This Fall, our St. James’ Reads books are Greg Garrett’s new book, White Lies: Dismantling Ten Cultural Myths about Race, Dana Delibovi’s bilingual (Spanish/English) book Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Theresa of Avila, A New Translation with Commentary, and Yolanda Pierce’s new book The Wounds are the Witness: Black Faith Weaving Memory into Justice and Healing.

Greg Garrett White Lies Book Launch

6 pm, Friday September 11

St. James’ Episcopal Church, Austin TX

Please join us on September 11 for an evening of celebration, conversation, and calls to action. St. James’ own Greg Garrett has published a new book on racist myths and white supremacy with Oxford University Press that pulls together his journey with St. James’ Episcopal Church Austin, collaborations with Black pastors, priests, and theologians, and multiple conversations across the last ten years about race, culture, politics, and faith. Greg is the author of 30 books, the Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture at Baylor, and Honorary Canon Theologian at the American Cathedral in Paris.

This event is the official book launch for White Lies: Dismantling Ten Cultural Myths about Race. On September 11th we’ll gather for a 6:30 conversation with Greg in the church, then move to a book signing and soul food dinner in our Founders Hall. Books will be sold at the event, but feel free to bring your personal copy for Greg to sign.

Since Three Chicks Soulfood Catering will be serving us, we request that you RSVP for dinner so we can have an accurate dinner count. Do please let us know if you have food allergies or would prefer a vegetarian or vegan meal.

Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of Teresa of Avila
A New Translation with Commentary

This is bilingual pick for those interested in the interior life of the nun, the reformer, the mystic Teresa of Avila.

Join us in October for a study of this poetry and witness, 7-8 pm, on Wednesdays (October 7, 14, 21). Location is currently TBD. Reading guide coming soon.

The Wounds are the Witness: Black Faith Weaving Memory into Justice and Healing
By Dr. Yolanda Pierce

From celebrated scholar Dr. Yolanda Pierce comes this indelible meditation on Black faith, suffering, hope, and the healing possibilities of justice, written in the venerable tradition of James Cone and Kelly Brown Douglas.

What do we do with wounds–our own, others’, and a nation’s? We can turn away, avert our gaze. We can make a spectacle of suffering. Or like the doubting disciple who longed to touch Jesus’s side, we can acquaint ourselves with the wounds: both the story they tell and the healing they prefigure.

In The Wounds Are the Witness, Yolanda Pierce, dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School and author of In My Grandmother’s House, weaves together her own memories, vignettes from Black life, and scenes from scripture, especially the passion of Christ. To work for liberation in a broken world, we cannot look away from crucified flesh. Bones from the Middle Passage, GI Bill benefits denied to Black veterans, women inmates shackled while giving birth: we must take all such wounds seriously. They testify to both the pain and the faith of a people.

With the lyrical eye of a poet and the moral precision of a preacher, Pierce casts readers into the astounding story of God’s healing. From the curative powers of a spiderweb to the work of justice in history, politics, medicine, higher education, and the Black church, Pierce asks: Where are the remedies for the battered and broken? What does accountability look like? Is there any cure?

Healing takes time, Pierce writes, and even the wounds of the risen Christ do not immediately close. When the wounds become the witness, we find a faith reimagined and a hope transfigured. They tell the truth: about the extent of the injury and the extraordinary work of healing.

Join us on November 7, 12-3 pm, for lunch and reflection on Dr. Pierce’s book together. Location currently TBD. Reading guide coming at the start of October.