Giving Machines are running with the idea of doing good

Last updated on: December 1, 2025 at 7:59 pm By Cara Meredith

Do you live in Bakersfield, San Clemente, Los Angeles, or Fresno, California? Do you call Vancouver, British Columbia, Spokane, Washington, or Rexburg, Idaho home? As a Patheos writer, I’m so excited to tell you about Giving Machines, which helps all of our neighbors, both locally and globally. According to this map, Giving Machines exist in 125 cities in 13 countries and six continents, with new Giving Machines in 25 cities around the world, including the six I named above. Exciting to all... Read more

The Deepest South of All is more than a book

Last updated on: August 15, 2025 at 10:22 am By Cara Meredith

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When our family traveled halfway across the Pacific Ocean to visit one of our favorite spots in the world, I brought a bagful of books to read. Sure, I would swim and snorkel and hike and walk, but I would also pull up a beach chair and read for long hours at a time, simply because I could. I’d sworn off of social media and email for the week, mostly because I needed a break following the release of Church Camp two... Read more

What does it mean to have it out with God?

Last updated on: August 8, 2025 at 1:47 pm By Cara Meredith

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A couple of months ago, the following book crossed my path: Erin Hicks Moon is an acquaintance of mine. We run in the same circles and we’ve emailed once or twice, but we have not elevated our relationship status to that of friends quite yet. However, when my friend Micha talked about her new book, I’ve Got Questions, I was intrigued. And when I did finally read her book, I wanted to call her friend. Moon’s writing is homey and warm, evidenced... Read more

How The Color of Law and a big ol’ bill fit together

Last updated on: July 2, 2025 at 4:21 pm By Cara Meredith

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This spring, I finally picked up The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. The book has been on my shelf for several years, namely because I’m interested in the subject but also because I felt determined to make my way through all the books that shared a similar title to my own. When my first book, The Color of Life, released in 2019, I knew multiple similarities existed with James McBride’s The Color of Water, which came out in 2006. However,... Read more

What Ida B. the Queen taught me about speaking up

Last updated on: June 26, 2025 at 4:32 pm By Cara Meredith

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As you well know by now, I’ve been working through a bunch of books on my to-read shelf. As a history enthusiast, I was delighted to finally pick up Michelle Duster’s book, Ida B. the Queen. Can’t remember how Ida B. Wells changed the course of American history? Let me (or the back of the book, as luck would have it) remind you: “Journalist. Suffragist. Antilyncing crusader. In 1862, Ida B. Wells was born enslaved in Holly Springs, Mississippi. In... Read more

The Journal Keeper tells the story of a life

Last updated on: June 10, 2025 at 1:43 pm By Cara Meredith

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I finally picked up a book that’s been sitting on my shelf for awhile: Years ago, when I was trying to figure out what in the world I was going to write for my second book, I kept returning to the idea of a book made up of small snippets and individual essayettes. I believe this is why another writer friend suggested I read The Journal Keeper by Phyllis Theroux. The book is just as it sounds: a memoir of a writer who... Read more

Here I Am, as it goes in a book of the same title

Last updated on: May 27, 2025 at 12:42 pm By Cara Meredith

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I recently picked up the following book in a neighborhood Free Little Library. Jonathan Safran Foer, as you may recall, is also the author of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which was a New York Times bestseller, was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, and was adapted into a movie. Here I Am released 11 years later, and tells the story of a Washington D.C.-based Jewish family over the course of four weeks. As you may know (and read about here), I’m... Read more

Church Camp is out!

Last updated on: May 15, 2025 at 11:42 am By Cara Meredith

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Well, it’s been a hot minute, but I have a rather good excuse: my second book is now out and available for purchase! Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation is a love letter to one of the most formative, life-giving spaces for me. But, as you may have guessed from the subtitle, there’s also a fair amount of critique found within this love letter. Organized by the seven main talks I gave as a... Read more

Can you name the thirst inside your soul?

Last updated on: April 17, 2025 at 9:57 am By Cara Meredith

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I have not known true thirst – not to the point of death or to believing death inevitable if I do not get drink I so eagerly, desperately crave. It makes me wonder: Did Jesus know such thirst before this moment on the cross? Did he realize his humanity would become so obviously apparent in this singular moment, put on display for all to see based on the singular human need to drink? Today we have walked through the Seven... Read more

Nice Churchy Patriarchy is most definitely a thing

Last updated on: March 4, 2025 at 6:45 pm By Cara Meredith

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The following book recently arrived in the mail: Author Liz Cooledge Jenkins is a writer, preacher, and former college campus minister — but what makes her story interesting is that she spent much of her young adult years in conservative, patriarchal spaces. Hence the title, Nice Churchy Patriarchy. She writes the following in the introduction: Over the many years of deep involvement in evangelical communities, I found myself gradually and painfully becoming aware that patriarchy — that is, all the ways... Read more

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