Tuning My Heart

Even in a society as highly mobile as our own has become, change is unsettling, discomfiting. Like our ancestors in faith, we are more often than not on the journey, in the wilderness, seeking to know who we are as a people, and trying to comprehend the God who, we hope, is going up with us--wherever it is we end up going. The paths are not as familiar as they once were, and recognizable signposts are rare. It's easy to feel lost. The congregation I have now served in Miami, Florida, for nearly twenty years has, while remaining constant in size, changed faces, accents, and styles at a dizzying pace. People don't stay put anymore, and the folk who find their way to church these days are hungry for a home, longing for community, and hoping the God of their long-vanished, Sunday-school childhoods can find the way to their latest change of address. For this pastor and her congregation, the rooting of our common life and shared faith story in the fertile soil and the organic rhythms of the liturgical year has provided a permanent address that feels like home. Tuning My Heart is a collection of articles, sermons, and poetry based upon the movements of the liturgical calendar and shaped by one tropical congregation's life cycle as it seeks to bloom in the old, rich soil of the Christian tradition, and to flower in the exotically scented air of the vibrant, diverse city that is home.
Laurie Kraus's witty and moving book asks the hard questions and refuses to offer easy answers. A natural story teller, she weaves stories from day-to-day life in South Florida together with the fabric of the Bible to offer direction, and peace, in a confusing world. It's the kind of book you'll want to read and re-read.
--John Pancake, Arts Editor, The Washington Post
Laurie Kraus writes with a poet's vision and a pastor's heart. Her passionate and thoughtful engagement with scripture brings biblical characters vividly alive and puts their stories into conversation with our lives. Without diminishing their strangeness, she shows their continuing power to move and critique. Graceful, sometimes humorous, and often touching, her imaginative and nuanced readings of lectionary texts show the real power of the always renewing and renewed word.

--Pamela Byers, Executive Director, Covenant Network of Presbyterians: Presbyterian elder.
As the son of a Presbyterian minister, I have listened to literally hundreds of sermons in my life. There are none better than those written by Laurie Kraus. Witty, articulate, logical, and moving, the sermons you are about to read will make you laugh, weep, and most importantly, grow deeper in your faith. They are, quite simply, brilliant.
--James Mulder, Riviera Presbyterian Church
Laurie Ann Kraus has been the pastor of Riviera Presbyterian Church in Miami, Florida, since 1988 and she currently teaches liturgy, preaching, and practical theology at the Florida Center for Theological Studies, a multicultural, multidenominational seminary in Miami. She is published in several journals and was the content editor and a contributor to Out of the Depths: Voices of Faith from September 11, a 9/11 anniversary collection of articles and liturgy released in 2002. This is her first book.