April Fiet - The Sacred Pulse: Holy Rhythms for Overwhelmed Souls

Praise for The Sacred Pulse: Holy Rhythms for Overwhelmed Souls

Filled with honest and often winsome accounts of her own struggles to attune her daily life to the movement of God in the world, the book draws on a wealth of spiritual insight to help readers retreat from the busyness of life and recenter their lives around rhythms that heal, restore, and sustain. The result is as refreshing as it is compelling.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus and John Wayne

I felt seen by this book, in a way that was uncomfortable at first. The unsettling insight into my frenetic performance for God was the opening I needed to hear April Fiets invitation: to learn to dance with God again, finding rhythms that are, paradoxically, like rest in motion.

James K. A. Smith, author of You Are What You Love and On the Road with Saint Augustine

The Sacred Pulse encourages readers to move away from a life of mere to-do list actions and into living the pure aspiration of who we are and what we really want our lives to be. She shows how to find our way to wholeness through intention, community, creativity, and a life-giving embrace of sacred time. The rhythm of this book can be heard as a joyous dance to which we are all invited.

Sophfronia Scott, author of The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton

April Fiet is the type of pastor and writer who inspires me to be fully human and to experience the miracle of Gods grace in gardening, good friends, and welcome gentleness in our complex lives.

Jes Kast, pastor of Faith United Church of Christ

Learning a sacred rhythm for your unique life and needs is a cruical spritiual practicea lifelong habit that nurtures spiritual formation and wholeness. April Fiets book offers us life.

Lisa Coln DeLay, author of The Wild Land Within and the host of the Spark My Muse podcast

April Fiet gives practical, profound, and transformational observations, calling us to join the sacred dance and to listen to the daily holy rhythm of Gods heart. If you are weary and worn out, or simply in need of refreshing, read The Sacred Pulse and renew your soul.

Douglas S. Bursch, co-pastor of Evergreen Church and author of Posting Peace

We have plenty of books on methods, but April Fiet shows how to grow in your awareness of the sacred in the simple, unexpected areas of your life.

Ed Cyzewski, author of Reconnect and Flee, Be Silent, Pray

Filled with clever observations and thoughtful ideas both large and small, this book is a wonderful companion for those of us who want to reorient ourselves to healthy Kingdom rhythms but are unsure of where to start.

Chandra Crane, author of Mixed Blessing and national mixed ministry coordinator for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

In The Sacred Pulse, April Fiet gently invites us to witness how she has exited echo chambers, hit pause on mindless consumption, and questioned her loyalty to the notion of independence, replacing these with simple, life-giving observations and practices that bring wholeness and spark justice. Her reflections on snow days, backyard chickens, and so much more filled me with gratitude for the divine rhythm that gives us life.

Jennifer Grant, author of Dimming the Day

April Fiet

Broadleaf Books

Minneapolis

THE SACRED PULSE

Holy Rhythms for Overwhelmed Souls

Copyright 2021 April Fiet. Printed by Broadleaf Books, an imprint of 1517 Media. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Email or write to Permissions, Broadleaf Books, PO Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440-1209.

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (CEB) are taken from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission. (www.CommonEnglishBible.com).

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Cover image: iStock

Cover design: Lindsey Owens

Print ISBN: 978-1-5064-6908-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-5064-6909-6

While the author and 1517 Media have confirmed that all references to website addresses (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing, URLs may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

To Jeff, Jakob, and Malia,

What a delight to dance through life with you.

O ur hearts long for an elusive wholeness. Sometimes this wholeness feels like a distant memorya faint whisper amid a cacophony of beeps and buzzes from our devices and the meaningless chatter of pundits. In the busiest moments of our lives, we may lose touch with it altogether, tossed in the waves of urgency and obligation. And yet the beckoning never ceases: to oneness, to worthiness, to an intimacy we dare only dream of.

Our longing awakens during a long drive through the country, alert to the expanse of rolling hills that draw us out of our anxious limbic brain into prefrontal presence. Our hearts rouse when we look into the face of a newborn baby, or when a chevron of migrating Canada geese fly overhead, or when a song elicits tears. Soon enough were lost again in a flurry of urgent texts or breaking news of more racial injustice. Our nervous systems rev up into sympathetic activation, cortisol and adrenaline readying the body for battle.

But we long to long again. And if we can slow our beating hearts and attend to the hidden wholeness around us, we find ourselves attuning again to the rhythms of creation.

If you long to long again, April Fiet is a guide Id commend to you. April knows the fury of lifes demandsshes a pastor and a mother, after all. Her days are marked by anxious asks and insistent emails and tedious texts. What is remarkable about her story is that she hasnt lost the plotline. Her invitation to participate in rhythms of renewal is also a refusal to succumb to a story that ends in the thorns and fig leaves of Genesis 3, where shame and self-protection breed hopelessness. Mind you, she knows this territory. She knows what it feels like to not be enough, do enough, perform well enough. She hears the same voices in her head that you and I do! But shes listened more closely to that whisper of original goodness and wholenessin the garden, the kitchen, and even in the grocery store. Amid shifting seasons, she can offer a word of attunement, invitation, and hope.

I believe her words are desperately needed today. Were as anxious and as disconnected as weve ever been. We doomscroll through Instagram and Facebook and Twitter even in the first moments of morning alertness, as April notes, awakened by the blue light of a device rather than the rising sun. Were desperate for new rhythms, and theyre literally available to us in our everyday life if well only pay attention: in a vulnerable connection with a beloved friend, in patient attentiveness to your garden, in the liturgy of the church year, in a renewed sense of