December reading roundup #2

Friends! We are halfway through December, and it has been a busy, twinkly season. Between the usual round of work-yoga-choir-running, and amid Christmas prep, here’s what I have been reading:

Making It So, Patrick Stewart
Like many people, I’ve adored Stewart since I was a kid watching Next Gen in syndication. I loved his thoughtful, wise, engaging (ha) memoir about his childhood in Yorkshire, his years building his acting chops, his Shakespearean career and (of course) his years aboard the Enterprise. So good.

Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine, Uché Blackstock
Blackstock and her twin sister, Oni, always knew they would be physicians, following in the footsteps of their revered mother. Blackstock’s incisive, insightful memoir shares her own story while challenging the pervasive legacy of racism (and slavery) in American medicine. Bold, honest and thoughtful; a clarion call to the American medical system to do better. To review for Shelf Awareness  (out Jan. 23).

Reign, Katharine McGee
The Washington siblings are back – but America’s royal family is struggling. As Queen Beatrice recovers from a car accident (and memory loss), her sister Samantha struggles to find her way forward, and their brother Jeff prepares for his wedding. Meanwhile, Jeff’s fiancee, Daphne, is scheming (as always), and political currents are swirling. A fun finale to this smart, entertaining YA series.

City Spies, James Ponti
I raced through this fun, fast-paced middle-grade novel about a group of students (all known by their hometowns’ names – Brooklyn, Paris, Rio, etc.) who train as spies. They end up in Paris trying to save the world from a deadly virus. First in a series and so much fun.

Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence, Diana Butler Bass
Anyone who’s spent time at church knows: it can be difficult to truly see Jesus under all the denominational and political baggage. Butler Bass explores half a dozen facets of Jesus through her own experience, starting in childhood and taking us through her evangelical young adult years, her time in seminary, and beyond. I loved this book; wise, thoughtful and real. She articulates some of my own uneasiness with various images of Jesus, and illuminates others that offer hope and compassion. So good.

A Cruel Deception, Charles Todd
Nurse Bess Crawford, uncertain of her direction now that WWI is over, goes to Paris to track down her matron’s missing son. When she finds him, she also finds a mystery: who might be trying to kill him, and why? A thoughtful entry in this wonderful series; it deals with addiction, PTSD, postwar transition and (somehow) a thread of hope.

The Uncharted Flight of Olivia West, Sara Ackerman
San Diego, 1927: Livy West is determined to become a pilot, despite the men who tell her she can’t, and joins a high-profile airplane race to Hawaii. 1987: Wren Summers learns she’s inherited her great-aunt’s land on the Big Island – including a barn containing two ancient planes. I flew (ha) through this vivid story connecting the two women; great descriptions, layered characters, a fabulous female protagonist. To review for Shelf Awareness  (out Feb. 6).

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

Read Full Post »

Confessions of a recovering Jesus freak

That may as well be the subtitle of Addie Zierman’s memoir, When We Were on Fire, out tomorrow from Convergent Books.

I’ve never met Addie, except via blogland, but we were born in the same year (albeit in different regions of the country) and we spent our teenage years immersed in the same strange, insular, oddly intense subculture of Christianity. We both went to small Christian colleges where we met the men we married, and we have both spent a large part of our post-college years trying to hang onto our faith while having to unlearn a lot of things we thought we knew.

To celebrate her book’s publication, Addie has invited fellow bloggers to share their experiences with the evangelical subculture and the subsequent impact on their – our – faith.

The evangelical subculture, with its rah-rah zeal and catchy T-shirts and tidy, well-reasoned arguments in favor of faith, left me with some baggage, for sure. There wasn’t much room in it for doubts or questions, for the messier, blurrier side of faith or relationships. But for a few years, that didn’t matter, because it provided me with what all teenagers need: a safe place.

I grew up in a tightly knit, loving, Christian family and I had a group of close friends at school, most of whom went to church with their parents but sort of rolled their eyes at my Jesus-freak-ness. But at youth group and the Bible studies I attended, my devotion was normal, even encouraged. I could hang out with other kids who loved Jesus as much as I did, who were trying to figure out how to be good and faithful people as they navigated the halls of high school. And for six years, those other Jesus-freak teenagers were my people.

I sang with the worship band and led prayers at youth group. I worked diligently through the homework questions before Teen CBS each week. I had a black WWJD bracelet and a whole drawerful of Christian-themed T-shirts. (I still have a couple of them somewhere.)

When I was a sophomore in high school, a handsome senior (whom I later dated) asked me to sing with the praise band at a new lunchtime club called the Fellowship of Christian Musicians. The audience was mostly our fellow band nerds, and they mostly came for the free food and the fun of singing songs with goofy motions. There was never any preaching or theological debate at FCM; it was simply a loud, friendly, loosely connected community, fueled by trays of Bagel Bites and taquitos pulled warm from the oven by a few dedicated parents.

And here is what it took me a long time to understand: that was enough.

I grew up in a denomination that prizes words, specifically the words of the Bible (usually interpreted a certain way) and the words of respected theologians. It also prizes testimony, the retelling of one’s own faith story, even one as quiet and nondramatic as mine. Salvation, according to a lot of its pastors, depends on a specific set of words (the Sinner’s Prayer). Baptism (adult baptism, by immersion) is accompanied by a public “confession of faith.” Rhetorical arguments for faith – even when one is literally preaching to the choir – are encouraged.

As a lifelong bookworm, I felt right at home among all those words. But I sometimes became uneasy when participating in a faith activity that didn’t involve preaching or praying, that lacked a neat rhetorical way of tying it all together.

On a September day during my senior year of high school, I learned, along with the rest of the country, about the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and into a field in Pennsylvania. Because it was a Tuesday, I headed to Bible study with my parents and sister that night, craving the comfort of normalcy and community (and freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies) after a day of strained expressions from my teachers and friends, and increasingly horrifying news coverage.

After eating dinner, I slipped into a metal folding chair next to my friend Adam, who looked as exhausted as I felt. One of our leaders got up on stage for the weekly welcome and greeting, which was somber, matching the tone of the room. As the worship band began to play, Adam reached over and slipped his hand into mine. We sat, silent, not even singing, in the darkened room, as Russ and the band played songs of quiet comfort. For almost the first time in my life, I had no words – only mute grief, and the solid presence of a community around me.

And here is what I began to understand that night: it was enough.

I am a long way from those Jesus-freak days, far from those lunchtimes when I led the FCM crowd in yet another rendition of “Sanctuary” or “Peace Like a River.” I still know all the words to those songs and many others; after years of repetition, they have made their way deep into my bones. But the words, then used so often to argue and convince and persuade, have settled into something quieter and gentler now: a background hum, steady as the blood pumping through my veins. They are no longer rhetorical weapons, polished and honed to perfection. Instead, they are part of my makeup, like my mother’s green eyes and the freckles on my nose.

These days, I am less interested in the old rhetoric of “saving souls” than I am in living a steady, quiet life of grace and peace. I refuse to be drawn into battles where people use “the sword of the Spirit” to stab each other. I have my beliefs, and they are deeply held, but I am not interested in arguing with anyone about them.

Instead, I want relationship, community. I want to offer my own presence and take comfort in the presence of other people, through times of joy and grief and through the long, everyday stretches in between.

And here is what I began learning in the evangelical subculture, and have continued to learn long after I left it: presence and community, even in the absence of so many words, are enough.

I’d love to hear about your own experiences with faith in the comments, and I’d encourage you to pick up Addie’s book – it is sensitive, honest, well-crafted and beautifully told.

(I received a free copy of When We Were on Fire in exchange for an honest review, but all opinions, experiences, etc., are my own.)

Read Full Post »