Better World Book Club - online
Sun, 27 Jul
|Zoom
With Jane Blackall
Time & Location
27 Jul 2025, 19:30 – 20:45
Zoom
About the event
Our 'Better World Book Club' meets monthly. The books will be chosen to cover a range of social issues we might do well to be more informed about, and stories of diverse lived experience, interleaved with books on spiritual and ethical matters, to help us live well in hard times. We will aim to choose titles that are available in print, e-book, and audiobook formats, and we will buy a few copies for the church library (let us know if you'd like to borrow one). RSVP or email Jane: jane@kensington-unitarians.org.uk.
In July we are reading 'The Amen Effect' by Sharon Brous: 'In a time of loneliness and isolation, social rupture and alienation, what will it take to mend our broken hearts and rebuild our society? Sharon Brous—a leading American rabbi—makes the case that the spiritual work of our time, as instinctual as it is counter-cultural, is to find our way to one other in celebration, in sorrow, and in solidarity. To show up for each other in moments of joy and pain, vulnerability and possibility, to invest in relationships of shared purpose and build communities of care. Brous contends that it is through honoring our most basic human instinct—the yearning for real connection—that we reawaken our shared humanity and begin to heal. This kind of sacred presence is captured by the word amen, a powerful ancient idea that we affirm the fullness of one another’s experience by demonstrating, in body and word: “I see you. You are not alone.” With original insights and practical tools, The Amen Effect translates foundational ideas into simple practices that connect us to our better angels, offering a blueprint for a more meaningful life and a more connected and caring world.'