This IS the Day
A Year of Observing Unofficial Holidays about Ampersands, Bobbleheads, Buttons, Cousins, Hairball Awareness, Humbugs, Serendipity, Star Wars, Teenagers, Tenderness, Walking to School, Yo-Yos, and More
- Christian Living
- Publisher: Resource Publications (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2024
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Publisher's Description
What does a slab of bacon have to do with marital fidelity? Who wrote the Chicken Dance? Why are there two days to celebrate eating ice cream for breakfast? Did Jesus have a tattoo? This Is the Day is a yearlong journal of observing national days for things as diverse and weird as bobbleheads, Yo-Yos, hairball awareness, and serendipity. Taylor-Troutman explores his local North Carolina community and delves into ancient history. Alongside his family, friends, and church congregation, he finds hope in the ordinary, faith in small things, and joy in grief. He writes cheesy limericks, plays the ukulele, and prays with people in prison. He also learns new appreciation for hairdressers, mail carriers, and middle children. Taylor-Troutman even discovers the answers to questions he had never thought to ask, such as "What is the technical name of a flock of zebras?"
Endorsements (4)
“Andrew’s wordy nerdy joy (he was born on National Word Nerd Day, after all) pulled me into each month’s essay; his childlike sense of wonder and his deep orientation toward love for those around him brought me along as a participant in his experiments to find the sublime in the ordinary. This is a great read for anyone seeking words of tenderness and delight.”
“With a minister’s heart and a writer’s eye, Taylor-Troutman here chronicles revelation in a thousand everyday turns and relationships during the course of a year’s unofficial holidays. He invites his readers into nothing less than ‘entangled joy,’ joy not contingent on the absence of suffering and loss, but joy that ‘emerges from how we care for each other through those things . . .’ His invitation is timely, courageous, convincing, and beautiful.”
“This book! A tour of unofficial national holidays, This IS the Day is a party-hatted feast of fun and a tonic of tenderness. Taylor-Troutman is a trustworthy guide. He leads with love. As a partner, parent, and pastor he revels in the ‘pied beauty’ of this life. With a wonder that is often scrubbed from grown-up sensibility, he keeps pointing, keeps calling us to look and see. And, yes—rejoice!”
“By paying attention to the places where his own daily life intersects with obscure national observances of peculiar things and strange events, Andrew Taylor-Troutman maps for us a day-by-day journey filled with tender delights and entangled joys. Seeking the extraordinary within the ordinary (and the ordinary within the extraordinary), This IS the Day provides a seriously fun (and well-footnoted! and enthusiastic!) accompaniment for us as we make another trip around the sun. What a joy to read!”
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