“In Fully Beloved, Tim Jones hits the heart—naming the ache of loneliness and our lifelong quest for belonging.” –Sandra McCracken, singer & songwriter
“This profoundly moving book is one I savored, and you will, too.” —Jeff Crosby, author of The Language of the Soul and World of Wonders
“Remarkable. … Explores the possibility of a loving God who meets us where we are in each moment … in peace or struggle, joy or despair. —David Bannon, author of A Hope Observed
I’m following the lead of someone I like on Substack (Alan Noble). On the day his new book released, Noble posted a heartfelt essay on what he hoped his book would do, who he wrote it for, and how readers can help get out the word.
While my book’s been out in the world a few weeks, I felt inspired by his post to give a sketch here of my book, offer a couple of thoughts on how it might benefit you, and suggest how you can help others discover it. I also share below some early reactions to my book from Amazon and Goodreads reviews.
Once, on an Easter morning, I found myself wondering out loud: what if Easter were more than a single day in our lives? What if it became a season we lived? For don’t we stand—indeed, the whole world stands—at the opened door of something new, something powerful waiting to be welcomed? And surely the encouragement of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead isn’t meant only for one Sunday.
“But enough about me,” the character played by Bette Midler says after going on and on. “Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?” It’s an old line, but it still lands.
Perhaps we laugh because it feels a little too recognizable, too much like us in our less-than-best moments. We are tempted to worship what someone once called the Almighty I. Even our lofty words can bend in a selfward direction. “I love you” can become “I love what you do for me,” or “I love how you make me feel.”
We are not practiced in a love that costs us. The aftertaste of materialism, self-pampering, and habitual me-ism is a life that turns inward. The soul, meant to unfold outward, begins instead to contract. We turn in on ourselves, thinking it only good and right, an earned reward.
Today, though, on Maundy Thursday, for those who keep the church calendar, we glimpse another way to live, a deeper way to be in the world, another way to love.
No one likes to hear a “no.”
You’d think by now we’d have gotten used to it, maybe grown relational calluses. Some of us were the last ones picked for the playground team, the ones cut after auditions, the ones whose name never appeared in the email announcing promotions. We’ve stood at doors that did not open, knowing someone was hunkering inside. We bristle (or get discouraged) when we get the email that begins, “We reviewed your [application, article, etc.] and regret to inform you. …” We get a letter or voice mail dressing us down, making us feel little, humiliated. Our hearts flare (or sometimes just fold).
I begin my forthcoming book with a simple sentence. Am I loved?
Not exactly soaring prose, just short, one-syllable words, and a question mark. I thought about starting with “Does God care?” Similarly brief, aiming at what we feel or worry or wonder about.
But the version my editor and I ended up with seems both more personal, and closer to home, more likely to hit at the heart: Am I loved? We can ask the line this way, too: Are we loved?
Maybe no question nags at us more. Perhaps no question matters as much.
We can move into the territory of cliché here, of course. Or overdone sentiment.
Here is a sampling of links to what I’ve been writing in magazines and online:
Taylor Swift’s Highly Relatable, Hidden Longings (RabbitRoom.com)
https://www.rabbitroom.com/post/taylor-swift-s-highly-relatable-hidden-longings
Incandescence and Fermentation,” an interview with E. Lily Yu (Ecstatic/Ekstasis)
https://ekstasismagazine.substack.com/p/incandescence-and-fermentation
Emily Dickinson, Botanist (The Christian Century) current issue, digital link available September 5
Finding Faith and Mystery out Emily Dickinson’s Window (Fathom Magazine) https://www.fathommag.com/stories/finding-faith-and-mystery-out-emily-dickinsons-window
Fewer Words, Richer Prayer (Ekstasis)
https://www.ekstasismagazine.com/kingdom-meets-culture/2022/1/14/fewer-words-richer-prayer?rq=richer
A Vastness Come Near (The Fallow House)
https://thefallowhouse.com/blog/a-vastness-come-near
The Grace of Touch (Ekstasis)
https://www.ekstasismagazine.com/kingdom-meets-culture/2023/the-grace-of-touch?rq=Timothy%20Jones
Living Between the Bible’s First and Last Prayers (The Christian Century)
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/reflection/living-between-bible-s-first-and-last-prayers
I Hear No Voice A Children’s Book of Prayers and the apophatic tradition (The Christian Century)
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/i-hear-no-voice
The Mountain Road Ramblers
I like inviting people into deeper enjoyment of God by making difficult spiritual things more accessible through writing, speaking, leading.
As a pastor, I get excited seeing people's faith come alive, as hesitancy over prayer or big beliefs gives way to insight and hope. I’ve served churches small and large, including a vibrant downtown Cathedral as Dean. Until recently I happily served a smaller parish, delighting in the beauty of Virginia and the graciousness of parishioners. Now I’m serving an appointment as Visiting Scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary.
When I teach, I’ve done so in diverse settings: conducting workshops at the National Pastors' Convention in San Diego, for instance, or facilitating a retreat at a Presbyterian Church in Silicon Valley, or leading retreats at Laity Lodge in Texas. I’ve offered a quiet day for the editors of Upper Room books in Nashville and for Anglican and Episcopal students at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina. I've taught spirituality in a workshop at a diocesan gathering of Anglican priests in South Africa and, as an adjunct, to graduate students at the Alexandria School of Theology in Egypt.
And I write: My several books all seem to boil down to a simple theme: a growing, vital communion with God is possible. I’m even tackling a book on the ancient Christian belief in the Trinity, mining its invitation to a renewed relationship with God and others.
And I love music, especially playing clawhammer banjo or bodhran in genres from Appalachian folk, to bluegrass, to Celtic.
A kind of personal mission statement sums up what has mattered to me over seasons of ministry within the church and beyond:
To use my abilities and experiences as catalysts to awaken and deepen the joy-filled faith of others.
I spend my time seeking:
Creative approaches to make what seems complicated in the Christian life simpler and more possible
Engaging, inviting and grounded teaching and preaching
Retreats that help attenders cultivate deeper prayer and everyday spirituality
Literature and the arts as settings for witnesses to faith to speak to a wider culture
“I cannot commend The Art of Prayer too highly. Here at last is a book on prayer that transcends traditions. … a book that is serious, yet with wonderful flashes of humor and insight. … a book for all of us.”
“Prayer, the expression of our deepest and most essential selves, also names our most pervasive inadequacy. ... Timothy Jones is a reassuring guide: He guides us into a life of prayer not by cramming us with knowledge and technique but by quietly returning us to simplicity of soul and the presence of God.”
“I was delighted to find [that] Tim Jones writes with humility, clarity, and practicality—exactly the qualities I want in a book on prayer.”
“A Place for God is a good map ... of the spiritual highway to a place of God’s peace and rest in our often hectic, chaotic, and even violent modern world.”
Sometimes we feel stuck.
Who doesn’t, on such days, long for movement—for some sign of momentum? Yet we may keep circling the same issue. Maybe it’s a job whose days we trudge through; I’ve known seasons like that, yearning for a new opportunity. Or maybe a relationship seems caught in the same bruising patterns, replaying old hurts and disappointments. We long for growth that seems far off.