This year our Reconciliation Bridge Prayer includes this collect:
Dear God, thank you for warm summer nights and candlelight and good food. But thank you most of all for friends. We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us. We pray in Christ's name, Amen.
- "The Preacher" from Because of Winn-Dixie
This resulted in an email from one community member - What is Because of Winn-Dixie?
This book review is my lengthy answer to that short question! Because … Because of Winn-Dixie is a delightful and profound children’s book.
It tells the story of a 10-year-old girl named India Opal who has just moved to a small town in Florida with her father, who has taken a job as pastor of a small church that meets in an abandoned convenience store.
India’s mother left when she was a small child, and her father is wrapped up in shame and sadness - but he can’t share it with his daughter. It is locked up inside of him, and he “pulls his head into his shell, like a turtle.”
As a result, India calls him “The Preacher” instead of “Daddy” - for most of the book. But the story tells how grief is unlocked - for him, for India, and for other members of their small town. Everyone has their own private grief - and learning to make it public is “both sweet and sad”, like the famous Litmus Lozenge candies that the town used to produce. And of course Winn-Dixie, the dog that India finds, plays an important role as well.
Learning to grieve is such an important part of reconciliation. This book communicates powerfully to children and adults alike.
The book has also been made into a wonderful movie of the same name, which stars AnnaSophia Robb as India Opal and Jeff Daniels as “The Preacher.” Both the book and the movie are highly recommended!
