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Amen? Questions for a God I Hope Exists
"To people exhausted by hard lines and polar positions, Julia Rocchi's book is a grace-filled invitation into radical rest. What a relief to meet God and to encounter one another as we are: curious, questioning, fragile, and hopeful."
-Karen Wright Marsh, Vintage Saints and Sinners: 25 Christians Who Transformed My Faith
All her life, Julia Rocchi has searched for both the stillness and community that would connect her with something real and powerful-something like God. But religion, often consumed by its certainties, sometimes fails us. We want to find a new way. Could it be that faith is instead a conversation we carry on in questions?
From a place of searching faith comes Amen?, a collection of prayers and essays for practicing penitents and devoted doubters. With fresh imagery and prose to help you pause, this book encourages our hesitant hopes and welcomes us to admit doubt, invite joy, and grapple with mystery. From Julia's story about learning her brother was an atheist to her prayer about envisioning the love of her life, and from her reflection on trying (and failing) to be a social justice warrior to her experience waking up laughing, you'll see what happens when we stop, listen, and set a table for the questions.
Amen? is an engaging, empathetic rumination of the nature of belief-and its reverberations in the everyday-that offers readers comfort, challenge, and release on their quests to encounter God.
-Karen Wright Marsh, Vintage Saints and Sinners: 25 Christians Who Transformed My Faith
All her life, Julia Rocchi has searched for both the stillness and community that would connect her with something real and powerful-something like God. But religion, often consumed by its certainties, sometimes fails us. We want to find a new way. Could it be that faith is instead a conversation we carry on in questions?
From a place of searching faith comes Amen?, a collection of prayers and essays for practicing penitents and devoted doubters. With fresh imagery and prose to help you pause, this book encourages our hesitant hopes and welcomes us to admit doubt, invite joy, and grapple with mystery. From Julia's story about learning her brother was an atheist to her prayer about envisioning the love of her life, and from her reflection on trying (and failing) to be a social justice warrior to her experience waking up laughing, you'll see what happens when we stop, listen, and set a table for the questions.
Amen? is an engaging, empathetic rumination of the nature of belief-and its reverberations in the everyday-that offers readers comfort, challenge, and release on their quests to encounter God.
314 pages, Paperback
Published October 18, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 20, 2022
Amen? offers a thought-provoking meditation on faith, belief, and what it means to be human. Though ostensibly a God-centric book, the questions it raises appealed to me as non-religious person. The writing itself is lyrical and beautiful, making it a pleasure to read. And read again.
January 2, 2023
I am not a particularly religious person. Raised in a non-Christian faith I grew up open to the belief systems of others, yet wary of any overt conversations around faith and spirituality lest that interest be turned into—as it occasionally did—attempts at conversion. As I have grown older I have listened to my more progressive friends who center faith talk about their connections to religion. These are people I trust who accept my quest for information as merely space for conversation and connection.
I mention this so as to provide a clear context for my review of Julia Rocchi's book Amen? Questions for a God I hope Exists, as the author is one of those people, and her book has created that place in which the value of searching—for God or a broader sense of meaning for the world—is valued, encouraged, and embraced.
A mix of essays, poetry, and prayer, Rocchi connects the dots between events in her own life, with that sense of vulnerability and wonder that we all crave. She uses her questions to frame out possible approaches to some of our bigger challenges from love, grief, relationships and of particular import to me, creativity. You can read this book in a few longer sittings, but I suggest taking it slowly, and it will feel like a sip of water on a sweltering day—refreshing, life-affirming, and a meditative release in a world that can feel overwhelming.
My particular favorites are (and in no particular order):
1. Questions That Come in the Night
2. At Wit's End
3. What Comes from Silence
4. The gorgeous story and essay "Spine of Steel,"
5. The entirety of Chapter Seven
6. Finally "The Self I Hide" which which calls to me in recent days as I look for space to write what I feel Help me write like the self I fear, // The part of me too terrified // To fall in love with what I love // So deep I'll lose my sense of "should." (This is from the second stanza, the whole poem is worth a read).
As one of the authors friends and supporters I received an early copy of the book. All that being said, this review is as honest as it can be under those circumstances.
I mention this so as to provide a clear context for my review of Julia Rocchi's book Amen? Questions for a God I hope Exists, as the author is one of those people, and her book has created that place in which the value of searching—for God or a broader sense of meaning for the world—is valued, encouraged, and embraced.
A mix of essays, poetry, and prayer, Rocchi connects the dots between events in her own life, with that sense of vulnerability and wonder that we all crave. She uses her questions to frame out possible approaches to some of our bigger challenges from love, grief, relationships and of particular import to me, creativity. You can read this book in a few longer sittings, but I suggest taking it slowly, and it will feel like a sip of water on a sweltering day—refreshing, life-affirming, and a meditative release in a world that can feel overwhelming.
