Spirituality & Practice (S&P) is a multi-faith website devoted to resources for spiritual journeys. While respecting differences among traditions, S&P celebrates what they share in common.
Spirituality & Practice (S&P) is a multi-faith website devoted to resources for spiritual journeys. While respecting differences among traditions, S&P celebrates what they share in common.
A Good Man Is Hard to Find Reading Guide
Explore the themes of human sin, redeeming grace, and the abundance of nature in this guide to Flannery O'Connor's short story collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Part of the We the People Book Club, a year-long program contemplating America’s past and possibilities, this guide was created for individual and group use. Questions within each theme facilitate (1) your interpretation of the text, (2) your personal reflections inspired by your reading, and (3) practices for you to try that animate the novel’s democratic values.
November Practice: Revising Systems to Serve the Common Good
The decay spreads over the State, and the sweet smell is a great sorrow on the land. Men who can graft the trees and make the seed fertile and big can find no way to let the hungry people eat their produce. Men who have created new fruits in the world cannot create a system whereby their fruits may be eaten. And the failure hangs over the state like a great sorrow. —John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath
We the People: A Book Club
Takie a plunge into engaging narratives, humor, cultural criticism, and spiritual wisdom, through the year-long We the People Book Club. Its 12+ selections reveal our democracy’s failings and successes and implicitly urge us as readers to keep alive what American author John Steinbeck called that “stumbling-forward ache.”
Practicing Democracy with Children
Nine ways to help children engage democratic values. Children come naturally to some democratic values, like pursuit of happiness and love of freedom. Other ideals—like recognizing that we are all equal and seeking the common good—need practice. This guide encourages children's democratic engagement at home and in their communities.
Developed with Spirituality & Practice as part of the Practicing Democracy Project.
The Underground Railroad Reading Guide
Explore the themes of law ≠ justice; slavery, freedom, and unfreedom; and resilience, courage, and voice in this guide to Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad. Part of the We the People Book Club, a year-long program contemplating America’s past and possibilities, this guide was created for individual and group use. Questions within each theme facilitate (1) your interpretation of the text, (2) your personal reflections inspired by your reading, and (3) practices for you to try that animate the novel’s democratic values.
October Practice: Feeling Heard, Seen, Useful in Community
The very essence of democracy is the absolute faith that while people must cooperate, the first function of democracy, its peculiar gift, is to develop each individual into everything that [one] might be. —Edwin H. Land
March read, Puddnhead Wilson by Mark Twain
Explore the themes of identity, race, nobility, and violence in this guide to Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson. Part of the We the People Book Club, a year-long program contemplating America’s past and possibilities, this guide was created for individual and group use.
April read, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Join us in contemplating America's past and possibilities through classic and contemporary literary voices. The We the People Book Club is a year-long program designed to give you an opportunity to strengthen your vision of democracy and your connections with others.
We affirm two principles. First, reading itself is a spiritual practice. Second, when this inner work inspires engagement with our neighbors and communities—as happens in book clubs—it becomes deeply democratic.
May read, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silkko
Join us in contemplating America's past and possibilities through classic and contemporary literary voices. The We the People Book Club is a year-long program designed to give you an opportunity to strengthen your vision of democracy and your connections with others.
We affirm two principles. First, reading itself is a spiritual practice. Second, when this inner work inspires engagement with our neighbors and communities—as happens in book clubs—it becomes deeply democratic.
June read, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Join us in contemplating America's past and possibilities through classic and contemporary literary voices. The We the People Book Club is a year-long program designed to give you an opportunity to strengthen your vision of democracy and your connections with others.
We affirm two principles. First, reading itself is a spiritual practice. Second, when this inner work inspires engagement with our neighbors and communities—as happens in book clubs—it becomes deeply democratic.