July 2026

Alysia Miller
Jul 16
4 min read

July 2026 Issue No. 18

HONEST LIFE | SLOW GROWTH | DEEPLY ROOTED

Art by Scott Toillion, from https://www.instagram.com/p/DanhAfVOn_2/

WELCOME

Welcome to Invitations. My deep hope is that this monthly newsletter will serve as an invitation to consider ideas, practices, and images that will enrich your life. I hope you’ll find fresh perspectives on living a honest, spiritual life, deepening connections between God and others, and permission to grow slowly.

"Pray as you can, not as you can't."

Dom John Chapman, Benedictine Abbot

To practice.

"Accepting your current reality is a spiritual practice. Your limited capability, capacity, time, and energy are not barriers to spiritual growth, they are the soil from which your embodied faith grows." Sarah K. Butterfield

In her book, the Next Right Thing, Emily P. Freeman writes that sometimes our situations change so gradually that our expectations of ourselves don't change along with it. This can look like frustration you can't put a finger on, low grade stress, or thinking you can do it all but feeling like you can't keep up.

Accepting your current reality often starts with recognizing these incongruencies between our expectations on our life situations. Consider these questions which may help name what is actually happening: What is beginning? What is ending? What is not happening that you wish was? Where are you finding rest or relief? What's the pebble in your shoe that won't go away? Is there a new diagnosis? Is there a celebration happening you wish you were a part of? Is a loved one struggling?

There's a freedom that comes when you can honestly name what is true, without judgement or condemnation, or the need to fix it or change it. Then we can hold the expectations we have and what is going on in our actual lives and place it all on an altar, of sorts. In doing so, it's like we're saying "Here, Lord. Here is my life I am actually living. Meet me here, give me daily bread, may your will be done in my life as it is in heaven."

Paying attention to the intersection of our daily lives and how we experience God, in the midst of named and unnamed expectations, allows us to, as Brenning Manning puts it, "learn who I am and what God's grace means"--not just what it means on a theological level, but on the level of what it means, for me, to live today in the light of being loved and held in grace.

This is fertile soil, indeed.

A few things to take in.

Is everyone hanging out with you? That depends. Are you at home right now? In this essay, Kate Bowler asks us to consider the drift that we've made as a society toward alone-ness. Even before the pandemic, our culture was moving to more and more time alone. We've traded the friction that comes from being in the same room as strangers for efficiency, conversation for convenience.
What I like about the Bible Project is not only that they lead us through the Bible in a detailed way, but mostly because of the internal questions that rise as I listen. They offer a deep academic understanding of the biblical texts and context which leads me into a conversation between me and the text. It becomes a space to engage God with implications for living daily lives. For example, this podcast series on the Ten Commandments: Tim Mackie and Jon Collins show how these "10 words" are really deep wisdom for life.

Five Things in Five Minutes, from JR Briggs. I read, or at least skim, this email every week. JR Briggs is a leadership coach with a passion for equipping people and "seeks to bridge the gap between spiritual formation and actionable leadership practices." He always offers helpful questions and often shares interesting articles to read around spiritual formation, life together, and leadership.

Words to consider.

“I would rather be what God chose to make me than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for to have been thought about, born in God's thought, and then made by God, is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.”

―George MacDonald

Borrow this Prayer

From 4th century Greek Bishop Basil the Great:

Oh Lord our God...Steer the ship of our life to yourself, the quiet harbor of all storm-stressed souls. Show us the course which we are to take. Renew in us the spirit of docility. Let your Spirit curb our fickleness; guide and strengthen us to perform what is for our own good, to keep your commandments and ever to rejoice in your glorious and vivifying presence. Yours is the glory and praise for all eternity. Amen

My Journey Into Joy

– sparked by an unexpected question.

by Trevor Hudson

A simple, but not easy, question, plus some earthy advice and some small changes, sparked a paradigm shift for the author of this essay. If you find yourself struggling with joy, this essay may offer some hope.

Read HERE