This IS the Day

“Andrew’s wordy nerdy joy (he was born on National Word Nerd Day, after all) pulled me into each month’s essay; his childlike sense of wonder and his deep orientation toward love for those around him brought me along as a participant in his experiments to find the sublime in the ordinary. This is a great read for anyone seeking words of tenderness and delight.”


—John Walter Fitchett Canter Jr., pastor and word writer





“With a minister’s heart and a writer’s eye, Taylor-Troutman here chronicles


revelation in a thousand everyday turns and relationships during the course of a


year’s unofficial holidays. He invites his readers into nothing less than ‘entangled


joy,’ joy not contingent on the absence of suffering and loss, but joy that ‘emerges


from how we care for each other through those things . . .’ His invitation is timely,


courageous, convincing, and beautiful.”


—E. Carson Brisson, emeritus associate professor of Bible & biblical languages, Union Presbyterian Seminary





“This book! A tour of unofficial national holidays, This IS the Day is a party-hatted feast of fun and a tonic of tenderness. Taylor-Troutman is a trustworthy guide. He leads with love. As a partner, parent, and pastor he revels in the ‘pied beauty’ of this life. With a wonder that is often scrubbed from grown-up sensibility, he keeps pointing, keeps calling us to look and see. And, yes—rejoice!”


—Andrew Nagy-Benson, senior pastor, The Congregational Church of Middlebury





“By paying attention to the places where his own daily life intersects with obscure national observances of peculiar things and strange events, Andrew Taylor-Troutman maps for us a day-by-day journey filled with tender delights and entangled joys. Seeking the extraordinary within the ordinary (and the ordinary within the extraordinary), This IS the Day provides a seriously fun (and well-footnoted! and enthusiastic!) accompaniment for us as we make another trip around the sun. What a joy to read!”


—Shan Overton, dean of academics, American Baptist College