Our library in Hewett Centre is open every Sunday after service during Coffee Hour in Hewett Centre, and our Library Team offers related reading lists based on the topic of the Sunday service. Here is their list for the upcoming service on “Promises to Keep”, featuring Rev. Shawn Gauthier on Sunday, February 8, 2026 at 11 a.m. All are welcome in Hewett Centre after the Sunday service to check out some books, and to have coffee and conversation.
VanU library books related to this Sunday’s sermon:
1. Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential, by Caroline Myss, 2002, 158.1 MYS [From LibraryThing: “What is the sacred purpose of your life? According to Caroline Myss, there is no question more important in our lives than this one. Now you have a “compass” to help you find your divine destiny, … Rich with possibilities for personal discovery and divine connection, … will point the way to your own higher life path and its ultimate destination. Highlights: How before birth, we each contract with heavenly guides to become vessels for divine power and evolutionary change. Who belongs in your life, and how to recognize the energetic bonds that seal your sacred contracts with them. A unique system for divining your life purpose, using 12 central archetypes and a symbolic Wheel of Life.”].
2. What is Marriage For?, by E. J. Graff, 2000, 306.81 GRA [Published by Beacon Press. From LibraryThing: “In the wake of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s historic Goodridge decision, a reissue of the bible of the same-sex marriage movement. Will same-sex couples destroy “traditional” marriage, soon to be followed by the collapse of all civilization? That charge has been leveled throughout history whenever the marriage rules change. … tour through the history of marriage in the West, has always been a social battleground, its rules constantly shifting to fit each era and economy. The marriage debates have been especially tumultuous for the past hundred and fifty years-in ways that lead directly to today’s debate over whether marriage could mean not just Boy + Girl = Babies, but also Girl + Girl = Love.”].
3. Great Occasions: Readings for the Celebration of Birth, Coming-Of-Age, Marriage, and Death, by Carl Seaburg, 2004, 808.819354 [From LibraryThing: “Birth, maturity, marriage and death: These are the four cornerstones of human life, the great occasions. Over 650 memorable selections to commemorate the milestones of life. Poetry and prose from a broad spectrum of highly regarded writers, … This treasury of words pays tribute to the watershed events of life. … Originally designed for ministers by a beloved New England pastor who spent years officiating at such occasions, this useful reference will be valued by anyone who is called upon to officiate, speak or contribute to ceremonies that commemorate the great passages of life. …”].
4. The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World, by Desmond Tutu, 2015, 179 TUT [From LibraryThing: “How do I forgive? … This book is his answer. Writing with his daughter, Mpho, an Anglican priest, they lay out the simple but profound truths about the significance of forgiveness, how it works, why everyone needs to know how to grant it and receive it, and why granting forgiveness is the greatest gift we can give to ourselves when we have been wronged. They explain the four-step process of forgiveness-Telling the Story, Naming the Hurt, Granting Forgiveness, and Renewing or Releasing the Relationship-as well as offer meditations, exercises, and prayers to guide the reader along the way. …”].
5. Forgiveness, by Mark Sakamoto, 2014, 940.54 SAK [From LibraryThing: “… When the Second World War broke out, Ralph MacLean chose to escape his troubled life on the Magdalen Islands in eastern Canada and volunteer to serve his country overseas. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Mitsue Sakamoto saw her family and her stable community torn apart after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Like many young Canadian soldiers, Ralph was captured by the Japanese army. He would spend the war in prison camps, enduring pestilence, beatings and starvation, as well as a journey by hell ship to Japan to perform slave labour, while around him his friends and countrymen perished. Back in Canada, Mitsue and her family were expelled from their home by the government and forced to spend years eking out an existence in rural Alberta, working other people’s land for a dollar a day.
By the end of the war, Ralph emerged broken but a survivor. Mitsue, worn down by years of back-breaking labour, had to start all over again in Medicine Hat, Alberta. A generation later, at a high school dance, Ralph’s daughter and Mitsue’s son fell in love.
Although the war toyed with Ralph’s and Mitsue’s lives and threatened to erase their humanity, these two brave individuals somehow surmounted enormous transgressions and learned to forgive. Without this forgiveness, their grandson Mark Sakamoto would never have come to be.”].
6. A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religious Experience and Public Life, by Howard Thurman, 1999, 921 THU [A Beacon Press publication. From LibraryThing: “A spiritual advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr.; the first black dean at a white university; cofounder of the first interracially pastored, intercultural church in the United States, Howard Thurman offered a transcendent vision of our world. This lyrical collection of select published and unpublished works traces his struggle with the particular manifestations of violence and hatred that mark the twentieth century. His words remind us all that out of religious faith emerges social responsibility and the power to transform lives.”].
7. The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy & Liberation, by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1999, 294 NHA [From Amazon: “With poetry and clarity, Thich Nhat Hanh imparts comforting wisdom about the nature of suffering and its role in creating compassion, love, and joy – all qualities of enlightenment.”].