April 7th, 2012
The Beginnings of a Book Review by Lydia Pratt Tatum
A couple of us Church Daughters are still in school, so our reading outside of our syllabi is rare these days. I say this mostly to place a disclaimer on this premature review. You see, I am one of those Daughters still in school; and while I have the next week of classes off for “reading days,” I still work. Break shmake. These days are to be used primarily for catching up on all of the work of my course load, but I am intentionally taking some of the time to do a bit of selfish reading. I will not finish an entire extracurricular book, but I will skim a good bit of something I love.
Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, arrived on my doorstep with impeccable timing last Thursday. While I was at school studying for midterms, my husband called to let me know that this unexpected surprise had arrived with a sweet form letter from the author. The thing about Lauren (you know we are on a first name basis now, as I dream I am with all of my favorite authors) is that she writes with such beautiful honesty and vulnerability. I fell in love with her writing and her story the first time I read Girl Meets God; and her letter, though only a form with my name inserted for a more personal feel, was characteristically Lauren – pure, honest, raw.
Lauren’s new book is not intended as a memoir but as a confession of where she has ended up after the newness of conversion has worn off and life has marched on with its inevitable ups and downs. She suspects, and correctly so, that many Christians (if not all) have a point where they wind up in the middle of their journey – far enough from the beginning point that the warm fuzzy feelings have faded and the reality of disappointment and doubt distract the journeyer from truth. Lauren tells her story unapologetically. And, I respect the hutzpah (catch that Lauren?) that it takes to offer such honesty to a public that would be content reading Girl Meets God like they would watch a movie–assuming that happily ever after lasted after the last period. Her sequel, however, tells us otherwise. In Still, the happily ever after has worn off, and we get a picture of a life of an honest Christian in the middle of her journey. She has days of doubt and loss, and she has days of seeming clarity.
Lauren’s story is my story, and I suspect it is the story of every honest Christian in the middle. There are days when I am completely clear on my calling to be a Christian and it seems that God and I are in sync with one another. But, there are also days when I struggle to make out God’s voice, and I struggle to remember the joy and passion that I first felt as a new Christian.
In her form letter, Lauren suggests that her book be used as a guide through Lent. She offers a reading guide and discussion questions relating to the book for mid-life Christians. Though I have only read the preface and part one, I assure you that this book is real. It is honest. It is my story. And, it is probably a bit of your story, too. We are a week and a half into Lent, but do not let that be your excuse for not picking up this book and grappling with your own mid-faith crisis with Lauren and with me.
Lydia Pratt Tatum is student ministry associate at Trinity Baptist Church, Raleigh, North Carolina. She wrote this review in early March for Church Daughters, a blog she and six other women ministers created.
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April 5th, 2012
A Review of Still by Mandy England Cole
When Sue Monk Kidd was experiencing her own time of reshaping, she wrote that, “whenever I’ve managed to find new consciousness and renewals of my work, my relationships and myself, it has been by going down into what seemed like a holy dark.” A holy dark–sacred space and time–seems exactly what Lauren Winner has invited us into through her latest work.
After the romantic notions of faith wear off and life deals out a portion of difficulty we often find ourselves, like Lauren, on pilgrimage. And as she noted from the wise words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, “pilgrimage is always a travelling to where I am.” At the heart of her story is the crisis we each find ourselves in, when we stand before a blank wall and find ourselves in a season where everything–our lives, our faith, ourselves–must be remade. A time when we must look deeply into the core of our being, of our faith, and walk through the sacred steps through a holy dark. By sharing her story, it is as if she has laid stone markers on the path for her fellow pilgrims. And, as we walk with her we find that her story reminds us of moments of holy darkness in our own lives. Her experience reminded me of the rhythmic process of being reformed, refined, and renewed that I have come to know as faith.
The stories of Still seem to fit the pattern of a labyrinth. The labyrinth is a divine feminine symbol for the womb and the journey of the labyrinth is ancient metaphor for the process of life, death, and rebirth.
