I’m so sick of being hot!” I complained, tipping my head back in exhaustion.
“Have you ever considered that you’re not having a spiritual crisis, and perhaps you’ve just been overheated? For many, many years?” asked my husband mildly, taking his life in his hands. I threw an empty water bottle at him and he laughed.
As Brian pumped gas, I bought water and hopefully-only-a-day-old sandwiches from the gas station store. He parked to the side of the station and then we followed crumbling signs pointing to a picnic table in a clump of scrubby trees along a ditch. We continued our conversation from the car.
“I feel like I’m wandering in a desert,” I said, gesturing at the landscape around us. “I’m not who I used to be, but I’m not sure where I’m going next either. There isn’t much out here but a lot of space. It’s scary. Like who I was has disappeared. Like God has disappeared.”
“That’s fine.” Brian was unbothered. “I figure God meets us in those places of space more than when we are pretending to have it all figured out or cram our souls full of our own opinions and certainties. I’m not worried.”
But I was.
My fears weren’t unfounded. I knew how it went. The system we were a part of operated best when we all knew our lines and followed the cues. If someone stepped out of line, the response was swift and often merciless: if you weren’t “in,” you were very, very out. And if you were on the outs, well, you didn’t just lose your church, you lost your friends, your community, and in our case, even our source of income. The margin for error felt small because it was.
Product details
- Publisher : Convergent Books (February 20, 2024)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593593677
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593593677
- Item Weight : 13 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.95 x 0.87 x 8.55 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #10,770 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #68 in Mental & Spiritual Healing
- #92 in Spiritual Self-Help (Books)
- #156 in Christian Self Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
SARAH BESSEY is the editor of the New York Times, Globe and Mail, and Publisher's Weekly bestselling book, "A Rhythm of Prayer." She is also the author of three popular and critically acclaimed books: "Miracles and Other Reasonable Things;" "Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith;" and "Jesus Feminist." Sarah leads Evolving Faith, a conference and community for wanderers and wonderers. She lives in Calgary, Alberta with her husband and their four children. You can find her online at sarahbessey.com.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
I laughed out loud reading, “Sometimes one of the greatest gifts God gives to us is losing our religion,” because there is such truth to that. I became a Christian as an adult, so mine has always been an evolving faith, finding my way from nothing to something, instead of painfully realizing what must be left behind to make room for that something. I have witnessed the struggles of friends who believed what their families believed for generations and what their churches taught without ever even thinking to question it—until they had no choice but to question it and then felt utterly lost, and often rejected as well. Field Notes feels intended to assure people they are not alone and the journey is worth it. (It is! it is!)
Because my journey has been so different, there were times when I was acutely aware I am not the intended audience. Nevertheless, Bessey’s words have a universal ring, because we will all find ourselves in the wilderness. Beyond the wilderness of an evolving faith, there are the wildernesses of grief, trauma, broken or strained relationships, unfulfilled dreams, health challenges, times of transition, national crisis, and so much more. Whatever the context, Bessey’s realization remains true, “The wilderness wasn’t something for me to fear: God was already here, making a way.” Field Notes for the Wilderness is a loving reminder others have walked this hard path, there are companions along the way, and God is always with you.
When I learned there is a guided journal available to accompany the book, I realized that was the one thing that had been subtly missing as I read. Despite the concept of being a “field guide” and Bessey’s promise of sharing the practices that served her in the wilderness, she only mentions practices from her life tangentially or in broad terms, and doesn’t discuss any in great detail. I initially thought this was because Bessey was trying too hard to avoid being prescriptive, but then realized that content might be in the guided journal. I also realized she might be hesitating to offer specifics to avoid claiming expertise. Her only strong suggestion is to “find a companion—a qualified companion—like a therapist or spiritual director to walk this path with you.” As a spiritual director who has a therapist and is grateful all of my clients also have therapists, I’m on board with this suggestion! So, if you are in the midst of the wilderness of evolving (or falling apart) faith right now, I’d encourage you to check out the guided journal. And maybe look into spiritual direction, too. But the book absolutely stands on its own, and can be an encouragement wherever you are on your journey.
