Books From Micha

Blessed Are the Rest of Us

What makes us worthy? What makes life good?

We have been taught that performance, perfection, and strength are indicators of a fulfilling life. What we aren’t taught is what to do with the parts of us that are inefficient, needy, and weak. How we define a good, meaningful life shapes the way we value one another, particularly those of us who don’t fit neatly into our culture’s definition of good.

When Micha Boyett's son was born with Down Syndrome and later diagnosed with autism, she began to see society’s obsession with success for what it actually is: fear of vulnerability. She longed for new language to push against this intrinsic ableism and point to the beauty and relief she experienced in the presence of her son. She found that language in the Beatitudes, an ancient sacred text.

Blessed—whole—are the weak ones, the grieving ones, the ones who long for peace, the misunderstood, the human ones. In other words, blessed are the rest of us, who will never live up to the world’s exacting standards.

In Blessed Are the Rest of Us, Boyett explores the core of the human experience in life’s most challenging and complicated moments, and shares her journey of discovering the paradoxical nature of blessing through the unfolding of her son’s childhood. Boyett reimagines God’s dream for wholeness in the ways we—regardless of ability—can embrace our own limits and longing. Each chapter centers on the refreshing good news of one beatitude, poetically interwoven with stories of Boyett's life.

Beautifully reassuring and liberating, this book calls readers to a new view of themselves and what it means to be blessed.

Found is a story of nourishment for anyone who hungers for rich spirituality and has come up empty. It’s a story for anyone who is trying to reconcile great big dreams with the ordinariness of their days. It’s a story of discovering divine kindness and affection in the most mundane moments of life. With brilliant and moving prose, Micha Boyett invites us on a journey to discover the richness in the everyday—and it changes everything.

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