The book that RevGalBlogPals chose for its January 2008 read as Renita Weems’ Listening for God :A Minister’s Journey Through Silence and Doubt. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to read it then because I was so intensely preparing for my Contemporary Issues course that got cancelled the day before it was due to start. But I finally read Weems this weekend and, though I found the work terribly uneven, overall I LOVED it. I sympathized with her struggles as both a biblical scholar and a pastor, which she describes as “making me something of a spiritual hunchback, twisting and misshaping my inner self in ways that left me at heart both a cynic and a believer.” (p. 39) I was moved by her clarity and truthfulness as she grappled with having doubt and faith at the same time: “I was never certain even when I believed. I was only certain that I believed.” (41) She wrestles with how to juggle being a minister, mother, partner, writer, and scholar without letting any of them drop and is right on the mark in her critique of male scholars who say that the only way to be a contemplative writer is to have what for women is an unrealistic luxury of leaving the ordinary, everyday world behind. And on top of it all she seems to have a fondness for May Sarton! How I ever missed Listening for God when it came out several years ago is beyond me, but I’m very grateful to RevGalBlogPals for pointing me in its direction.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Listening for God
The book that RevGalBlogPals chose for its January 2008 read as Renita Weems’ Listening for God :A Minister’s Journey Through Silence and Doubt. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to read it then because I was so intensely preparing for my Contemporary Issues course that got cancelled the day before it was due to start. But I finally read Weems this weekend and, though I found the work terribly uneven, overall I LOVED it. I sympathized with her struggles as both a biblical scholar and a pastor, which she describes as “making me something of a spiritual hunchback, twisting and misshaping my inner self in ways that left me at heart both a cynic and a believer.” (p. 39) I was moved by her clarity and truthfulness as she grappled with having doubt and faith at the same time: “I was never certain even when I believed. I was only certain that I believed.” (41) She wrestles with how to juggle being a minister, mother, partner, writer, and scholar without letting any of them drop and is right on the mark in her critique of male scholars who say that the only way to be a contemplative writer is to have what for women is an unrealistic luxury of leaving the ordinary, everyday world behind. And on top of it all she seems to have a fondness for May Sarton! How I ever missed Listening for God when it came out several years ago is beyond me, but I’m very grateful to RevGalBlogPals for pointing me in its direction.
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