Fully Alive – a Book Group by Zoom
Fully Alive by Elizabeth Oldfield, published Hodder and Stoughton 2024
Elizabeth Oldfield is not only a writer and former director of Theos think tank, but also presenter of a podcast called The Sacred. She interviews a different guest each time, carefully choosing a wide range of views – unlike those podcasts where people just talk to those they know will agree with them! Fully Alive reflects that thoughtful approach to life and faith.
Like me, you may find Elizabeth’s story surprising at times. She combines the very contemporary and the quite traditional, the spiritual and the gutsy. It is at times a disarmingly honest personal narrative, but also full of really interesting ideas that she explores in a nuanced way. And she writes with a wry sense of humour. I’ve found it a really good read and one that challenges some of my easy assumptions in ways that are surely life-giving.
She says: “I am supposed to be one of the growing majority of people who have long relegated Christianity to the scrap heap. For my friends who are also desperately seeking ways to settle their souls, it’s the last place they’d look. I should have been one of them, dropping the mild cultural Christianity still around in my childhood without regret like most of my generation, retaining only a socially acceptable taste for choral music or Gothic architecture, the festive habit of tipsy Midnight Mass. That isn’t what happened. My story went off script.”
Of course, before committing to buy the book, you may want to do some research of your own. You’ll know how. And you’ll discover that in this book Elizabeth Oldfield structures her thoughts around the concept of the seven deadly sins! But with a very positive take on how they might be relevant to our attitudes and actions now. To check out her podcast, The Sacred, you could try this link (very short) or this one (Elizabeth reflecting on recent editions).
If you decide you’re interested in the book group, I invite you to do three things:
- Either buy the book now or read the whole of the Introduction, which is visible on Amazon if you click “Read sample”.
- Plan to join me for the first zoom on Monday 16th March from 7:00 to 8.30 p.m. Book group will be at the same time each Monday for a further 5 weeks. On that first evening we will introduce ourselves and consider Elizabeth Oldfield’s Introduction. Also I’ll explain how each subsequent week’s session will work. If you decide to continue after that first evening, you will need to get hold of Fully Alive and read chapters 1 and 2 before the following Monday.
- Email me on warden@othonawestdorset.org.uk by Saturday 14th March at the latest to indicate you hope to join us on the Monday. Then I will send you the Zoom link.
Fully Alive comes from someone who is a younger professional, juggling all the responsibilities of work and a young family. It speaks to people at other stages in life too, but if you know others with challenges like hers, why not recommend the book – and maybe the group – to them too?