books: barbara brown taylor, steven king, elizabeth berg

I have to confess that I cheated on this entry. I first got the idea to read Barbara Brown Taylor's memoir of faith "Leaving Church" after walking into Market Block Books (my favorite local bookstore, just a few blocks from where I live and work) one day and noticing its staff recommendation (kudos to Stanley, who writes of his other reading journeys at stanleyreads.blogspot.com). Too cheap at the time to buy the book, I checked it out from Troy Public Library (did you know you can request books from the Upper Hudson Library System? Do it! I get cookbooks, Pilates DVDs, children's books, and all the latest and greatest books requested all the time... and it's a fun surprise when I go to pick up all the books on hold, to enjoy for free!).

Barbara Brown Taylor is inspiring. She writes of her journey of faith that began with knowing God through creation and wanting to further investigate faith through seminary, becoming ordained as an Episcopal deacon, then shepherding a small flock in rural Georgia before leaving it behind to worship God in her garden and in her house in the country. She writes of the power of the cloth -- and how the collar she wore changed others' conversations with her, as it did with her relationship with God. Separated into two parts, "Losing" and "Finding," the book follows her journey of faith that ultimately leads her back to God by leaving the altar and her role in front of the church to sit quietly with God over a cup of coffee in her kitchen. It's a journey of finding God in the relationship, rather than the religion and Mother Church, and it's honest and beautiful.

When I finished reading "Leaving Church," I was compelled to write a letter to the author (I wonder if authors really read their fan mail, and I feel embarrassed confessing that I wrote such fan mail!) to add my amen.

That wasn't true, however, with "Lisey's Story," the latest novel by Steven King. It begins with the death of a well-published author and his widow's attempt to sort through his office, manuscripts and voices. That's right; voices. Voices that the late protagonist channeled in order to write, voices that haunted his office and began to lurk and drive his widow nuts. Entering that journey was not a healthy thing for me, a writer who believes in spiritual forces, darkness and light.

I couldn't read this book after the first few chapters. Despite critical acclaim, I failed to remember Steven King writes strange fiction, eerie fiction that I cannot handle. It spooks me out, and this book is no different. Although I did appreciate King's "On Writing," a non-fiction commentary on how he writes, I just can't read his fiction. I'm too sensitive, I suppose.

So I picked up Elizabeth Berg's "The Handmaid and The Carpenter," a short, easy read during the holidays. Berg takes poetic license -- and she knows it, at least -- when writing about Mary and Joseph, their family and the voices they hear, through angels and dreams, before the birth of Jesus. Surprisingly, it doesn't end with Jesus' birth, attended in this story by a young girl named Rebecca -- a new mother who comes to catch Jesus when Joseph is not able to locate the village midwife during the busy time of Caesar's census in Bethlehem and beyond. Rather, it culminates with Joseph's death... but falls flat at that. Perhaps Joseph really did question Mary, accusing her on his deathbed of sleeping with a Roman soldier. And perhaps Mary did speak more of the kingdom of God that is inside and around us, evident in God's creation and in the law Joseph and other Jews study all the time. But this attempt to humanize the story of the circumstances surrounding Mary and Joseph and the Christ-child's immaculate conception also makes it a bit too New Agey for me. It's a hard undertaking. I do empathize with Mary, I do want to believe that she was a free spirit who was unlike other women. But I also wonder if Mary was like Berg's Mary: questioning but always willing to obey her husband and telling him, even as he dies, that he's leaving behind a legacy of love. The details are wonderful -- the food being eaten, the languages spoken, the pallets they slept on with family -- but I wouldn't necessarily want to try to play with who Mary really was or wasn't. Nevertheless, I admire Berg for keeping Mary realistic in some respects; after all, Mary was just 13 years old when she was betrothed and spoken to by angels. It IS hard to imagine! So...

Go read Berg's "The Handmaid and the Carpenter" this Advent season, and tell me what you think. (I wonder how it will fare along with the film "The Nativity Story.") Send your thoughts and reviews to: artsblog@terranovachurch.org