Still..In The Middle

On a whim (and a recommendation from Rachel Held Evans), I picked up Still: Notes On A Mid-faith Crisis by Lauren Winner. A big fan of her style (Girls Meets God; Mudhouse Sabbath), I expected Still to be a nice diversion for vacation reading.

I picked it up first this morning, out of the stack of twelve (yes, twelve) books I brought with me to the beach. I took it with me and read while keeping a nervous eye on the kids and my brother in the hungry, tumultuous surf. I dragged it to the pool. I propped it on my chest and read until I dozed on the couch before dinner.

I just put it down, arriving at the final page in a wry wonder at the subtle love of God.

See, I feel so much in the middle these days. Middle age. Middle of kids leaving home. Middle of my career. Middle of physical changes. Middle of spiritual questions.

This book was full of things like this:

"My friend Ruth's mother once told her, 'Every ten years you have to remake everything.' Reshape yourself. Reorient yourself. Remake everything."

Remake everything.

"It turns out the Christian story is a good story in which to learn to fail...I am not a saint. I am, however, beginning to learn that I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God."

Excellent start to my vacation. Good book, the kind I'd like to purchase and reread every year.

Most interesting: the book ends with a lengthy quote from a Richard Rohr book, Falling Upward. Earlier today, an acquaintance on Facebook responded a blog post I'd written with a beautiful, hopeful Richard Rohr quote.

Serendipity, your first name is familiar to me.

I'm in the market for a Richard Rohr book, too.

And Still by Lauren Winner? Highly recommended.