Walking the path toward center is the dying phase, when, you place all your burdens on the altar. Some call this phase of the labyrinth’s journey releasing but I prefer to use Carolyn Hielbrun’s phrase, “marvelous dismantling” to describe the steps taken when we face the darkness of our lives and spirits, when we name our sins, when we lay down our burdens, when we let loose our doubt, fear, and anxiety. In essence, we are walking through the shadow of the valley of death with every step.
The second movement of the labyrinth is resting in the center. This is the core of where we are re-formed and fashioned by the hand of God. It is where we are remade. The third movement is when we journey on the path out from the center back into the world. This is when we find ourselves reoriented with renewed purpose and meaning.
By sharing her “crisis” with us, she is sharing the sacred journey she took of walking through a marvelous dismantling, of being re-formed, and of being reoriented and renewed.
There are those of us who resist this kind of pilgrimage for we fear such holy darkness. But, within the rhythms of our faith journey, like Lauren’s, lays abundant gifts of grace. What gift of grace is awaiting you in the rhythm of your faith journey?
Mandy England Cole is associate pastor of Sardis Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina.
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April 4th, 2012
A Review of Still by Jennifer Harris Dault
There are some books whose stories have you racing through pages, on the back of a prized horse that is determined to beat his competitors. Lauren Winner’s Still is not one of those books. It requires soaking, steeping, simmering. It you are anything like me, it also requires facial tissues. Its short vignettes tell the story of a woman who has experienced heartbreak—or perhaps the knowledge of causing heartbreak. Somewhere in the aftermath of a divorce, God seems to be missing, silent, hidden.
During Lent—this slow, weary journey to the cross—Still whispers to me. I have often said that I am never ready for Lent. I feel and fight each difficult step, knowing and believing that grief is important, but wanting to jump ahead to the joyous celebration of Easter. Still embraces the pain of the middle place, while hoping, praying, yearning to see God revealed in the world. We see glimpses now and again—the woman who takes Communion on behalf of her husband whose illness makes it impossible for him to eat, the friend who blesses the rooms of her house to make it feel safe again after her divorce, the gifts of writers who encourage and inspire, God’s voice speaking—finally—in the midst of a particularly ungripping church service.
As Lauren Winner’s words pour forth from written page, I feel comforted of an ache I didn’t know I had. Churches often make it difficult to speak of the struggle of faith, but here in Still, the thoughts and emotions that sometimes haunt all of us are given voice. That voice offers hope and guidance to all of us who have experienced a “mid-faith crisis.” It gives evidence that we are not alone—not only are we not alone in our thoughts and feelings, but we have not been left by the Hidden God.
Jennifer Harris Dault is a soon-to-be graduate of Central Baptist Theological Seminary. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri and is the leader of Baptist Women in Ministry of Missouri.
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April 2nd, 2012
A Review of Still by Stacy Sergent
An almost-memoir from an almost-saint is the gift Lauren Winner offers us in Still. Those first pulled into Winner’s story through her conversion memoir, Girl Meets God, may be frustrated with the looser structure of Still. But she gives fair warning that memoir is not what she is doing here, and the book’s subtitle, Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, fits. These short chapters are like scribbled messages scattered by wind then gathered up again, or like photos snapped from a moving vehicle. “I am not a saint,” she writes. “I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God.” (p. 194)
In the section titled “Wall,” Winner tells us, briefly, about her mother’s death and the end of her marriage, two events that most directly led to this time of spiritual dryness. Though the minutiae of her particular story may arouse curiosity, what is compelling is her very relatable crisis of faith. Many readers will be nodding emphatically at Winner’s descriptions of the seeming abstractness of God, of the crawling passage of time while waiting and hoping for things to get better, of well-meaning Christians offering hurtful words. The aching honesty and subtle humor that make Winner’s writing so engaging are still at work here.
“Movement” introduces people and rituals that help Winner out of inertia. Friends, church members, strangers pray for her, challenge her, share their own stories of “losing Jesus.” Winner reads psalms, gives up anxiety for Lent (at least for fifteen minutes at a time), finds loneliness to be a form of prayer, slips into synagogue on Purim and remembers God’s hiddenness. The choice she makes there–to believe that God is hidden rather than absent–is a crucial one. She infuses these chapters with pathos and vulnerability.
To her credit, Winner does not oversimplify reality in “Presence,” which would have felt like betrayal to this reader. Even the end of the book finds her in a spiritual middle place, where most of us spend the lion’s share of our Christian lives. Winner brings the reader to a point where “God is no longer an abstraction. But God is elusive. With this elusive God there is a certain kind of closeness, one I did not know before God became elusive, one I did not know when God was still nearby as friend.” (p. 162)
The ending feels abrupt, but works as a reminder that this is not an ending so much as another glimpse of the middle. I recommend Still for anyone who knows what it is to feel far from God and alone. Being an academic and theologian, it should come as no surprise that the author engages her experience well both intellectually and spiritually. Many of us have been on the journey Winner relates, but few could write such an eloquent travelogue.
Stacy Sergent is staff chaplain at MUSC Medical Center, Charleston, South Carolina.
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March 28th, 2012
Last Thursday I went with my Peer Learning Group to the Ignatius House–a Jesuit Retreat Center tucked away in north Atlanta. The center is an oasis of trees and large grassy areas all sitting just above the river.
Our group gathered for coffee and conversation, and then our leader guided us into the day’s topic and gave us our instructions. Observe silence and listen. Listen for God. Listen to God. Read and pray and journal–but be listening. And then she said, “Come back in an hour and tell us what you heard.”
I found the assignment rather daunting. But I am a direction follower–so off I went to listen. For thirty minutes I sat on one of the beautiful decks outside–overlooking the river, surrounded by trees. Spring has slammed into Georgia so the trees were in full bloom and the birds were singing. I read the scripture text we have been given. I sat quietly. I wrote in my journal. I listened. I heard nothing but the birds. But I persisted and read more, listened harder, wrote more. Still nothing. God apparently was practicing silence as well.
After another ten minutes of hearing nothing, I gave up and decided to just enjoy the sights and sounds. I began making my way down to the river. The trail leading to the river winds around. An earlier rain had left it a bit slippery. So I walked carefully. The wooden beams that serve as steps on some of the trail’s curves are not evenly spaced out, and for someone like me with short legs, those steps are awkward. I found myself taking two to three shortened steps for every one wooden beam. This walking on the trail down to the river was turning out to be more work than I had anticipated. I looked around to see if there was an easier way–maybe I could just bypass the trail and make my own path. But the trail was on a sloping hillside, and the way down was steep and crowded with trees, fallen logs, bushy undergrowth. The ground was uneven and blanketed by wet leaves. So I stuck to the trail.
I finally negotiated all the turns and curves and steps and made it to the river, and just as I arrived, I saw a bird flying just above the water’s surface looking for lunch. I heard other birds calling out to one another. I heard the quiet sounds of the river.
And standing by that peaceful river, I finally heard. God ended the silence, and I listened and heard.
“There are no short cuts to the river.”
Being somewhat slow to process, I had to ponder this message, but I finally got it. And my understanding drove me to confession for I am one who too often looks for shortcuts, quick answers, immediate responses. I don’t want to wait for God to speak, for God to move. I don’t have time to sit around. I need God to work faster, harder. I need God to speak louder, clearer.
There standing beside the quiet river I understood that I have to invest myself in times of silence, times of prayer and listening, times of reading and pondering. I need to be willing to make my way down the trail, even when the walking gets hard or the path seems too difficult. To know and follow God, to embrace fully my relationship with God requires time and patience. It requires reading and studying, pondering and praying. It requires commitment to walk the trail, to stay the course, to persevere.
“There are no short cuts to the river.”
Pam Durso is executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, Atlanta, Georgia.
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A couple of us Church Daughters are still in school, so our reading outside of our syllabi is rare these days. I say this mostly to place a disclaimer on this premature review. You see, I am one of those Daughters still in school; and while I have the next week of classes off for “reading days,” I still work. Break shmake. These days are to be used primarily for catching up on all of the work of my course load, but I am intentionally taking some of the time to do a bit of selfish reading. I will not finish an entire extracurricular book, but I will skim a good bit of something I love.
