{"id":3419,"date":"2013-06-04T01:00:51","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/?p=3419"},"modified":"2013-06-03T09:24:46","modified_gmt":"2013-06-03T16:24:46","slug":"booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Booked<\/em>: Reading My Way Back to Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a reader, and in those three years, I read more widely and deeply than ever.<\/p>\n

I was in training, an MFA candidate preparing to write the story of me: the coming of age of a Louisiana girl trapped in a fringe group of far-out Christians. It was going to be cool and detached and funny, of course. But something happened. Near the end of my reading list, in my last months of the program, I stopped thinking it was all so funny and started believing.<\/p>\n

In my research I\u2019d sought out books of theology and stories of conversion, but in the end, it wasn\u2019t Augustine, Merton or Lewis who convinced me\u2014at least, not in isolation. In classes I was studying film as literature, the New Journalists, short stories and memoirs and criticism, and for the first time in my life, poetry that wasn\u2019t a Shakespearean sonnet.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t any one book but the collective impression of all that work that sent me back to the pews, convinced there was something vast and eternal governing all, and yet so near and small as to fit in my palm, in a book, in a wafer of bread.<\/p>\n

Still, when I feel my faith in that outrageous claim faltering, I feel guilty that it\u2019s reading that restores belief.<\/p>\n

Reading is a form of prayer; I know. Divine reading, lectio divina, <\/em>is a way of communion with God in scripture, the Living Word. But is it wrong that I\u2019ve had more profound experiences of God\u2019s presence reading Anna Karenina<\/em>, Middlemarch, Kristin Lavransdatter, <\/em>and my children\u2019s copies of Frog and Toad<\/em>?<\/p>\n

When I feel darkness encroaching and belief seems like folly, I should reach for the Gospels, but without Tolkien <\/em>and even Colm Toibin<\/a> they seem like some distant history, and I feel even more removed.<\/p>\n

In her memoir Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Karen Swallow Prior confesses that she too has worried that she \u201cloved books more than God.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lifelong Baptist, she wonders if the fact that she is \u201cmore emotionally moved in reading literary works like Great Expectations <\/em>than in reading dramatic passages in the Bible or in hearing a moving testimony from the pulpit\u201d is \u201ca mark of sin or, at the very least, some great flaw in my spiritual life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the story of Prior\u2019s reading life is a slow discovery that \u201cGod who spoke the world into existence with words is, in fact, the source and meaning of all words.\u201d For her, \u201cbooks were the backwoods path back to God, bramble-filled and broken, yes, but full of truth and wonder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Memoirs of reading\u2014shelves of them by Pat Conroy, Anna Quindlen, Azar Nafisi, David Shields\u2014often conclude that books assuage our essential human loneliness, though the may fail in the attempt. C.S. Lewis said we read to know we\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

But Prior\u2019s claim is more extravagant. For her, reading is an act of conversion, turning her toward the eternal. She writes, \u201cI\u2019ve come to realize that my emotional responses to moving works of literature\u2026are the only way I can bear to respond emotionally to God and his love: indirectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

She recalls the story of Moses asking God to see his glory. God answers that man shall not see him and live. In his mercy, he takes Moses to a cleft of a rock and covers him with his hand as his glory passes by. Prior writes: \u201cLiterature is like the cleft of a rock that God has taken me to, a place from which I can experience as much of the glory of God as I can endure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior has seen the back of God in surprising places\u2014not just in John Donne, but in Judy Blume.<\/p>\n

Booked<\/em> opens with an essay on Milton\u2019s Areopagitica<\/em>, which in Prior\u2019s rendering is as accessible as her chapter on E. B. White\u2019s Charlotte\u2019s Web. <\/em>With Milton, she argues for \u201cpromiscuous\u201d reading\u2014the indiscriminate mixing of ideas. There will be no book burning for her (or, as she recalls in an all too recognizable Christian coming-of-age moment, classic rock record burning), no censorship even for the youngest readers.<\/p>\n

Prior is unafraid to write that she believes in \u201ctruth-with-a-capital-T,\u201d but like Milton, she argues that the best way to expose falsehood is not by suppressing it, but by countering it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTruth is stronger than falsehood,\u201d she writes. \u201cFalsehood prevails through the suppression of countering ideas, but truth triumphs in a free and open exchange.\u201d<\/p>\n

By way of example, in a later chapter on the \u201cPoetry of Doubt,\u201d she writes, \u201cwitnessing the logic of doubt\u2026enabled me to work out, inversely, the logic of my faith.\u201d Sometimes, she proposes, the doubter sees more clearly the demands of faith than the lifelong believer. And the doubter knows intimately what the believer might never contemplate, to her peril: \u201cthe reality of existence without God, without faith in God.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a risky book, and Prior writes about literature and faith not just with wit and warmth, but with real courage. In her honesty, she risks alienating Christians with her \u201cpromiscuity\u201d and secular humanists with her Christianity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe who believe\u2014who want to believe\u2014are asked to believe much, caught as we feel between two ill-fitted worlds,\u201d she writes. And it\u2019s on that lonely ground that her voice is so desperately needed. I don\u2019t know that she set out to be inspirational, but in being so honestly herself\u2014an intellectual Christian who has felt uncomfortable both in church and in the academy\u2014she is.<\/p>\n

In one of the most moving chapters, on Hopkins\u2019s poem \u201cPied Beauty,\u201d she goes right to that uncomfortable tension at the heart of Christianity, joining the poet in praising God for the beauty of all things \u201ccounter, original, spare, strange,\u201d for that which radiates only from imperfection and pain.<\/p>\n

Recalling characters and events from her childhood, she writes: \u201cPraise him, <\/em>the poet asks\u2014no, commands\u2014for the awkward things: the fickle, the freckled, the big teeth, the three-legged dogs, the girls that act like boys, and those that are \u2018Pretty Plus.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This is who drew me back to the Church: the God of the awkward and unseemly, of rocky clefts and backwoods paths; Flannery O\u2019Connor\u2019s Jesus, swinging limb to limb. God coming to me not just in The Word, but in words, in water, bread, and wine.<\/p>\n

As Prior writes, \u201cHe met me where I was. In Books.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jessica Mesman Griffith<\/a>\u2018s writing has appeared in many publications, including\u00a0<\/em>Image\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Elle, and has been noted in\u00a0<\/em>Best American Essays. She is the author, with Amy Andrews, of the memoir\u00a0<\/em>Love and Salt, <\/em>A Spiritual Friendship in Letters. She lives in Virginia with her husband and children.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a reader, and in those three years, I read more widely and deeply than ever. I was in training, an MFA candidate preparing to write the story of me: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1472,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,328],"tags":[193,134,44,384,383],"class_list":["post-3419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-topical-categories","category-jessica-mesman-griffith","tag-books","tag-conversion-stories","tag-faith","tag-literature","tag-reading"],"yoast_head":"\nBooked: Reading My Way Back to Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Booked: Reading My Way Back to Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Good Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-06-04T08:00:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-06-03T16:24:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/files\/2013\/05\/f0f983a4e4be196f690f8aa8caf5ef2c.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jessica Griffith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jessica Griffith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/\",\"name\":\"Booked: Reading My Way Back to Faith\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-06-04T08:00:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-06-03T16:24:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#\/schema\/person\/bd0627ec56f592219f04cdb299e92e0d\"},\"description\":\"I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Booked: Reading My Way Back to Faith\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/\",\"name\":\"Good Letters\",\"description\":\"Words. Made flesh.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#\/schema\/person\/bd0627ec56f592219f04cdb299e92e0d\",\"name\":\"Jessica Griffith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/60326da67d14b3b3de23a7d709fff612?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/60326da67d14b3b3de23a7d709fff612?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jessica Griffith\"},\"description\":\"Jessica Mesman Griffith is a widely published essayist and the author of the memoir Love & Salt: A Spiritual Friendship in Letters, winner of the 2014 Christopher Award. She lives in Northern Michigan with her husband, writer David Griffith, and their two children.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/author\/jessicagriffith\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Booked: Reading My Way Back to Faith","description":"I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Booked: Reading My Way Back to Faith","og_description":"I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/","og_site_name":"Good Letters","article_published_time":"2013-06-04T08:00:51+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-06-03T16:24:46+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/files\/2013\/05\/f0f983a4e4be196f690f8aa8caf5ef2c.jpg"}],"author":"Jessica Griffith","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jessica Griffith","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/","name":"Booked: Reading My Way Back to Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-06-04T08:00:51+00:00","dateModified":"2013-06-03T16:24:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#\/schema\/person\/bd0627ec56f592219f04cdb299e92e0d"},"description":"I accidentally read my way back to church in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t been any kind of practicing Christian since early childhood, but I\u2019d always been a","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2013\/06\/booked-reading-my-way-back-to-faith\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Booked: Reading My Way Back to Faith"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/","name":"Good Letters","description":"Words. Made flesh.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#\/schema\/person\/bd0627ec56f592219f04cdb299e92e0d","name":"Jessica Griffith","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/60326da67d14b3b3de23a7d709fff612?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/60326da67d14b3b3de23a7d709fff612?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jessica Griffith"},"description":"Jessica Mesman Griffith is a widely published essayist and the author of the memoir Love & Salt: A Spiritual Friendship in Letters, winner of the 2014 Christopher Award. She lives in Northern Michigan with her husband, writer David Griffith, and their two children.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/author\/jessicagriffith\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1472"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}