I received a digital review copy prior to publication, but loved the book so much I ordered a hard copy at my own expense!
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2024
I laughed out loud reading, “Sometimes one of the greatest gifts God gives to us is losing our religion,” because there is such truth to that. I became a Christian as an adult, so mine has always been an evolving faith, finding my way from nothing to something, instead of painfully realizing what must be left behind to make room for that something. I have witnessed the struggles of friends who believed what their families believed for generations and what their churches taught without ever even thinking to question it—until they had no choice but to question it and then felt utterly lost, and often rejected as well. Field Notes feels intended to assure people they are not alone and the journey is worth it. (It is! it is!)
Because my journey has been so different, there were times when I was acutely aware I am not the intended audience. Nevertheless, Bessey’s words have a universal ring, because we will all find ourselves in the wilderness. Beyond the wilderness of an evolving faith, there are the wildernesses of grief, trauma, broken or strained relationships, unfulfilled dreams, health challenges, times of transition, national crisis, and so much more. Whatever the context, Bessey’s realization remains true, “The wilderness wasn’t something for me to fear: God was already here, making a way.” Field Notes for the Wilderness is a loving reminder others have walked this hard path, there are companions along the way, and God is always with you.
When I learned there is a guided journal available to accompany the book, I realized that was the one thing that had been subtly missing as I read. Despite the concept of being a “field guide” and Bessey’s promise of sharing the practices that served her in the wilderness, she only mentions practices from her life tangentially or in broad terms, and doesn’t discuss any in great detail. I initially thought this was because Bessey was trying too hard to avoid being prescriptive, but then realized that content might be in the guided journal. I also realized she might be hesitating to offer specifics to avoid claiming expertise. Her only strong suggestion is to “find a companion—a qualified companion—like a therapist or spiritual director to walk this path with you.” As a spiritual director who has a therapist and is grateful all of my clients also have therapists, I’m on board with this suggestion! So, if you are in the midst of the wilderness of evolving (or falling apart) faith right now, I’d encourage you to check out the guided journal. And maybe look into spiritual direction, too. But the book absolutely stands on its own, and can be an encouragement wherever you are on your journey.
I received a digital review copy prior to publication, but loved the book so much I ordered a hard copy at my own expense!
Field Notes contains some of what her followers have been requesting for a long time. Do you stay or do you move on? What do you keep and what do you throw away? How exactly do you work out what you believe now? Make no mistake, Bessey doesn't have the answers, but she has processes. A self-confessed "expert at faithfully stumbling forward," Bessey shares multiple principles to use when living with an evolving faith like cultivating hope when it feels impossible, telling yourself the truth and learning to lament when you need to, going slowly on purpose cause it can be hard to wait for answers, and giving yourself permission to be happy. And most importantly, she's there to remind you that you can't escape God's love and that it is more beautiful, more expansive, and more beautiful than you ever knew.
So thankful for this book and for Sarah.
I downloaded it the same day and dove in. And then realized this was a sipping book. I have been reading and pondering this book from then till now. This was not a book I was going to gulp down. I needed and wanted to take my time.
It is a balm for my heart and motivation to keep going. Keep trying. This was the book I didn’t know I needed. I will read this one again. Probably bouncing from chapter to chapter that speaks to my soul rather than from beginning to end.
Pick this one up. You won’t regret it. We went ahead and bought it in hardback to. I’ll be going back and annotating all through it. I’ll probably need the guided journal at some point too.
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2024
I downloaded it the same day and dove in. And then realized this was a sipping book. I have been reading and pondering this book from then till now. This was not a book I was going to gulp down. I needed and wanted to take my time.
It is a balm for my heart and motivation to keep going. Keep trying. This was the book I didn’t know I needed. I will read this one again. Probably bouncing from chapter to chapter that speaks to my soul rather than from beginning to end.
Pick this one up. You won’t regret it. We went ahead and bought it in hardback to. I’ll be going back and annotating all through it. I’ll probably need the guided journal at some point too.