My particular favorites are (and in no particular order):
1. Questions That Come in the Night
2. At Wit's End
3. What Comes from Silence
4. The gorgeous story and essay "Spine of Steel,"
5. The entirety of Chapter Seven
6. Finally "The Self I Hide" which which calls to me in recent days as I look for space to write what I feel Help me write like the self I fear, // The part of me too terrified // To fall in love with what I love // So deep I'll lose my sense of "should." (This is from the second stanza, the whole poem is worth a read).
As one of the authors friends and supporters I received an early copy of the book. All that being said, this review is as honest as it can be under those circumstances.
October 23, 2022
In Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot Prince Myshkin (the one called the Idiot) makes the comment "beauty will save the world." I believe this is how the Church can fulfill her mission in the world of the twenty-first century; by telling beautiful stories and leaning into the beauty available in faith in God. That is why I am drawn to books and art being created by so many whose faith is deepened beyond certitude. Books and art that present beauty amidst the mess and joy of life and reveal faith within the complexities of human existence.
Julia Rocchi has created a beautiful work of prose, poetry, and prayers in Amen? Questions for a God I Hope Exists. In her introduction, Rocchi tells us; "the book you’re holding is about: the urge to cultivate a mature and examined relationship with a God we might never fully understand or know. Through essays, reflections, poems, and prayers, I have attempted to transmute my doubt into curiosity and punctuate my faith with question marks." She has accomplished this and more. Reading the book allows a look into life in its multitudinous emotions and experiences. You can feel the growth and change through many seasons of life and the connectedness of human relationships.
Through the "essays, reflections, poems, and prayers," I believe that Rocchi's use of the question mark is an invitation rather than a challenge. For in the contents of Amen? I see a human being who has a deep faith because she has trust. Trust in who we can be as a species and who we can be when we embrace beauty and love. In this book, I see the truth that faith is more than belief or doubt; faith is trust that "beauty will save the world" and beauty will save our relationships and ourselves.
In a story which could come from Amen? , if not for an icebreaker at a NTEN (nonprofit technology) conference many years ago, I probably would not have heard of this book. Amongst a table of millennials, this gen-x guy noticed everyone was noting the Twitter handles on our nametags (Twitter was fairly new). I copied them and followed or followed back once I had access to my laptop. Because of that table, I followed some blogs and have occasionally seen tweets from those earliest of follows. It was my Twitter feed which revealed this book which intrigued me, and I am glad I pre-ordered and have read it. You will be glad if you read this as well. It is a book brimming with faith, hope, and love expressed in lament, joy, sorrow, happiness, the extraordinary, and the mundane.
Julia Rocchi has created a beautiful work of prose, poetry, and prayers in Amen? Questions for a God I Hope Exists. In her introduction, Rocchi tells us; "the book you’re holding is about: the urge to cultivate a mature and examined relationship with a God we might never fully understand or know. Through essays, reflections, poems, and prayers, I have attempted to transmute my doubt into curiosity and punctuate my faith with question marks." She has accomplished this and more. Reading the book allows a look into life in its multitudinous emotions and experiences. You can feel the growth and change through many seasons of life and the connectedness of human relationships.
Through the "essays, reflections, poems, and prayers," I believe that Rocchi's use of the question mark is an invitation rather than a challenge. For in the contents of Amen? I see a human being who has a deep faith because she has trust. Trust in who we can be as a species and who we can be when we embrace beauty and love. In this book, I see the truth that faith is more than belief or doubt; faith is trust that "beauty will save the world" and beauty will save our relationships and ourselves.
In a story which could come from Amen? , if not for an icebreaker at a NTEN (nonprofit technology) conference many years ago, I probably would not have heard of this book. Amongst a table of millennials, this gen-x guy noticed everyone was noting the Twitter handles on our nametags (Twitter was fairly new). I copied them and followed or followed back once I had access to my laptop. Because of that table, I followed some blogs and have occasionally seen tweets from those earliest of follows. It was my Twitter feed which revealed this book which intrigued me, and I am glad I pre-ordered and have read it. You will be glad if you read this as well. It is a book brimming with faith, hope, and love expressed in lament, joy, sorrow, happiness, the extraordinary, and the mundane.
October 19, 2022
I loved this book. The author has a charming voice that awoke many thoughts that I had put at bay about what actively participating in a faith community means to me. Ms. Rocchi (pronounced “rocky”) does not shy away from the challenges of finding a seat within the church, Roman Catholic in this case, as a young woman. Honestly written, with a great side of humor.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews