If you've ever journaled or written blog posts or maybe any kind of writing, you've probably had the experience of writing something that was profoundly true, but you didn't know it until you wrote it. It's one of my favorite things about writing.
A couple of months ago, I read Sarah Bessey's 2019 book Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God. She is a compelling writer with a uniquely strong voice. Our experiences don't always match up--we are in some ways very different people, in other ways quite similar-- but there were some sections of the book that were deeply meaningful to me.
I may end up re-reading the book again soon, but what I have continued to think about, what more or less blew my mind, were the words that came out when I wrote my review. So here is that review, slightly expanded since I have more space here than I generally like to use on Goodreads.
I was raised evangelical, left it behind in my twenties. The process of extricating myself was far more protracted than I expected (it’s probably still happening more than I want to admit), and also sometimes deeply painful. I have ended up in a progressive Christian denomination (PC-USA) because our local congregation is the best fit I’ve found in the area where we live, but honestly my personal theology is much less "Christian" than the church I attend. Not to mention still a bit, uh, fluid. I am eternally grateful that the people of our church accept me, because I have discovered to my surprise that belonging to a community of faith is one of the few non-negotiables of my life.
So I approach a book like this with a bit of trepidation and a bit of hope. I’ve read so many books by Christian authors that made me feel excluded by my unorthodox theology, but I’m always hopeful I’ll find a kindred spirit. This is the first book I’ve read by this author, and I’m grateful to find that she might be one of those kindred spirits. She is more orthodox than me in her theology, but less orthodox in the expression of it, if that makes any sense. My personal theology barely qualifies as Christian (which I've written about extensively before, and may be writing more about soon), but anyone observing me from afar would probably think that I am a by-the-book Presbyterian, because I just don't have the personality for flamboyant flouting of conventional church life. I am comfortable living inside the lines, even if other things are going on in my head.
Anyway. If Sarah Bessey and I were to sit down over a cup of coffee, I’m pretty sure we would have no trouble connecting, even though we might disagree about many things if we got into the weeds of Christian theology. Which is not true of some of the other authors her age I’ve read.
This book took me back to some of the early stages of my departure from evangelicalism, and made me aware of some steps I’d missed. My original impulse in my 20s was to run from a system that seemed to my young and arrogant self to be wildly hypocritical, and offered me only traditional roles I would never have been able to fit. Over the years I’ve come to value things about my original faith that I can bring forward into my current reality, and Bessey made me aware of quite a few more. Also, her struggles with fibromyalgia had some surprising (to me) parallels with my history of migraines.
I admit I occasionally rolled my eyes toward the end, but in the most loving way. :) This is a good book. It probably has limited interest outside of people of faith, but if you are a person of faith, I recommend it highly.
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