Torn by Justin Lee

Okay, I haven’t actually read the above book in its entirety yet. Jessica at Faith Permeating Life is hosting a giveaway of seven copies of Torn just because she thinks it’s so important for people to read it, and I too hope it will be widely read. Here’s why.

Justin Lee, who blogs at Crumbs for the Communion Table and is the executive director of the Gay Christian Network, strives to practice patience, kindness, and peacemaking with an intensity that is all too rare in the Christian Church today. To give just one example, check out his unusual post on the passage of Amendment One in his home state of North Carolina. Although he disagreed with the amendment, which officially banned same-sex marriage in the state constitution, he wrote to urge those in the LGBTQ community and their allies not to resort to name-calling and stereotyping, casting North Carolina as a state of backwards bigots. No doubt personally heartbroken over the result of the vote, he nonetheless wrote with great humility: “[Amendment One] is not, as some have imagined, about intentional bigotry. It is about a lack of understanding, pure and simple—of who we are, what we want, and why it matters. Education is needed, and that is what I will keep dedicating myself to, every single day of my life.”

Torn is just another part of Lee’s work of education and promotion of understanding. With a striking lack of self-pity or blame, he relates his own struggle as a young adult who loved God, knew he was gay, and feared rejection from the Church that had always been his family. As someone who cares deeply about Scripture, he explains his reading of the relevant Bible passages. He is unafraid to take on what he sees as flaws in the theology of LGBTQ Christians as well as conservative Christians, always striving for respectful dialogue rather than aggressive argument. This is an important book because, unlike so many on the issue, it draws no line in the sand between Us and Them that, if crossed, will justify dismissing Them as bigoted or depraved. Lee continually affirms that each person has a story to tell that deserves careful attention.

I just pray people on both sides of that artificial line will read the book, learn a little more about each other, and start to rethink this crazy Gays-vs-Christians debate.

 

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

First finished read of 2013! Woohoo!

This book was a Christmas gift from a friend in 2011. I picked it up a few times in 2012 but didn’t get very far, since it was kind of triggering for me. You may also find it so if you’ve experienced any kind of abuse or neglect in your childhood or if you are emotionally close to anyone who’s brilliant yet deeply self-destructive. However, from the fairly stable place I am in right now, it was well worth the read, one of those stories you can’t put down because it’s almost too crazy to be believed, but definitely too crazy to be made up.

Matter-of-factly, Walls tells the story of her childhood, starting with her first memory, which is of being in the hospital at three years old for severe burns requiring a skin graft. Her clothes had caught fire when she was preparing hot dogs – as she explains to the worried hospital staff, her mother says she’s very mature for her age and lets her cook for herself a lot. And this is the good part of the book; at least they have hot dogs to cook at this point. For most of The Glass Castle, Walls and her three siblings routinely lack food, heat, electricity, humane living conditions, and the list goes on. Walls’ parents are, in their own way, pretty brilliant: her dad is a whiz at physics and engineering, and her mom reads classic literature and paints prolifically. Yet Dad is also an alcoholic and Mom is a self-proclaimed “excitement addict,” and they run through jobs like Kleenex and seem to always have to leave town in the middle of the night. As Wells reveals early on in the book, her parents end up homeless in New York City, refusing all help, while Walls, grown up and a successful journalist, is living on Park Avenue.

Walls’ prose is heartwrenchingly honest but not self-indulgent; she masterfully describes the love for her parents that lives in tension with her anger at their neglect and their bad (sometimes jaw-droppingly bad) decisions, as well as her determination to create a better life than the one she’s known. Some might view this as the ultimate “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” story, but Walls shies away from overt politics for the most part. This is just one of those remarkable true stories, remarkably told.