I had a really great time at this year’s Festival of Faith & Writing. It’s hard to believe the Festival will be turning 30 at the next one in 2020!
Keeping with the numbers theme, here’s a lighthearted final breakdown of my time in Grand Rapids:
- 3: Number of references to Oprah made by speakers
- 2: Number of references to exorcisms (Fleming Rutledge describing the sacrament of baptism as “a rite of exorcism” and Anbara Salam describing a cult leader who performed exorcisms on her and other women)
- 2: Number of references to C.S. Lewis
- 3: Number of references to Anne Lamott (who I heard at my very first Festival, way back in 2000)
- 13: Number of books I bought
- 1: Number of those that were for me
- 4: Number of books I got autographed by authors
- 2: Number of advance copies of books I got (Jonathan Merritt’s “Learning to Speak God from Scratch” and John Hendrix’s “The Faithful Spy” – about Dietrich Bonhoeffer!)
- 2: Bags of Dutch licorice I bought and ate
- 2: Number of times I rode the Grand Rapids bus
- 3: Number of great Grand Rapids cafes/restaurants I went to (the Wealthy Street Bakery, Squibb and The Sparrows)
- 2: Number of fellow copy editors I met
- 2: Number of podcasts I’ve started listening to since the Festival (Jonathan Merritt’s “The Faith Angle” and Kate Bowler’s “Everything Happens”)
Here’s to two more years of reading!
