Description: Early one morning in November 2019, Carter Heyward awoke to a voice she figured was hers, but then again, maybe it wasn't exactly her own. Grief-stricken, because her horse Feather had just been diagnosed with a rare equine cancer; in pain with a freshly broken arm of her own; and horrified by the morally bankrupt state of the nation under Donald Trump, Carter begins a conversation with ""someone."" Herself? Her higher power? Friends who have passed on? The persistent voice names herself (or themselves) ""Christepona."" Thus begins Carter Heyward's mystical presentation of her ever-deepening passion for justice-love at every level of our life together, from the very personal to the larger social and political contexts. Moving into her grief, Carter wrestles with the problem of evil. She dives into her own anger and hatred, and that of others, and surfaces in enthusiastic bursts of gratitude, joy, and hope.
Brief description: Carter Heyward is Professor of Theology emerita at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, an Episcopal priest, and author of fifteen books in feminist liberation theology, most recently She Flies On: A White Southern Christian Debutante Wakes Up (2017).
Review Quotes: "In Tears of Christepona, we witness the miraculous merging of two worlds--seen and unseen, the finite moment and the eternal now. . . . Heyward's antennae have been receiving for decades, allowing her readers and congregants to benefit from her prolific and prophetic work. This book, though, is a grander offering--a conversation of consequence between a mortal being and a circle of immortals who break through our imagined barriers with stunning guidance, encouragement, and news from beyond. . . . This book is proof of Heyward's diligence and dedication to the common good. In the face of grief and deep personal sorrow, it is still the 'we' she lives for and roots for."
--Jan Phillips, author of No Ordinary Time