Appreciate These Things: Eight Ways of Cultivating Compassion
By Jill J. Duffield
Westminster John Knox Press, 162 pages • Published March 17, 2025
How can we preserve our tender hearts yet be vulnerable enough to engage with the “other” in this current climate? Pastor Jill Duffield turns to Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, encouraging us to find what is true, honorable, just, pure and pleasing.
Appreciate These Things is a warm and joyful meditation on Paul’s exhortation, supported by vivid stories from Duffield’s pastoral life (and the occasional reference to her earlier work as the Outlook’s Editor-in-Chief). Rather than stand in judgment, she writes, “I’d like to move to admiration and even to awe of the people and creatures with whom I share this earth.”
In aspiring to this lofty goal, Duffield repeatedly leans into curiosity and grace, whether in
quotidian encounters (a cranky waitress is humanized when Duffield’s husband asks a kindhearted question) or powerful movements for justice (Duffield stands with other clergy against the KKK in Charlottesville). She offers practical mantras and techniques to help us see the human behind the baseball cap/bumper sticker/t-shirt slogan and poignant stories to illustrate that cultivating compassion offers a more excellent way.
Brief spiritual practices are interspersed throughout Appreciate These Things, and each chapter concludes with user-friendly reflection questions. Small group leaders will find that these questions (along with free videos the publisher shares on YouTube) make for a meaningful (and low-prep) experience.
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