I've actually managed to read 2 books cover-to-cover recently. One I can recommend easily, the other has me stirred up a bit:
Life with Strings Attached, by Minnie Lamberth
“Christian fiction” is a genre I’d generally avoid, but this book attracted me for 2 reasons: (1) it was selected for a fiction prize by Leif Enger and (2) it’s published by Paraclete Press, a new publisher that in addition to (good) poetry and fiction publishes lots of books on liturgical spirituality and spiritual classics from the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant traditions.
The novel did not disappoint, although it is remarkably simple in plot. The narrator is a young girl growing up in the South in the early 70’s, and her voice reminded me a bit of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird or Swede from Peace Like a River – and like those two novels, the best lines are saved for her wise and funny father. Although the dark side of the larger world lingers at the edges of this book, the evils of racism and violence do not intrude into the daily life of this little girl, as they do in the other two novels. Nevertheless the book is a simple and true reflection on growing up, loss, and the power of forgiveness.
The other book is Barbara Brown Taylor's new memoir, Leaving Church. I was offended at first with the cover, which pictures a caged bird flying free, but once I delved into the book the avian symbolism made more sense. I devoured it in a weekend and found much there that resonated with my own life and calling, but there's a gaping hole in how she accounts for how she moved from a big Atlanta parish to a rural parish to leaving parish ministry altogether: she not once mentions the volumes she was writing and publishing during this time (yes, sermons, but most of us don't get our sermons into such publishable format), and she barely refers to the fact that she was becoming one of the best known preachers in the country during this time. Lillian Daniel has made the same critique in her fine review in the Christian Century, and backed it up with some quotes from other interviews in which Taylor says it was in part her notoriety that ruined parish life for her in Clarkesville.
Why would she leave this out? Because she wants a parish pastor like myself to read it without thinking about the obvious difference between her career path and mine? Perhaps. I laughed ruefully and joyously at various moments while reading this, such as her frustration at the way one feels like a "human memo board" in the 10 minutes before worship as people stick their various concerns, reminders and questions upon you, right at the moment when you want to be able to focus in on worship. Taylor's way with words is a gift to all of us who wear the collar as well as those who don't, or who used to. I just wish she had acknowledged that her particular gifts were also part of the constellation that led her to what she is doing today.
