Soul of the Citizen - Book Tour and Giveaway

Soul of the Citizen: Prayers For A Divided Nation
by Mischa Field
Genre: Christian Nonfiction 

Crisis times call for leadership.
Corrupt times call for integrity.
These times call for a move of God, and a move of God calls for you.

Soul of the Citizen: Prayers for a Divided Nation, by Mischa Field, is the cry of a burdened heart refusing to give up on neighbor or neighborhood or nation. It is a collection of prayers for leaders and followers, for parents and children, for shepherds and flocks, and for you and your enemy.

A biblical scribe for modern times, Field offers the reader a word of hope and a call to action. This book is for anyone looking to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God in a time drowning in accusation and ambiguity.

If you long to protect your peace in times of conflict, this book is for you.
If you long to live ethically and authentically in times of struggle, this book is for you.
If you are moved to pray that God would do a new thing in the life of this nation, this book is for you.


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​Introduction: A Call to Prayer

The prayers in this book come as a response to a year like no other.
We have experienced a global pandemic that, as of November 2, 2021, has taken over 5 million lives, more than 767,000 in this nation alone. We have 4 percent of the world’s population, but 19 percent of its coronavirus cases, and 15 percent of its deaths. Conditions are improving in some places but surging in others, and each round of relaxed standards leads to predictable spikes. The disease continues to take a staggering toll.1 And things may get worse before they get better.
We have seen a cry for justice triggered by the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, among others. And things may get worse before they get better.
We have endured a bitterly contentious election season. And now we find ourselves embroiled in a unique moment in American history. On January 6, 2021, as Congress convened to certify the results of the 2020 election, hundreds rioted in the nation’s capital. They broke windows, damaged property, occupied the House and Senate chambers and congressional offices, and erected a noose, chanting for the assassination of, among others, Vice President Mike Pence. Some used flagpoles as weapons and beat police officers. Others, armed with flex cuffs, appeared to have been prepared to take hostages.2 Court filings suggest people “came prepared with weapons, gas masks, ballistic vests, and zip ties.” 3 More than six hundred people have been charged with crimes, with at least sixty pleading guilty.4 The riot resulted in five deaths and the injury of over 140 Capitol Police, and an unknown number of rioters.5
The details of that day continue to emerge. Congressional hearings have begun, and more will come. Clearly, however, we have reached a new boiling point in this simmering crisis of the past thirteen, sixty, 160, and 400 years. We are the United States, but a divided people. And as we shout across dividing lines, we indict the darkness in our hearts.
We critique corrupt politicians and a divisive media, and perhaps we should. We rail against broken institutions and predatory organizations, and possibly we are right. We demand consequences for those who would subvert democracy, and surely, we must. But each of these people and groups is only stirring a darkness already within us. The forces of evil seek to awaken the evil in us.
Many have spoken, over the last few years, of a fight for the soul of the nation. And that fight begins in 330 million individual hearts. It grows in 330 million purpose-filled lives, each with the capacity to serve the greater good or stir far greater harm.
The soul is the seat of the mind, the will, and the emotions.
We must fight for the soul of the citizen.
The Cornell Law Dictionary defines a citizen as “a person who, by place of birth, nationality of one or both parents, or naturalization is granted full rights and responsibilities as a member of a nation or political community.”6
We often talk in this era about citizenship: who has it, who should get the opportunity to obtain it, and the rights and responsibilities that it affords. We talk about free speech and paying taxes. We talk about obeying laws. We talk less about the heart conditions that drive our conduct, the mindsets, decisions, and feelings that move us.
We talk about free will but not goodwill. We talk about being great, but not the greater good. We talk about the danger around us, but not the danger within. As praying people, we must contend with all of it.
That is the burden God gave me, in earnest, three years ago, to pray that the cultural, political, and ultimately spiritual war that has enveloped this nation does not devour its people. The prayers in this book reflect a type of spiritual diary. They emerged from specific moments, inspired by specific events while meditating on specific Scripture, but they speak to the life of the soul. They speak through the help of the Holy Spirit. As such, their meaning for you might be different than it was for me. I invite you to explore them as you see fit, whether you pray one prayer a day or the same prayer for eighty days. I don’t know what God has for you. I do know that he has you reading these words for a reason, so I welcome you to the process of discovering it. As we pray concerning leadership, service, vision, justice, ethics, faith, and the condition of our souls, we are praying for people. One by one. Mind by mind. Heart by heart.
Please join me in this fight. Let us pray together.
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1 Worldometers.info, “‘Reported Cases and Deaths by Country or Territory,” Worldometer, November 2, 2021, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries.

