Roots and Sky, by Christie Purifoy

This memoir traces the life of one family through a calendar year, attending to the beauty and pain of transitions, faith, and homemaking. Christie Purifoy, who taught composition and literature at the University of Chicago before moving to a farmhouse in Pennsylvania, chronicles the birth of her fourth child, the struggle to create community with new neighbors, and the process of settling into a home with seemingly never-ending repairs. Con­necting moments in her family’s narrative with the liturgical year, Purifoy pre­sents a world suffused with the incar­nation: “Our God has never despised the dirt, and he once wrapped himself in dust.” Even in the jagged edges of life, God’s glory shines. According to Purifoy, we are the cultivators of this glory.