Sacred Belonging
A 40-Day Devotional on the Liberating Heart of Scripture
Where to Purchase
About
In this forty-day devotional, Cuban American writer Kat Armas shows us that reading the Bible with fresh eyes allows us to experience God in new and liberating ways.
Many Christians today are seeking to disentangle biblical teaching from power structures that marginalize women and people of color. There's a hunger for a new kind of devotional that offers refreshing and relevant ways to connect with God and the Bible--ways that challenge readers to seek out a more liberated and embodied faith.
Drawing from personal narrative and Scripture, Armas highlights biblical passages that point toward decolonized themes centered on creation, wisdom, spirit, the body, and the feminine. Sacred Belonging helps us see how Scripture directs us to live a liberated faith, where we belong to God, the earth, and one another.
Contents
Introduction
Creation
1. Sacred Belonging
2. The Creatures Teach Us
3. The Mountains Groan
4. A Wild World beyond Us
5. Our Soulful Companions
6. Creation Rejoices 000
7. A Kin-dom of Reciprocity
8. Earth, Wind, Fire, Water
Spirit
9. Ghost Stories
10. What Do You Want
11. Native Conversations
12. Lingering in the Tension
13. Arguing with God 000
14. The Gift of Dreams
15. The Spirit Speaks
16. A Deeper Dimension
The Body
17. A Disabled God
18. Getting Curious
19. Breath Prayer
20. God Moves In
21. Reawakening Your Wildness
22. Eyes of Abundance
23. A Question of Embodiment
24. God amid the Crowds
Wisdom
25. The Genius Loci
26. Eternal Life
27. Our Celestial Siblings
28. The Cycle of Time
29. Rooted in Place
30. A New Moon
31. The Prophets in Our Midst
32. The Cardinal Directions
The Feminine
33. Pachamama
34. The Real Thing
35. The Power of the Erotic
36. The Breasted One
37. Primary Issues
38. Uncontrollable Flows
39. A Birthing People
40. The Sun Woman
Conclusion
Endorsements
"Kat Armas does in Sacred Belonging exactly what she does best: leading us to tender and compelling questions while taking us on an inspired journey with the Sacred. Weaving stories of everyday life with thoughtful examinations of Scripture, Armas reminds us that our very lives are connected to the way we understand the Sacred around us and within us, which affects the way we treat one another and Mother Earth. Armas is a theological leader in fierce truth-telling and compelling story-sharing, and we should join her on this journey to reimagine what belonging could be."
Kaitlin Curtice, award-winning author of Native and Living Resistance
"What a delicious book Sacred Belonging is. Yes, it's a devotional, but it's so much more than that. We are invited to taste and see biblical narratives with a new palate that decenters and decolonizes and disrupts limited ways of knowing. I read thankful for Kat's daughter, for the stretch marks she gave her mom, and the baby breath on her mom's neck, and the cooing that was music to Kat's ear as she sat before Holy to write. I read thankful for her partner, Taylor; for her mother; for her posse; for Kat's position in the world. Thankful for her eyes and heart in this moment, which though fraught and frightening, is where we sit, where we belong, yearning for better. I read thankful for the circumstances that put such beauty in Kat's holy imagination. I read thankful for this foretaste of glory divine. And you will too."
Rev. Dr. Jacqui J. Lewis, senior minister, Middle Church; author of Fierce Love
"Kat Armas is the theologian we need, and Sacred Belonging is the devotional we've been waiting for. Rooted in and informed by Scripture, she shows us intuitive ways of communing with God through common things like water, pets, dreams, birthing, and the passage of time. I am stunned silent by this beautiful, relevant work."
Emily P. Freeman, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Next Right Thing
"Through beautiful stories interwoven with Scripture, Kat Armas has given us a devotional worth reading. She offers new perspectives rather than settling for conventional ones, casting a gentle but prophetic vision for a hopeful and decolonized faith. Kat invites us to see God differently. As for me: invitation accepted."
Peter Enns, author of Curveball; host of The Bible for Normal People podcast
"Sacred Belonging is a devotional for all of us who feel cringey about devotionals. I couldn't stop highlighting and felt so held and respected by these words. The genius of this book is its author's generosity. Kat Armas gently and fiercely invites us into the story where Divine Love still speaks through the Scriptures to our souls, shaping us into people who know we are so loved that we can risk remembering that everyone and everything belongs."
K.J. Ramsey, trauma therapist; author of The Book of Common Courage and The Lord Is My Courage
"Armas offers an imperative spiritual balm to some of us who have experienced Scripture in ways that have been demeaning, dehumanizing, isolating, and used solely to reprimand and not to restore. In Sacred Belonging, the space to explore and wonder brought a calming peace over my anxious mind. Sacred Belonging is an invitation into a deep, expansive, and healing way of encountering Scripture in a truly meaningful and transformative manner. Armas has a gentle way of guiding you and inviting you to 'go deeper' just as Jesus has always invited us to do."
Arielle Estoria, poet, author, and actor
The Author
-
Kat Armas
Kat Armas (MDiv, MAT, Fuller Theological Seminary) is a Cuban American writer and podcaster and the recipient of Fuller Seminary's Frederick Buechner Award for Excellence in Writing. She is pursuing a ThM at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Armas is the author of...
Continue reading about Kat Armas
Reviews
"I rarely finish a devotional, although I buy and start them regularly. Still, I devoured Sacred Belonging in a couple of days instead of taking the recommended 40. . . . In addition to Ruby Sales and Ellen Davis, Armas collects a multitude of fascinating conversation partners: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Wendell Berry, Howard Thurman, Amy-Jill Levine, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Julia Watts Belser, and too many others to list. The way she draws on their collective wisdom enhances the experience of reading this devotional. . . . As a devotional seeking to offer a different perspective for a whole web of beings rather than inspire personal change, this book does just what it aims to do."
Elizabeth Felicetti,
Christian Century