Join our End of Summer Book Study

Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman’s Journey with Depression and Faith To further our church’s commitment to mental health justice, St. Luke’s small group Women’s Weekly Wine and Word (W4) invites the congregation to participate in a book study of Bipolar Faith: A Black Woman’s Journey with Depression and Faith by Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman. Members of W4 selected Bipolar Faith in an effort to encourage destigmatized conversations about mental health and deepen our collective understanding of its intersection with race, gender, class, sexual violence, and faith. Bipolar Faith is both a spiritual autobiography and a memoir of mental illness. In this powerful book, Monica Coleman shares her lifelong dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death. Citing serendipitous encounters with black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems, Coleman offers a rare account of how the modulated highs of bipolar II can lead to professional success, while hiding a depression that even her doctors rarely believed. Only as she was able to face her illness was she able to live faithfully with bipolar.The book study is open to everyone at St. Luke’s. If you are interested in participating, please click here to order your book. SommerAnn McCullough will be in touch with everyone who orders a copy to organize book discussions in September. Please contact SommerAnn with any questions about the book study. A note that a significant portion of Bipolar Faith connects to Coleman's struggle in the aftermath of a sexual assault.