Book Review: Something Other Than God

Well.

I am one of the many bloggers who bought this book.

I bought it at the time I did 

actually so I could get the e-book she wrote on creativity and family;

I read it in just over a 24 hour period. 

I thought I would do a short review here,

as I find myself still thinking about this book.

*

If you want to read this book know that I am going to discuss some of it

at length and could be viewed as a 'spoiler'. 

*

It is, as Jennifer F. hopes, a good read.

It is well written and the work she put into it and the editorial 

staff that is at this press is very good.

There was only 1 page towards the beginning of the book

that I at all found slightly forced in the way that a Christian

trying to explain a conversion could be forced.

That's pretty impressive actually, as it is really hard

not to sound 'preachy' when a new convert to Christianity and perhaps to

Catholicism.

*

Of course I can't speak on the latter part, 

but I do know, as someone who converted to the 

Eastern Orthodox church almost 10 years ago,

that the early years of a convert are often full of zeal and 

sometimes can mistakenly turn off others.

*

It's pretty big to grow up atheist and convert to 

being a Catholic, have a difficult at times life-threatening disease

and thus also difficult pregnancies,

as she writes about.

*

I really appreciated her writing on contraception and 

the role of women and how 

pro-choice is not honouring to a woman and her body

or helpful for the healing and health of a society.

This part was very well written, thoughtful and needed.

*

I had met someone in the last months who I wish I would of had

Jennifer F.'s insights on this when conversing with her.

*

Her narration of her meeting her husband, marrying,

becoming a mother was all very well done;

the book carries well and one wants to read to the end!

*

There is one (slight) weakness I found in the book,

that is not dealt with in a way that is fully helpful to me as 

an outsider to many of the details of Catholicism.

*

It's on a very painful and serious subject,

that of people dying outside the Church

and perhaps outside of Christianity.

While it is really good that Jennifer brought it up,

it made me feel or wonder if

Catholic's view of purgatory was more universalist that I suspected.

So much so that I had to ask Mr. Husband about it.

He simply said Catholics view that 

if one was journeying towards God than they can be 

in purgatory and after perhaps a long time of purification

can go to heaven.

But if one was not journeying towards God, 

then hell is where they will be.

*

Now keep in mind that I know that this is a very hard and difficult topic.

Actually the one Catholic funeral that I was at was

when I was not quite a young adult and

the mother of the woman who died,

towards the end of the very nice sermon about the woman

who died a very sad death....

when the priest mentioned heaven this Mother/Grandmother cried out such a

painful heart wrenching cry; she had to be carried out in the end,

she had totally collapsed.

It was one of the hardest moments of my life 

because I knew it was because the mother did not believe

her daughter who had died tragically was in heaven.

It was so very sad...

*

I talked to a monastic years later about this woman who died,

and who I had always been impressed with as the most

accepting person I had ever met.

I was told that one never knows what virtue God saw in her broken life

and I have this departed woman on my prayer list,

and keep hoping in the mercy of Christ for her, as I do for myself.

*

But I still feel like this most difficult topic of 

people dying and purgatory was not fully helpful to me,

as hell as a possible end place was simply not mentioned as

an option, which is why I call this a (slight) weakness Jennifer's book.

*

Hell is something that Orthodox believe, just like Heaven, as something

that starts here on earth and that everyone has free will

to choose where they want to be and with whom.

*

It's not an easy topic at all and I firmly believe that no one can judge 

and must NOT judge a person living or dead;

I appreciated Flannery O'Connor

saying in one of her letters in the book

habit of being that a former priest, who was being considered for 

canonization, was dropped after it was learned that he had

judged someone who had died as being in hell.

*

I am really glad that I can trust in the mercy of God;

I don't know fully how to resolve how one's 

posture should be towards this topic,

other than to say that the Orthodox church, from all I've read,

believes that prayers for the dead help everyone

but that hell is real; heaven is real; the gate is narrow

and we all need to continue to ask the Lord for mercy.

*

The only other thing that would at all be a weakness is really

not a weakness as much as the nature of the book's time frame.

It ends beautifully with a continued well-written and contained story.

*

Her writing on her first confession and the impact it had was very well done.

Her bringing things full-circle on many levels and resolving many themes

and narrating the true difference in her and her husband's lives because of 

Christ and the Catholic church is well done and finished well.

*

The only weakness I find in it is that life is not done yet.

What was not here is simply the next ten years of her life, which 

I would guess are also awakenings to the fact 

that being a Christian is hard. 

That one can struggle with one's own brokenness and feel 

fainthearted at the lack of progress one sees in one's self,

after going to confession for years about certain things.

That there is a lot of mercy of God in life,

deep deep mercy,

but that there is also a lot of struggle and that 

it is really hard to be a Christian and grow as one.

*

The book ends beautifully and resolves the main issues of the book,

not just Jennifer and her husband Joe's conversion,

but some of the big struggles, like the desperation she felt and 

the haunted-by-poverty that Joe felt.

This was all very good and very well written.

But the fact that conversion to Christ is a lifelong struggle,

because of the book's structure and narration of the resolution of things,

simply is not mentioned.  

So, ending while the ending is beautiful it wraps things up

a bit neater than I know life to be.

*

I think this is why I like (and re-read) books by Kathleen Norris; 

she deals with the issues that so many of us struggle with,

like acedia for instance. 

But to be fair, this book is about why and how she 

became a Christian, not how she stays a Christian and struggles.

*

So all in all, 

Jennifer's book was a good read, it was not, to me anyway,

overtly preachy, it narrated her journey and story well.

It was really helpful in her writing about women, choice, 

contraception and how she struggled with Christianity and

in the end became one herself.

She clearly helps and influences many people and is clearly

loved and appreciated by many, and I can see why.