January reads

As you will recall, the reading goal for 2015 is a bit more modest than that from 2014, and tailored more closely to the goal of reducing the embarrassingly large backlog of nonfiction on the Kindle. Two nonfiction books per month, or a total of at least 24 for the year.

First up, Home Is Where My People Are, by Sophie Hudson. One of my last reads for 2014 was actually a reread of her wonderful first book, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, a memoir of growing up Southern, faith, family and bacon. Lots of bacon. In Home Is Where My People Are, Ms. Hudson talks more deeply about the development of her faith. She begins by explaining:

But it seems to me that, in our deepest places, what we're really looking for is to belong, to be seen, and to be known. and what we sometimes miss in all our searching for the perfect spot to set up camp, so to speak, is that wherever we are - whether it's short term or long term - we can count on the fact that God is at work in the journey.

This book is an account of her journey, the deepening of her faith and the friendships and communities along the way that played a major part in it.

Because while it's taken, you know, my whole life to wrap my brain around this idea, what I'm finally figuring out is that when we're really and truly at home - with our faith, our family, our friends, our callings, and ourselves - there's a transformation that has little to do with the style of our house or the numbers on the mailbox. It's a change that turns us outward, that opens our arms, that compels us to extend a hand to people who are standing at a crossroads in their own lives and trying to figure out which way to go.

I highly recommend it (so much so I can even ignore her use of the Oxford comma - it actually hurt my fingers to transcribe those quotes verbatim).