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Written by Jason Montoya. Posted in My Projects.

Pulling A Taylor Swift: I’m Now Planning on Publishing Two Books — The Second is Called Redeeming Society

Looks like I'm book-pregnant with twins! 

During the pandemic (2020), Taylor Swift surprisingly released two albums in the same year. I’m going to follow her lead and release two books in the same year!

The Conception of a New Book: Redeeming Society

Since 2020, I’ve been passively working on a second book project in tandem with my primary book; From the Garden to the Cross.

I’ve had a hard time working on that book, getting stuck at many points because of the challenges involved with writing it. This year, I had a sense there was more for me to learn and more growing for me to do as preparation for finishing the book. And having diverted from the project, I can now see why that was the case.

What began after the 2020 social unrest has resurfaced in American politics last fall when the Republican primary kicked off. It was the January insurrection and Republican response that initially activated me, but it was the Republican debate where most of the candidates said they’d support a convicted criminal for president that kept me going. Things had gone deeply wrong and for something to change, required intervention.

Through a private conversation with a friend, it was clear that metaphorically, I needed to speak to the angry mob at the side of my street. Simply put, I needed to communicate to my community about the situation where I stood, and how I saw things. It was time for me to step into the tension.

Ramping Up Blogging In Response

This year, I’ve blogged more than I have in the past four years since I launched my podcast and diverted my efforts. Writing is a way for me to think and also a way to ground myself in a complex world. In a metaphorical sense, it’s like constructing a map of the terrain we’re now operating inside.

The 2020 crises were a series of societal earthquakes in so many ways. And that’s when my societal writing kicked off. Many of my podcast episodes revolved around this earthquake.

The problem was that America was shaken, but the problems only surfaced and were not fully resolved. They were just postponed with a Biden victory over Trump. And it turned out those issues wouldn’t magically go away. They’d have to be directly addressed, which is the situation for 2024.

Redeeming Society Book

So, since 2020, I’ve been secretly working on a book called Redeeming Society. The phrase has a double meaning because we have to work on redeeming our society but we also want to create a society that is redeeming to both its citizens and non-citizens.

This quote about JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings captures the idea of redemption wonderfully, no matter how dire or broken someone is.

“A life void of compassion slips into malice and utter ruin... In The Return of the King, the growth of Frodo’s compassion is revealed. When Saruman, the broken but still evil wizard, is discovered trying to take over the Shire. Frodo attempts to persuade the crowd of vengeful hobbits to not kill Saruman despite the great harm he has done. Frodo seeks healing and peace in the final conflict of the War of the Ring. He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare to raise our hands against,” Frodo says. “He is fallen, and his cure is beyond us; but I would still spare him, in the hope that he may find it.”' - Jackson Greer, Compassion in the Lord of the Rings

Many of my blog posts since the fall of 2023 have been parts of this societal book in progress. With a motivating force at hand, I shifted my writing activities to these blog posts, which are many parts of this second book.

Here’s a list of some of the chapters I’m planning on including, some of which have already been written as blog posts.

I need to flesh out the book outline and put my existing content into it to see how far along I’m at with the writing portion. I suspect the book is about 50% complete. There are also numerous authors I want to interview on the Share Life podcast, as I work through the content, so I look forward to any of those conversations I can make happen.

Because of the tension of our current political situation, I've leveraged it to motivate my writing of this book. Writing a book is hard, so when there is a gift of motivation and energy, it's not something to pass up.

Redeeming Society Book

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