Pastor, Rabbi Author Book About Living Bravely in Difficult Times

The Rev. Neil Thomas leads Dallas’ Cathedral of Hope, southeast of Love Field.

Rabbi Denise Eger serves as senior rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in Southern California.

The longtime friends spent the COVID-19 pandemic collaborating on a book focused on grief and trauma and the tools to overcome those obstacles. They focused on these principles: mourning, truth, rest, love, prayer, joy, and hope.

TKG Communications recently published their Seven Principles for Living Bravely: Ageless Wisdom and Comforting Faith for Weathering Life’s Most Difficult Times. 

The authors met 21 years ago when championing LGBTQ+ rights while Thomas served at the Founders Metropolitan Community Church in Los Angeles.

“Marriage equality had been granted to lesbian and gay couples, and there was a proposition on the ballot to take that away,” Thomas said. 

The pair also traveled to Israel together multiple times with members of their congregations.

During the pandemic, Thomas and Eger would regularly meet on Zoom to discuss how they were worshipping.

They decided to write a book about overcoming unwanted and unforeseen obstacles.

“We decided that we wanted to write it with both our authentic voices so as not to water down our Jewish or Christian experiences,” Thomas said.

Working with someone of a different faith shows it is possible to converse with those whose ideas and principles vary from yours, Thomas said.

“In a world that is so polarized, I think it was important for us,” he said. “It is more than possible to not just co-exist, but to respect each other’s opinions and each other’s perspective without having to say, ‘Well, I’m right, and you’re wrong.’”

Eger said talking with Thomas helped her figure out how to continue teaching during COVID.

“He and I offered each other a tremendous amount of support in trying to figure out how to pivot our communities, how to keep them together, and how to meet the great trauma that people were experiencing,” Eger said.

Eger wants readers to implement the tools covered in the book into their lives.

“We are holding on to so much pain and so much trauma, and we don’t even realize that we are,” Eger said.

Thomas agrees.

“My hope is that people will take some of these spiritual principles and begin to practice them in their life, regardless of where they fall on any religion, and begin to explore what it means to live,” Thomas said. “In a world where we have fake news, what does it mean to find a truth that goes beyond the soundbite? Not just hoping that things will get better, but actually being the hope that we want to see in the world.”