2 Martin Pengelly, “'Hang Mike Pence': Twitter Stops Phrase Trending after Capitol Riot,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, January 10, 2021), https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/10/hang-mike-pence-twitter-stops-phrase-trending-capitol-breach.
3 Brad Heath, Sarah N. Lynch, and Jan Wolfe, “Judge Calls Capitol Siege 'Violent Insurrection,' Orders Man Who Wore Horns Held,” Reuters (Thomson Reuters, January 15, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-capitol-arrests/judge-calls-capitol-siege-violent-insurrection-orders-man-who-wore-horns-held-idUSKBN29K0K7

4 Vanessa Romo, “6 More People Connected to the Capitol RIOT Plead Guilty,” NPR (NPR, September 11, 2021), https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1036149342/6-more-people-connected-to-the-capitol-riot-plead-guilty.

5 Tom Jackman, “Police Union Says 140 Officers Injured in Capitol Riot,” The Washington Post (WP Company, January 28, 2021), https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/police-union-says-140-officers-injured-in-capitol-riot/2021/01/27/60743642-60e2-11eb-9430-e7c77b5b0297_story.html.

6 “Citizen,” Legal Information Institute (Legal Information Institute), accessed January 11, 2021, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/citizen.
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Mischa Field is an ordained reverend who has practiced ministry in Brooklyn for 21 years. His writing explores the intersection of Divinity and Humanity: Faith, Identity, Culture, and the Soul. His heart for hurting people and broken institutions fuel his determination to rebuild both.

A graduate of Amherst College and Alliance Theological Seminary, with degrees in film, writing, and urban ministry, and a background in journalism, he finds consistent joy in the mysteries of faith, consistent humility in attempting to practice them, and constant wonder in God’s ability to accomplish perfect things with perfect combinations of imperfect people.

A native of Brattleboro, Vermont, he lives in Queens with Lori, his wife of 15 years. Soul of the Citizen is his first book.


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What inspired you to write this book?

As I note in the introduction to the book, Soul of the Citizen constitutes a type of spiritual diary. It started out as a daily exercise of praying through the news of the day, and in the digital age, there are no slow news days. Our political, cultural, ethical, and moral crises emerge daily, because our political, cultural, ethical, and moral conflicts lie at the core of our national identity. We are United States, but divided people. We are vessels of hope in oceans of despair. We are wonderful but wounded. And we tend to allow our wounds to spill onto everyone around us. If we are praying people, we always have reason to pray.
For me prayer has always been a way of processing life: joys and concerns, hopes and fears, visions and dreams. This book was my way of grieving through the tumultuous politics of the past 7 years. The more compromised digital communication became, the more time I spent in prayer. One dubious honor I probably share with most people who communicate publicly is that I have been excoriated by critics from both sides of any given spectrum, sometimes for coherent reasons, and sometimes before they even understand what I am saying.
Jesus challenged his followers to love their enemies, to bless those that cursed them, and pray for those that despitefully used them. I’m interested in just what that looks like in a 21st Century context. Love desires to benefit others at the expense of self. Love sacrifices, gives, hopes, and perseveres. When we think about loving people, especially people we don’t know or don’t like, what does it inspire us to do? Sometimes love looks like public service. Sometimes it looks like accountability or an apology. Sometimes it looks like boundaries, a refusal to participate in someone else’s pathology. If we recognize that there is spiritual sickness in the land, that we are dealing with a nation of wounded souls, and are wounded ourselves, then we can have better conversations, and take more productive action in attempting to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.
In Matthew 19, Jesus told critics trying to stump him with a question about divorce that the only reason for divorce was hardness of heart. Reconciliation, endurance, and growth are all possible. In our hard-heartedness, however, we often choose to end things.
This nation marries diverse groups of people in a grand civic experiment. One trend we see in this moment is a clamor for civic divorce. Red states want to divorce blue states. Urban areas want to divorce rural ones. Young people want their elders to get out of the way. And people who have long held disproportionate power respond to the call to share with terrified outrage. Across every division, we see people daydreaming of a country in which their neighbors don’t exist instead of answering God’s call to love them. This, I would argue, is a jaded retreat. It is a dereliction of duty. And nothing good comes of it.
I believe we can do better. That is the heart of this book.

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