That Time I Secretly Wrote You a New Book...
😂 Meet The Book of Common Courage 🙌🏼🎉
I’ve kept this a secret for so long that I’m having a hard time breaking the silence. So, here it goes…
Surprise! I wrote you another book!
Meet The Book of Common Courage: Prayers and Poems to Find Strength in Small Moments.
She’s sitting on my desk right this now as I type and will be arriving in your mailboxes and on bookshelves on January 17th! Yes, January 17th, as in, the month after next, as in: this book comes out very soon.
And, YES, you absolutely can preorder your copy right now.
When my first copy unexpectedly came in the mail right before we went on vacation in October, I knew I wanted to share the news with you like this, from a hike in the gilded company of changing aspen trees—because you are why this book exists.
Let me tell you a story of interdependence, of loaves and fishes, of the beauty that is born when we show up within our limits with love.
We are more aspen than oak, reaching skyward in hope, glorious in waving gold, both our beauty and survival formed and sustained in interdependence. A single aspen tree is connected to hundreds or thousands more by a network of roots so deep they can survive wildfires. Stemming from one seedling and held together by shared roots, aspen trees in a grove stand as a single organism. Our glory is derived from one source, our strength from shared roots.
—K.J. Ramsey, This Too Shall Last, p. 77.
I only had the courage to craft this—my first book of poetry—because you called the poet out in me and named her good.
Folks, I’m an enneagram 4 with a strong 5 wing. If it were up to my wildly exaggerated 5-ish need for competence, I wouldn’t have published a book of prayers and poems until I had studied poetry for about a decade.
I thought I didn’t know enough for these words to be enough.
I was just privately writing poems to process the story of The Lord Is My Courage (TLiMC). And then I started sharing a few on IG, mostly because I’m a big fan of working smarter not harder, and I needed easy things to post while writing a huge-ass manuscript. 😂
And then you’d comment— “when are you going to publish a book of poems?” or “can you make this printable?” Sometimes you’d tag me in posts and stories where you hand-lettered my prayers or poems into your journals or onto your bathroom mirrors (like below). I was stunned.
I wasn’t quite ready to call myself a poet, but a) I believed you when you said these words were ones you needed and b) frankly, I needed to bring in more income to support my family.
The story of Jesus feeding the crowds from a little boy’s loaves and fish was the spark that started the fire of TLiMC. Jesus is actually deliberately enacting the story of Psalm 23 there—wild, right? 🤯 Ps. 23 is the whole backbone of TLiMC and this one too. By that point in writing TLiMC, I was convinced that when we courageously respond to the compassion of Christ for those in the wilderness—even when our offering is meager—God makes it more than enough to feed more than just ourselves.
So I whipped up a book pitch, thinking rejection was probable and a minor miracle was possible.
So…there I am in late July 2021, signing a contract for The Book of Common Courage with Zondervan Gift Books, with my mind fairly blown.
This book was born out of my own wordlessness.
It’s hard to pray when we feel powerless because our bodies need the presence of someone else to soothe us and speak us back into safety. Fear and stress temporarily disconnect us from the language centers of the brain and the calming, regulating power of the prefrontal cortex, but the presence of another safe, empathetic person can bring our minds, bodies, and hearts back together…
I titled this collection of prayers and poems The Book of Common Courage because courage is something we hold in common…When we don’t have words, we need a witness. We need with-ness.
—K.J. Ramsey, The Book of Common Courage, p. 12
After the Word of God was weaponized against me and my spouse, I nearly lost my words.1 I almost couldn't read the Bible, but I found safe haven in the Psalms, especially the imprecatory ones—thankyouverymuch David for calling down thunder on your enemies.
When I could barely pray, I let others’ words hold space for all I couldn’t say.
The honesty of the Psalms gave me permission to be angrier than is usually acceptable among church people. The simplicity and structure of the collects (pronounced kahl-ects) in The Book of Common Prayer gave me safety to feel contained in the midst of chaos. And the welcome of my spouse and friends—who did not judge my anger or my wordlessness—gave me a witness.
We find our way back to our words and to the Word-Made-Flesh as for us and with us in our wounds and in our weariness when we have permission to be honest, safety to feel held, and a witness to welcome us back to our worth.
The Book of Common Courage is my permission slip for you to be honest with God, even if you mostly feel shut down or wordless. Inside you’ll find full-color photos of places that have held my cries and hopes, along with simple poems, blessings, and prayers. I wove collects into each chapter, to give us a container for our confusion and cries in the simplicity and safety of short, structured prayers.2 I am praying these words can be a witness to your wounds and a welcome back to seeing there is still a good, kind Shepherd coming to care for you.
Today, I’m wildly grateful to finally share the book I wrote in secret—because you believed I was a poet before I could.
Someday, I’ll tell you about the way the empty page was filled to overflowing. I’ll tell you how I wrote most of this book from bed sicker than I’ve ever been and how courage looked like honoring my limits and making the hard call to release this beauty later than I wished. I’ll peel back the pretty pictures to show you how I wrestled with whether I’m even a poet and how my editor blessed me into believing I am. I’ll tell you about the grace of shedding perfection and blessing the “good enough” loaves and fishes that I had to give as the person and poet I was rather than the one I wished I could be. I’ll cry while I tell you how prayers I wrote a year ago for this book just held me over the weekend while I recovered from IVIG…But I’m pretty sure this letter’s already too long for that today. 😉
For now, I hope you’ll receive my gratitude. Thank you for holding courage in common with me and calling me into being more fully myself.
These words exist because you called out the courage in me, and I hope they give that gift right back to you.
—KJ
The Book of Common Courage releases on January 17th, 2023, and you can preorder it today.
We will be having a launch team with very limited space but large fun (yes, there will be real copies of the book…gah!!!) for those of you who, like me, are giddy to share about this! (Definitely preorder now though, as that will be a requirement for joining + reading it early.) I’ll share the signup for that in December—and you’ll get first dibs! And don’t worry, it won’t be happening during the holidays because I am not a monster.
Save your preorder confirmation/receipt, because there will be some great preorder bonuses too. Let’s just say, there is beauty in this book begging to be in your hands, and I’m excited about what we are pulling together.
Share about the book with #BookOfCommonCourage. I’ll be telling folks on social media later, and I’d love help getting the word out. Be on the lookout at instagram.com/kjramseywrites
If you are new around here, you can read about the story of our spiritual abuse and recovery from religious trauma in The Lord Is My Courage.
In the book, I share more about why I chose to write collects. For now, know this: when the pain of life feels uncontainable, a container can hold what we can’t. These short prayers are my trauma-informed way of honoring our trembling without exacerbating how scared or small we already feel.
Love you, love this. What a gorgeous tease. 😋
KJ!!!!! WTF! This is AMAZING!