And: The Restorative Power of Love in an Either Or World by Felicia Murrell

Christine Valters Paintner is joined by author Claudia Love Mair for a series of video conversations on a book by or about a voice of color. The community is invited to purchase and read the books in advance and participate actively in this journey of deepening, discovery, and transformation.

This month we sat down with Felicia Murrell to discuss her book And: The Restorative Power of Love in an Either/Or World.

While others often respond to the cares and concerns of our day through anger, And: The Restorative Power of Love in an Either/Or World attempts to offer a response steeped in the heartbeat of Love.

This book is an invitation to encounter the lived experience and philosophical musings of another as a human, not as a project or agenda to conquer. Without apology, it embraces humanity and all the emotions, back stories, and history that come along with who we are and who Love is inviting us to be. This book is for those who want to think more deeply, those who are asking questions of how, what, and perhaps even why, and those who want to engage in deep listening and empathy.

And: The Restorative Power of Love in an Either/Or World is an invitation to move beyond binaries, beyond hierarchy and comparison to embrace the concept of “AND,” with inclusion and generativity that allow for more than one perspective and/or way of being.

Touching on issues of race, body, motherhood, church, and wonder, these writings are from the stirrings of the author’s own soul, extending an invitation to sit with Spirit in the process of mindful meditation, to humbly sit with compassion and curiosity in ways that evoke honesty and healing so that one might move beyond either/or and discover how the restorative power and uniting thread of Love might be stitching each of us to the world and to each other.

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