Loving Our Own Bones

It can be hard to love ourselves, whether it's our bones, spirit, or our whole self. It can take a lot of time, mistakes, learning, and unlearning. On that note, I'm delighted to offer 3 hardcover copies of Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole by Julia Watts Belser, published by Beacon Press. You can also find an excerpt of the book here and some pieces in plain language here

About the book

Open the Bible and disability is everywhere. Moses stutters and thinks himself unable to answer God’s call. Isaac’s blindness lets his wife trick him into bestowing his blessing on his younger son. Jesus heals the sick, the blind, the paralyzed, and the possessed. For centuries, these stories have been told and retold by commentators who treat disability as misfortune, as a metaphor for spiritual incapacity, or as a challenge to be overcome.

Loving Our Own Bones turns that perspective on its head. Drawing insights from the hard-won wisdom of disabled folks who’ve forged difference into fierce and luminous cultural dissent, Julia Watts Belser offers fresh and unexpected readings of familiar biblical stories, showing how disability wisdom can guide us all toward a powerful reckoning with the complexities of the flesh. She talks back to biblical commentators who traffic in disability stigma and shame, challenging interpretations that demean disabled people and diminish the vitality of disabled lives. And she shows how Sabbath rest can be a powerful counter to the relentless demand for productivity, an act of spiritual resistance in a culture that makes work the signal measure of our worth.

With both a lyrical love of tradition and incisive political analysis, Belser braids spiritual perspectives together with keen activist insights—inviting readers to claim the power and promise of spiritual dissent, to nourish their own souls through the revolutionary art of radical self-love.

About the author

Julia Watts Belser is a rabbi, scholar, and spiritual teacher, as well as a longtime activist for disability, LGBTQ, and gender justice. She is a professor of Jewish studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University and core faculty in Georgetown’s Disability Studies Program, as well as a senior research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. Author of Rabbinic Tales of Destruction, among other scholarly books, she has held faculty fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and the Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s also an avid wheelchair hiker and a lover of wild places.

Details

1) Any disabled person in the US is eligible for this giveaway. You do not need to disclose any details about your disability.

If you already received a book from one of my previous giveaways, please consider letting other people have a chance.

2) The first 3 people will receive a hardcover. If you do not receive a reply that means the books have been claimed or you did not include all the required information.

3) Send an email to DisabilityVisibilityProject@gmail.com with ‘Julia Watts Belser Giveaway’ in the title of the message. Do not reply to this post!!

4) Include the following information in your message:

• First and last name
• Mailing address

Please note: I will send this information along with your email address to the publisher. They are responsible for confirming your details and sending you the book. Please be patient!