Rendering comprehensible different kinds of unhappiness

While it's true that, as Tolstoy observed, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and everyone on planet Earth, vale of tears that it is, is certainly entitled to the specificity of his or her suffering, one nonetheless likes to think that literature has the power to render comprehensible different kinds of unhappiness. If it can't do that, what's it good for?
-Elif Batuman, The Possessed

Redemption and the Memoir

To claim that my experience reading memoirs is vast, would be a gross overstatement. The memoirs I've read include the loosely Christian, more 'spiritual' memoirs of Don Miller and Anne Lamott. These memoirs seem to unpack a spirituality found through cool encounters or experiences of the heart. On the other end of the Christian memoir spectrum, I read Lauren Winner's Girl Meets God. The intrigue in reading this book came in her chronicling her experiences with Judaism and how that played into her eventual conversion. I can proudly claim that I have read the absolute classic Confessions, by Augustine. Finally, I have read a few memoirs chronicling the hard times experienced by children in Africa or the Middle East. These include What is the What, A Long Way Gone, and the graphic novel Persepolis. What is the What merits mentioning as Eggers notably intertwines and connects Valentino Achek Deng's terrible experiences as a "lost boy" during the Sudanese civil war with a burglary of Deng's house in America.

Within this quite limited memoir experience, I have found one memoirist in particular who I thoroughly enjoy reading, namely, Mary Karr. Her books are not as grave as What is the What or Long Way Gone and do not inspire geopolitical change as these two do. Nor are they the 'fluff' received in many Christian memoirs. Instead, they are raw memoirs chronicling her life. In The Liar's Club, Karr explores much of her childhood, including growing up with a mother who was married seven times (three in her lifetime). She explores how experiences such as sexual molestation and her drunk mother attempting to kill her and her sister with a butcher knife deeply affected her as a girl. In fact, she need vast amounts of therapy to overcome much of this. Karr writes with such wit and ingenuity that all of her memoirs are mesmerizing from the first page.

What I love about her third, and most recent, memoir, Lit, is that it is essentially a redemption memoir. With her other memoirs (Liar's Club & Cherry), it's tempting to get so caught up in her troubled life that you're left licking wounds from the terribleness of the various events. Though it is also rewarding to have seen her grow from such events. In Lit, however, the redemptive trajectory of Karr's life is glaringly obvious. This memoir chronicles how Karr became a raging alcoholic, just like her mother, despite her best intentions. Amidst this, Karr had to raise a young child while experiencing difficulties in her marriage. But the best part of Lit is that it chronicles Karr's rescue from this lifestyle. And her rescue ultimately comes through simple, frequent prayers to a God she has much trouble believing in. She finds great strength in the various spiritual exercises of the Catholic Church, witnessing how efficacious they are in her life.

This is a triumph in itself as it shows the disciplines involved in a Christian life defining one's experiences, rather than the inversion of this. It shows how powerful God is in simple prayers. And ultimately it shows redemption that only comes through a transformed life. But Karr's audience is primarily non-Christians. Which is why this memoir is so wonderful. She makes it accessible to those on the outside, who understand little of the Christian faith. I could go on and on, but you should just read it. Here's an excerpt to get you started (Dev's her son by the way):

"One Sunday after church, the kids are playing in the basement corner, and I'm studying the mangled body of Jesus on a small icon when I say to Dev--now age nine--Why the crucifixion?
He's fiddling with the knot in his shoe. What? he says. His interest in what I say is fast diminishing.
Why does redemption have to come through the crucifixion? I mean, why couldn't you play hopscotch or win at solitaire?
He rolls his eyes and picks at the knot.
I'm thinking of my pal Nick Flynn, I say. He has a poem about somebody giving him Mass cards of Jesus with His heart on fire. It ends, My version of hell/is someone ripping open his/shirt & saying,/look what I did for you.
That's funny, Dev says. He puts his shoe up so I can get the knot loose. I'm picking at it when he says, Who'd pay attention to hopscotch?
Whaddya mean? I say.
He says, I mean, the crucifixion is like Pulp Fiction (the film Mother illicitly showed him years before). Nobody would pay any attention to some goofy song that got sung. Or if God just went poof over you. People get baptized all the time. It's a big miracle to was a person's sins away. Nobody pays any attention at all to it.
That's it! I say. It's marketing. God reaches people by giving them the only kind of gory crap they'll pay attention to.
But Dev has slipped off his other dress shoe and run in stocking feet to join his noisy pals in their game. The bull's eye he hits is original sin. We are a hard-to-sell people--so venal and nuts that we'll crowd into the Coliseum, jubilant to see people hacked to death or devoured by beasts. Or we'll sit drooling before comparably horrific TV images. Only a crucifixion is awful enough to compel public imagination."

Granted, God could have redeemed humankind however he wanted. This was His sovereign and glorious (in the resurrection!) choice.

Every story whispers his name

"No, the Bible isn't a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It's an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It's a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne--everything--to rescue the one he loves. It's like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!
You see, the best thing about this Story is--it's true.
There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue Them.
It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle--the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture."
-From the opening section of The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones

This Children's Bible is in a league of its own because it aims to show how every story in the Bible points to Jesus. In this way, the Bible teaches children that Christianity is not about what we do, but about what God has done. In speaking about the Bible at chapel this past semester, Sally concluded by quoting Karl Barth, who coined "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." Check out the resources on the Bible's website here. Or buy it on amazon. But get it. for you. for your friends. for your kids. for your future kids. for the kids at your church. etc.

Sad Songs

"But before I reached the door I heard whistling. I stopped to listen: it was a slow, melancholy air, simple, repetitive, haunting. Bill Bob was the whistler. I snuck up to listen. There was something odd in the song; after a time I realized that this was the first time I'd heard him in a minor key. It made him seem old; it made me feel sad. And it made me feel good. Because sometimes happy songs will make sad people miserable, because they feel guilty that they aren't happy, on top of the sadness. But a sad song talks to the part that hurts, says, Yeah I know, yeah it's bad, yeah it hurts: but I'm with you. I feel it too." -David James Duncan, The River Why

such a great book. David James Duncan is a brilliant author and creates timeless characters. read it.