I’m not that into sermons, but I love to be put in my place. These days it happens less and less from the pulpit and more via Memoir. You might think that if I wanted guidance, the place to start might be the Christian Living or Spiritual Growth shelf, but you’d be wrong, because those books read like self-help or Hallmark Cards. They lack the essential ingredient I need to engage: story. Just like the Bible is story, and Judeo-Christian celebration is always about re-visiting what God has done, Memoir reminds me how to live. Lately, I’ve read a number of thoughtful, personal memoirs, but I connected particularly with this one.
Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote her spiritual memoir entitled “Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner and Saint” in 2013. Published by Jericho Books.
In poignant and hilarious stories from her life, from junkie to Lutheran pastor of the Denver community A House for all Sinners and Saints, Nadia Bolz-Weber weaves the mundane against the backdrop of Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus in the garden on Easter morning. Unlike many popular Christian writers today, she does not exploit her family for the sake of telling a good story. Nor does she indulge in the salacious aspects of her wild partying days for voyeuristic readers. Some reviewers take offense at the amount of profanity sprinkled throughout her stories, but consider the amount of indecipherable Christianese found elsewhere that causes pain and offense before discounting Bolz-Weber on account of the number of f-bombs per chapter. Sometimes they’re well placed, sometimes it’s typical shock and awe but in the end, I’m not looking to criticize the vocabulary, even if at times I think it’s lazy. I’m looking to be challenged through story, and she delivers.
In 2015, I heard Nadia Bolz-Weber speak at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids. Sadly, I can’t actually remember much of what she said except for when she described an anecdote about a time when her church was low on funds. One of her parishioners took it upon himself to get glitzy tank tops printed with the words: “Tithe Bitches! This Shit Ain’t Free!” I laughed so hard I almost fell off the bleachers. At the end of her talk, we sang a hymn, which she led. It was beautiful but the venue was humungous and she seemed irritated by the echo from the microphone and the fact that the podium was about a foot too low for her tall frame. I got the impression after having done her thing she’d collect her cheque and hightail it back to Colorado as quickly as possible. After I read her book, I realized my impression wasn’t that far off the mark. She really does come across as a bit cranky – to the point of admitting she has misanthropic tendencies that seemed incongruous to her vocation. And yet…
Her stories are refreshing and hope-filled. I wasn’t expecting to identify with her so closely because I was distracted by our superficial differences. I’ve never been hooked on drugs or alcohol or lost decades of my life in basement hovels. She has double-tattooed sleeves to remind herself of her true identity; I have a ridiculous amount of yellow sticky notes, that in no world would ever be cool inked on my forearm. (Ex: “Stop Whining – You’re an Adult!”)
But when she wrote about going to Costco and renting a candy floss machine to rally her congregation (epic fail), and later feeling resentful doing the dishes alone in the church hall – that’s when I felt close to her. When she talked about not giving a shit about her parishioners’ problems because her back was aching, I thought there was hope for a contrarian like me, too. I want to be loving, but much of the time I’m wishing people would get in the kitchen and wash the dishes beside me. Ever heard of Martha? She’s my patron saint.
She describes tensions with the denomination she serves (check), life-giving relationships with other pastors and leaders (check) and the challenge to find the words to encourage her flock each week when floods, terrorist attacks, con-artists and movie-theatre shootings happen. Her past might not mirror mine, but the magical and mundane struggles of her present reality do, and her writing caused me to think about the state of my heart when life gets messy. Here’s a small sample of some of the insights that touched me most.
1.) On Expanding My Spiritual Imagination
“I can’t imagine that God doesn’t reveal God’s self in countless ways outside the symbol system of Christianity. In a way, I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise, it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine.
Pg. 15-16 “God’s Aunt”
A sculpture from the Crystal Cathedral depicting the scene from John 8.
2.) On Authority and Rules, Light & Darkness
I love rules. I like to know what’s expected of me and I have high expectations of others, too. Words like “flexibility” and “reschedule” raise my blood pressure. So, unsurprisingly it gets annoying to follow Jesus, who has been a pain in the ass about reminding me he’s more into grace than rules.
In one particularly poignant section in the chapter entitled “I Didn’t Call You For This Truth Bullshit” Nadia Bolz-Weber relates a story about how exhausted she is taking care of an old friend who’s hiding drug addiction. Another friend says to her, “Nadia…you have a limited amount of time and emotional energy in your life, and you are squandering tons of it on this one situation so that you can maintain the idea of yourself as being a loyal friend.”
This anecdote resonated with me because I love the image I have of myself as a loyal friend, too, and can recount similar tales of evenings spent with troubled friends while my own babies waited at home.
She goes on to mediate on many other examples of how postmodernists confuse goodness with truth.
“There’s a popular misconception that religion, Christianity specifically, is about knowing the difference between good and evil so that we can choose the good. Being good has never set me free the way truth has. Knowing all this makes me love and hate Jesus at the same time. Because, when instead of contrasting good and evil, he contrasted truth and evil, I have to think about all the times I’ve substituted being good (or appearing to be good) for truth.”
I’m guilty of confusing altruism with messianic zeal and need to be constantly reminded that I don’t need to save the world; Instead, I need to understand that I am known, that I am enough. I need that clarity that following rules might make me feel good but it’s better to understand truth and know grace.
3.) On Finding Your Calling
Nadia Bolz-Weber writes as someone who has found her passion and purpose. By that, I mean that she has identified the candle she needs to protect in order to bring light into the world. As Frederick Buechner wrote: “Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.”
With great humour she writes about befriending the “Pirate Christian”, Chris Rosebrough, a man who runs a radio broadcast aimed at reigning in heretics. What I loved about this particular story was that despite her intelligence and awareness of all the discordant players who profess the same faith, she does not offer a scathing critique of the Other; instead she recounts the emergence of an unlikely friendship. Gently, she encourages me, through her stories, to find friendship not only in the stranger, but in someone so different I might consider them an enemy. She writes that miracles are possible when we lay down our weapons. It reminded me of the Dallas Willard concept of exercising the discipline of not having the last word.
Indeed, the element of answering seems particular to her calling. In a time of seemingly near-apocalyptic storms and floods, when all the right-wing wingnuts proclaim God’s judgement, she is able to counter these declarations with wisdom and truth. In the chapter entitled “The Haitian Stations of the Cross”, she writes:
“ … Our God is not a distant judge nor a sadist, but a God who weeps. A God who suffers, not only for us, but with us. Nowhere is the presence of God amidst suffering more salient than on the cross. Therefore what can I do but confess that this is not a God who causes suffering. This is a God who bears suffering. I need to believe that God does not initiate suffering; God transforms it.”
WWI War Memorial in New Zealand
4.) On Choosing Faith over Feelings
I’ve long been suspicious of feelings. Especially when it comes to decision making. The expression “go with your gut” or “listen to your intuition” is great when you’re choosing a marriage partner, but less useful when reacting to the achingly human experience of being wronged.
Have you heard of the “grudge” gene? It’s a huge impediment to a full life. If I went with “my gut”, I would never forgive anyone for any sleight, real or imagined, and be in chains to the darkness of my hurt feelings. (Not to mention how lonely I’d be.) Forgiveness isn’t something I feel, but something I practice because I believe in it.
In writing about a pastor who took a very unpopular move and performed the funeral rites for Dylan Klebold, one of the Columbine shooters, Nadia Bolz-Weber muses that he acted on faith, not feelings. He believed in the dignity of all people. He believed in the power of forgiveness. He probably felt the same disgust and aberration as everyone else at the loss of life and innocence, but he put his career on the line for his beliefs. I know following a moral code sounds close to following rules, and that’s a stumbling block for me, yet I also think God doesn’t me to be a flake, especially when it comes to trust.
Later, in the chapter entitled “Doormats and Wrinkled Vestments”, Bolz-Weber continues with the story of a parishioner who has seen dramatic re-birth in his own life, but doesn’t feel it all the time. Here is her response to the collective experience believers have, when despite their faith, they don’t feel it.
"There are times when faith feels like a friendship with God. But there are many other times when it feels more adversarial or even vacant. Yet none of that matters in the end. How we feel about Jesus or how close we feel to God is meaningless next to how God acts upon us. How God enters our messy lives and loves us through them, whether we want God’s help or not. And how, even after we’ve experienced some sort of resurrection, it’s never perfect or impressive like an Easter bonnet, because, like Jesus, resurrected bodies are always in rough shape."
If you need a little talking to, I recommend the lady with the Mary Magdalene tattoo. She doesn’t offer fifteen ways to a better life, but she does tell some great stories, wherein you might see yourself and will surely catch a glimpse of God.