Am I Too Late?
favorite books from 2025 and questions I am carrying into the new year
I recently saw someone talk about “gentle January” and the desire to ease into the new year—and like many of you, that was my plan. But instead, I came into January like a marathoner whose legs just gave out toward the end. The “easing” looked more like collapse. My weariness was compounded by the swirl of hard and horrific headlines—headlines that keep whacking us just below the knees, without any room to process or to breathe. All that to say, I was not in a “new year, new me” kind of place, and “gentle” is something I think we all still need.
But no matter what is happening around us, I want to continue to be someone who creates space for naming the good and giving ample room for delight—those little things that make up a life and where we find God’s loving gaze looking right at us. I want to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”1 So in that spirit, I did not want to get too far into 2026 without sharing a few of my favorites books from 2025 and some questions I am carrying into the days ahead.
Favorite Books
I recently told my friend Shawn Smucker (co-owner of Nooks bookshop in Lancaster, PA) that 2025 was the year I fell in love with Elizabeth Strout. Out of the twenty-five novels I read last year, eight of them were written by Elizabeth Strout. Beginning with My Name is Lucy Barton (and then making my way through the Amgash series and then the Olive Kittridge books), I was compelled not only by the layered and overlapping plot lines, but most of all, I found such raw humanity in each of the characters. Like actual people, they had moments of being deeply endearing and other moments when you simply did not like or understand them at all. Every character had equal parts villain and hero, and I found this complexity something I needed to remember within my actual life.
So 2025 was hands-down the year of Elizabeth Strout, but a few other memorable reads (the ones that stuck with me) included:
Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation by Cindy S. Lee - If you and I have talked about spirituality, discipleship, or the church as of late, it’s very likely I have mentioned this book and the beautiful way it articulates a non-linear, non-performative approach to Christian faith. I read it early in 2025 and have thought about it all year.
The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon - This book was pure delight. While a book intended for a younger reader, I found the world of Millicent Quibb to be a fun, mysterious, and freeing for all of us needing to let our weird out. Plus, I listened to this book, and because it’s read by the author Kate McKinnon and her sister, it’s chock full of voices, quirky asides, and audio effects. I loved it.
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan - I do not mean to induce whiplash here, but A Fever in the Heartland was almost the exact opposite type of Millicent Quibb. Yet, I cannot stop thinking about it, not only because the majority of the events take place in my home state of Indiana (a sobering and revealing reality for me to hold), but also, the book depicts how evil can grow under the guise of “good,” how fear can compel even the best of us toward dehumanization and hate. It’s a really hard read. I won’t lie. But I think it’s an important one, if you can.
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller - I have not read a more poignant and profound book on grief. While this book came out many years ago, I am glad we finally crossed paths. Weller’s prose has an invitational quality that allows the reader to enter the topic of grief softly and to entertain hard-but-good ideas about the role of grief in our everyday lives. (Plus, it was a very good chaser to A Fever in the Heartland!)
Questions I’m Holding
Ideally, I spend January in some deep personal reflection on the year behind but also my desires for the year ahead. It’s also a time I try to acknowledge what remains unresolved within me—questions that I carry. I name them not as a “goal” to have them solved by year’s end, but more as a prayer. I name them as a way to live out my faith and allow God to meet me here.
Some of those questions are too sacred and tender to mention here, but I do want to share a few things I’m considering within this transitional new year space:
What is my current capacity? Relationally? Mentally? Emotionally?
What do I want to continue to hold? What do I need to let go?
What’s working? What’s not working? (Personally, professionally, as a friend and family member, financially, etc.)
Where do I sense God’s invitation?
What makes me come alive (a fuller version of myself)? What is a source of disintegration (the things that make me want to pull back from God, others, even from myself)?
What does it look like for me to be part of God’s church (as Dallas Willard called God’s “redemptive community”2) within this particular moment in history?
You are welcome to borrow these questions, and I invite you to share any additional questions you are currently holding for personal reflection and growth.
Where We Are Headed
The truth is that I do not know where Human Together is headed as a publication, at least not in a detailed sort of way. I have some ideas brewing—ideas that I’m trying to hold up next to my capacity and realities of everyday life. But I plan to continue to show up here and to invite in other voices as we ask the question “How can we be more human together, in order to embrace the communal life for our common good?”
You are welcome to continue as you are, or if you want a bit more, you can also upgrade your subscription to receive the weekly dwell journal as well as additional extras throughout the year. However you decide to engage (or to remain quietly in the back, just checking things out…), I’m glad our paths have crossed.
together with you,
PS: If you want to upgrade your subscription but can’t swing the cost, no worries. You can sign up for a free 30-day trial to check things out, or just message/email me and say “I’d like to upgrade for free” and I will make it happen, no questions asked.
Psalm 34:8 NIV
Dallas Willard, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (Lisle, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 34.
Beautiful questions. Thank you. I look forward to pondering them with a cuppa later.
Ooh! I want to hear about Our Unforming when we’re together next week! Sounds like a timely topic and one I am very interested in.