Perhaps you’ve read a lot of Baldwin’s writing, or not. Perhaps you’ve watched I Am Not Your Negro, or perhaps you haven’t yet. Chances are, one quote or another of his has come acrocross your social media screen and you caught it, and perhaps thought about it for a moment, like “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Greg Garrett calls this “a wisdom book on his work,” and I think I’ll love reading it, based on thumbing through the slim volume a few times. “James Baldwin has been weighing down my backpack, my syllabi, and my heart because this Black gay expatriate writer is and always will be an exquisitely thoughtful guide to What Matters, whether in the Age of Kennedy, the Age of Trump, or the Age of Whatever Comes Next,” he writes on page 8.
I think the book, organized into six portion sizes of about 30 pages, promises to inspire thought and conversation, and perhaps you’d like to read it with me later this summer. We could meet over coffee or a beer, or, if there are more than two or three of us, in my study at church (coffee or tea are still options) If you’re interested, please let me know by the end of June so we can determine what days and times might be best.
BBC Radio has called Greg Garrett one of America’s essential voices on religion and culture. His work has been featured in a wide range of media from The National Review to National Public Radio to The Christian Century. The Carole McDaniel Hanks Professor of Literature and Culture at Baylor University, Greg has been a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Relgion and Culture and is Canon Theologian at the American Cathedral in Paris. He is author of two dozen books of nonfiction including A Long, Long Way: Hollywood’s Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation.