Book Review: Grace for the Good Girl

A few months ago, the women on 100 Huntley Street’s Full Circle interviewed Emily P. Freeman about her book, Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-hard Life.  I considered not watching this particular interview. Frankly, the Good Girl label made me bristle.

You see, I’m a former Good Girl. As a young adult, I got good grades, I volunteered with special needs children, and I never smoked or snuck out the window at night. I was Amanda Bynes in Easy A with the judgemental attitude to boot.  But then life got more complicated and my halo lost a lot of its sheen. Nowadays, when I can find my halo amidst all the baggage, I can see that it is really quite tarnished and has a great big divorce-sized dent. But the Good Girl remains. Sometimes she confronts me in the mirror, twirling her purity pearls around one finger and wagging the other finger in my face making a tsking noise.

I watched the interview in spite of myself. Perhaps it was a God moment. Perhaps I was just procrastinating from doing something else. The author proved to be a Good Girl indeed. She’s a mother of three and minister’s wife who writes for Hallmark and signs for the deaf. Yup. Oh, and she’s charming and soft-spoken. But instead of feeling pushed away, I felt myself drawn in by the interview. I immediately went out to buy the book.

Freeman is a talented writer. She has a background in theology and adeptly weaves scripture – and sound interpretation – into the text. Hers a personal story but never descends into mawkishness. She comes across as self-aware and shows an objectivity when it comes to her own life that one does not always find in memoir.

Freeman is the daughter of an alcoholic and, like many young women who comes from less-than-perfect backgrounds, she learned that life was simpler when she did not create many waves: ”I was good because I was afraid of boys, afraid of hell, and afraid of getting into trouble.” She embraced Jesus at an early age, but secretly believed that she had to perform well to impress God: “My personal truth was I have to be perfect. And when I’m not, I have to pay.” So she studied hard and got good grades, went to church, and didn’t rebel. She took pride in her Good Girl status. ”I put all my confidence in the things that were awesome about myself and tried to hide the things that weren’t. If Jesus fit in there somewhere, well then that was nice. But if he didn’t, I was doing okay on my own anyway.”

But she wasn’t OK on her own. Being a Good Girl is exhausting. Pleasing people, trying to earn God’s favour, and managing one’s image can start to feel like a full-time job. Freeman writes about how she was always putting on masks: Ideal Wife, Perfect Mother, Best Friend. Masks are heavy when they are on. And when they are ripped away – which is sort of what happened to me – it can feel as though there is nothing left. That’s the trouble with relying on self instead of relying on God’s Grace. When you trip and your performance is no longer perfect, you don’t know where to turn. As a Good Girl, you are not used to asking for help from anyone, not even God.

Self-reliance is the sin of the Good Girl and it is as harmful as any of the other sins that separate one from God. But it’s harder to give up than, say, promiscuity or gossip, because it is almost always praised (“Such Good grades!” “Such a good job!) by the same people — parents, teachers and ministers — who warn against other transgressions. It’s no wonder that at times in her life, Freeman has been jealous of her more rebellious peers.

Growing up in the church, I heard a lot of testimonies from people who went from bad to Jesus. Their lives consisted of one bad decision after another, which is what made their story so powerful. From alcohol, drugs, sex, and cigarettes, their rebellion would lead to a dramatic climax. Jesus showed up and their lives looked completely different. There was no denying that God got the credit. As a girl who accepted Jesus at a young age, I couldn’t relate. Im fact, I admit to sometimes wishing I had a few years of rebellion under my belt. Then my story would be interesting and dramatic too.

At times, Freeman worried that she might be overlooked by God:

I know that God is big enough to redeem the unruly, the rejected, and the addict. I know about the God who reaches way down into the pit  and the One whose love stretches to the heavens. But I fear he misses the details. What about the girl in the middle? I fear I fall through the cracks because my story draws no attention.

The feeling that others, especially those who are leading lives of obvious sin, might be attracting more attention from God builds resentment in the Good Girl who so closely links performance with reward. Freeman writes about the story of the Prodigal Son, admitting that there have been periods in her life where she has identified with the older brother who finds it wildly unfair that his father throws a party for his brother, who has only returned to the family home after he has squandered his inheritance on riotous living. The party, he feels, should have been for him – the son who did everything right –  and he refuses to come into the house to celebrate:

Good girls think there should be consequences for the actions of the prodigal, not a party. There should be a husband and a happy ending for the girl who has saved herself for marriage, not the one who was promiscuous ever since high school yet still landed the nice guy and just celebrated her fifth anniversary with a trip to Palm Springs….There should be reward for those who do good and punishment for those who don’t. So we get angry. But good girls aren’t supposed to be angry, so we convince ourselves we don’t really care and it doesn’t really matter.

But of course, as Freeman observes, the point of the story is that we all receive our Father’s love: Good Girls and Bad: “Jesus didn’t die so I’d feel a kinship with the prodigal, and he certainly didn’t die so I could feel a kinship with the older brother. That older son had a deep misunderstanding about his father’s acceptance of him. He worked hard to try to get something he already had.”

What he had, of course, was Grace. He had God’s love: always given, never earned. Although Freeman has been a practicing Christian since she was a little girl, it took her years before she realized that God meant Grace for the Good Girl too:

I understood at an early age about the first rescue. Jesus came to save sinners. He came for the lost, the broken, the hurt, and the lonely. He came to heal sick people and to raise dead people and to die for the sins of everyone. Never once did I consider he also came to save me from myself.

The purpose of the book is to show that there is Grace for the Good Girl too. She realized that she needed saving from her Good Girl self: from the striving and the burden of trying to do everything on her own.

I think of the effort and the work. And then the shame. I think of the worry that keeps me up at night and the fear that perhaps I’ve not done enough. I think of the way I compare myself and the pain that comes when I grasp for worth and security from my husband or my job or my children. Jesus came to save me from myself. He came to save me from self-effort. He didn’t just die for my sin to give me forgiveness; he rose again to give me life.

Rather than feeling resentful that she is extended no more favour than those who are a little more casual in upholding the laws of God, she came to see the laws for what they are: ”The law was designed to expose our heart condition, to make us see our guilt. It was never meant to make us righteous.” She believes that the reason the laws are so stringent, and so hard to keep that even the best of the Good Girls will stumble at times is to highlight that we are not meant to do things on our own and to bring us closer to God:

The law was given to lead the unbeliever to her Savior, not for the believer to try to keep it….Without the standard, we would never be aware of our desperate need. Law in the life of the believer will do the same thing it is designed to do in the life of a non-believer: lead her to the end of her own resources.

Good Girls fear that if they are not perfect, they will not be loved. Fear drives the relentless need to perform. But as Freeman points out in her interview, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7) She urges the Good Girl to stop trying so hard, to put her faith in Christ, and to lay the heavy yoke of self-reliance at the feet of the Father who never required her to don it in the first place.

Freeman has a new book coming out in September titled, Graceful: Letting Go of Your Try-Hard Life. I’m pre-ordering it now.

Housekeeping

Oh, and for any former Bliss Notes readers, I decided to launch a photos-only design blog as an anchor for my Pinterest site. It can be found here.

Stained glass and crash helmets

So, the last several weeks have been very busy. I’ve been immersed in the world of real estate: buying and selling houses with wild abandon. Also, I did some more wedding stuff, met with the accountant who does my taxes, and had my car fixed after being involved in a hit and run accident.

Frankly, it’s been a lot.

The changes are positive and my life is blessed in countless ways, but moving and all it entails is never stress-free. Plus, I think I have some mild post-tramatic stress disorder resulting from my last move that is spilling over onto this one. I’ve tried to use my faith as an anchor to keep me calm. I’ve been listening to Joyce Meyer podcasts (love the 2-parter Be Stable), reading the Bible, watching Full Circle online, and repeating Julian of Norwich’s “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

I’ve also been trying to focus on the many blessings. Yes, my car was damaged in an accident but — a few bruises notwithstanding — I was generally fine. I also had the wherewithal to take a photo of the other car’s license plate before the driver left the scene so the insurance company was able to waive my deductible once the police tracked the guy down. I was blessed with multiple offers to buy my house. That’s the first time that has ever happened to me and, wow, what a nice feeling; as Mel Books said, “It’s good to the the king.” Plus, I met a lot of good people along the way: painters, real estate agents, home inspectors, police officers, car repair people, caterers, accountants, and insurance agents. Oh, and the food for the wedding is going to be exquisite.

I’m still on my hunt for a church, although I have less intensity about it at the moment. It has been a gorgeous sunny winter and I truly believe that on the occasional Sunday, God’s presence is more easily found on a sunny ski slope than in a building…

Part of me is drawn to the soon-to-be-local evangelical church. It’s a nice group of people and they are active in their faith. Theologically, the church is more conservative than I am, but there is a broad range of beliefs among the congregants and the minister seems open to new ideas. There are a lot of young families and a good-sized Sunday School, which is a huge plus. But lately, I’ve found myself missing the structure that a liturgy-based service – such as that of the Anglican church – provides. I derive a certain degree of comfort from a set script: “Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places…”  In the new church, I always feel a little off-balance. I never know if I will be getting a provocative message a la Rob Bell, a traditional three-point sermon from an old-school biblical scholar, or if some dude in a baseball cap (A baseball cap! In church!) will be holding forth. When the sermon is strong it works beautifully and the service feels fresh and vital and rather what I imagine God desires for us (if he did not want us to feel challenged in our faith, there would not be all this “through a glass, darkly” stuff, I figure.) When it does not work  - and I have sat through a few services recently where it did not (yes, I was the one in the side row muttering about Elmer Gantry under my breath…) – it leaves me feeling deeply unsatisfied. While the down-side of a set liturgy is that the services can begin to seem stale, the upside of a set  liturgy is that it guarantees one a certain worship experience, regardless of what is happening in the pulpit on any given Sunday. You know you will get an Old Testament reading and a New Testament reading, you will have prayers for the people and passing of the peace. There will be communion. You know that you will come away feeling like you have spent some quality time with God. You won’t leave the banquet feeling hungry. I think that God desires that for us too.

This Sunday, in reaction to one of those off-days in the pulpit a few Sundays ago, I went to the soon-to-be-local Anglican church. Even though I had never been in this particular church before, somehow it felt like home. I realized how much I love the church bells, the organ music, the robes, the stained glass, the formality of the reading of the Gospel, the altar, and the choir. I love that Anglicans all over Canada are hearing the same readings and saying the same words during communion. When I think about what it is that I like about the Anglican service, I feel a little like Le Carré’s traitor in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - who, when asked why he gave British intelligence to the Russians, responds, “It’s an aesthetic judgment as much as anything.” It seems shallow to focus on the surface matters – the kneelers, the hymnals, the silver chalice – but for me those things contribute to a sense of reverence. I like to see the cross displayed prominently and the Gospel to be elevated because it shows that God is not only to be loved but is also to be respected and a little feared. As Annie Dillard points out in Teaching a Stone to Talk, God is a power-house and going to church is a serious business: “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?…It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.”

But the Anglican church is an older church in terms of demographics. And a big reason I want to find a home church is to find a growing Christian community for our family.

Perhaps I don’t have to choose. On Sundays, I can attend the evangelical church with my family. On Wednesdays I can attend the communion service at the Anglican church. If one Christian community is good, then surely two will be better…

But we cannot be married in two places. So after much consideration, we have asked to be married in the Anglican church by a friend who is a minister. I don’t believe for a minute that God cares where we marry. He will find us wherever we are. I find Him a little easier to spot, however, when I’m surrounded by stained glass and organ music. So being married in this beautiful church will be a blessing. I’ll simply have to find a crash helmet that matches my Jenny Packham gown.

The Tablet of my Heart

The last few years have been hard – Job hard. They’ve been so hard that when something amazing happens, it’s almost impossible to believe it’s really happening. To not think, “Best not to get too excited about this, because it’s all bound to go pear-shaped.”

But that’s not what Christianity is all about. It’s not one of these philosophies of detachment where we don’t get too excited about anything as a way to protect our hearts. We are commanded to be joyful. As Psalm 118:24 declares: “This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

It’s been an amazing year full of things I could not even begin to imagine. It’s proof positive of Ephesians 3:20, that God can “accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.”

My challenge is simply to be able to relax into it all and enjoy, and to focus on the “thank you, thank you, thank you” of prayer instead of the “help me, help me, help me.” And to not keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Unless, of course, that shoe completes a pair of sparkly white Louboutins.

Yup, I’m getting married!

Not All Sackcloth and Ashes

I’m a grown woman who will be teaching a course in strategic leadership at the university. I should be reading books about Bayesian probability and the future of the Euro. As a Christian, I should also be elbow-deep in C.S. Lewis books and various translations of the Bible. And yet, the coffee table in my living room – one of the places I most love to read — looks like this:

(Well, actually it looks like this, plus a half-dozen shelter magazines, tatty and dog-eared from excessive reading.)

I love – really love – reading about design.

There, I said it.

While the bible focuses more on developing inner beauty than focusing on exterior matters, there certainly seems to be a place in God’s kingdom for beautiful things and the people who make them:

Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers. (Exodus 35:30-35)

If we are made in His image, then surely our ability to create beauty is encouraged.

Even though ours is a consumer society, and there is a focus on accumulating a lot of stuff, there seems to be less focus on beautiful design and craftsmanship. Clothes and home furnishings are all but disposable and I’m not sure our homes are the havens they are meant to be. I like the idea of better rather than more. The bible talks a lot about home, describing it often as a place of security and comfort and family. One of my favourite psalms tells how ”Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young— a place near your altar.” (Psalm 84:3) The desire to create a lovely home and nest seems God-given, and yet these days it seems like a luxury to be able to focus on such things.

I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that I want to use this space to write not only about my faith journey, but about life in general. For me, creating a nice home, doing good work, raising my family well, loving the people in my life, taking care of myself, and bringing more joy into the world is completely intertwined with my faith.

And while I’m not sure that writing about, say, the gorgeous tapestries from the 1700s that Karl Lagerfeld has in his apartment is entirely suitable fodder for this blog (mind you, the subject matter is the story of Esther…) I do hope you’ll indulge me from time to time.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

So, a month has passed since I last wrote — how did that happen?? It’s been busy. Lots of work writing, lots of illness, and a trip to New York in between. Oh, plus I’m now a certified Myers-Briggs practitioner. Busy times.

New York was fabulous, as always. I ate at Babbo and stayed at the Palace. What’s not to like? While there, I saw the new production of Godspell at Circle In The Square. I’d seen Jesus Christ Superstar at Stratford two weeks earlier and, given that they are both revivals of 1970s musicals about the life of Jesus, it’s hard not to compare. Jesus Christ Superstar was a much slicker production and I preferred the music, but Godspell was such a tremendously energetic production with such talented performers that I found myself being drawn in. I loved the intimacy of the theatre-in-the-round setting and it was interesting being able to watch other people in the audience and see their reactions: at times, people were very moved, as was I. The production tried to reflect current sensibilities and it seemed as through it might veer toward being irreverent, but it pulled back and was able to get away with more than I thought they could because it all seemed to be done with the right spirit. At intermission, as an example, they invited everyone up on stage for dancing and communion (yes, communion) and it seemed like exactly the right thing to do. Contrast that to the tourists in St. Patrick’s Cathedral who were taking pictures of each other making faces in front of the alter or mugging for the camera beside the nuns. My critical side came out as I tried to light a candle amidst all of the people pushing in for a cathedral photo op and I found myself thinking “Jesus died for this?” It’s the second time in six weeks that a theatrical production felt more reverent than being inside a church. Hmm.

I’ve also been busy reading. I picked up a copy of Joyce Meyer’s Living Beyond Your Feelings. I like Joyce Meyer, which always seems to surprise people (that I’m a Christian often surprises people too – apparently I’m just full of surprises.) I listen to her podcasts (alternating with 100 Huntley Street) when I do my daily walk-run on the treadmill (yes, I realize that sounds annoying) and I like her style. Although televangelists are not my usual cup of tea, I like that she is a very strong woman in an environment where women sometimes seem to act as the window dressing (if we are lucky we might be able to minister to small children, but really it’s best if we apply lots of lipstick and smile.) I like that she believes she has personal responsibility for her life, with God’s help, and offers practical tips to live one’s faith. I also like that Meyer is honest about her own shortcomings – her critical nature and bad temper and tendency to be harsh (I’d have liked to see her reaction to the tourists in the cathedral – bet she’d have set ‘em straight) – and shows how her relationship with Christ has been helpful. It’s the same reason I like Anne Lamott, even though I really can’t see the two sitting down for supper. (If they do sit down for supper, however, I’ll pay really good money to be there.) Anyways, it’s a really good book about living a more purposeful life and not getting blown hither and thither and yon by your emotions.

So, other than that, we are preparing for Christmas. I’m reading to my kids about the Christmas story, and watching lots of Veggie Tales, and reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s delicious Letters From Father Christmas, which is something I used to do as a child. It’s all left the kids slightly confused; they had an argument in the car the other day about Santa’s relationship with Jesus and the role of Polar Bears in the nativity. (Alas, according to Jim Coyle, they are not alone in their confusion.) Perhaps we can get it all straightened out on Christmas Eve as we’ve identified a nice church that offers a family service. They don’t have kneelers or a pipe organ, but they are friendly and welcoming and have an enthusiastic teaching minister and that is worth a lot. I’m done my shopping (yes, also annoying) so I can spend the next couple of weeks relaxing and enjoying my family and consuming 30 pounds of shortbread and counting my blessings and thinking about what the season really means and how to better incorporate the gift that is Christ into our lives.

 

 

 

 

Jesus Christ Superstar and a Brand New Church

Last Saturday night I saw the Stratford production of Jesus Christ Superstar. The production has been getting rave reviews and is Broadway bound so I expected good things, but I was unprepared for the emotional reaction I’d have to the show. It was simply breathtaking.  The staging, oh the staging. And the music! The first few bars of Mary Magdalene singing Everything’s Alright caused me to tear up, doing that open-eyed blinking thing women do to try to preserve their eye makeup. I’m a worrier and these were major words of comfort. I was hooked. If the production had been a church service, I’d have been asking for one of those membership cards they pass our during the offering and a pen.

But, of course, it wasn’t a church and so the next morning, I headed off to check out a new church about which I’d heard good things. I’d heard that they were very supportive of those going through hard times, that the congregation was full of young families and the Sunday school program was amazing, and that the rock star teaching pastor likes to make his congregants think by posing all sorts of challenging theological questions. In hindsight, I was sort of expecting a daytime version of Jesus Christ Superstar. Surely that’s not too much to expect?

The congregation was vibrant, with lots of people of all ages. The Sunday School appeared to be equally vibrant and very well organized. The music was good — like, I’d-buy-a-ticket-to-see-them good. God bless the Anglicans, but at very few points in their services do I feel tempted to tap my feet or sway or throw my arms heavenward (not that I actually did any of these things at this new church either – those old C of E sensibilities die hard, you know.) The teaching pastor is a very dynamic guy and they handed out an outline of the sermon in advance so you’d get a sense of what he planned to say. Oh, and they didn’t just have coffee: think more along the lines of Starbucks.Yup. There was a  lot of awesome there. I read their 30 page statement of faith and then combed through the beliefs of the denomination. Yes, they believe in hell for non-believers, but you have to search for it so I don’t think it’s a primary focus. That being said, they had a fairly extensive book shop (they had a bookstore!) and I did not see any copies of Love Wins.

I liked a lot of what a saw and I’d be willing to give it another go. People’s hearts seemed to be in the right place. The sermon was a little disorganized – instead of covering all his points, the pastor showed us a clip from a home movie that had a tangential connection to his theme – but I would not have known he was off track had we not had the outline in advance. I don’t want to fault him for his preparedness. The sermon mainly focused on the limitations of another Christian denomination’s theology. His reasoning was sound and I’m all for comparative theology as an intellectual practice  - especially when it makes the place where you are sitting seem like the better choice. But it was a bit like he was telling the Cat Fanciers Society of Canada 12 reasons why cats are better than dogs. It’s an effective way to get a lot of heads nodding in agreement but I’m not sure it moves anyone forward.

My main beef, however, was that the service lacked reverence. Jesus Christ Superstar felt far more respectful to me than the service on Sunday morning. At this new church, I could not find a hint of a cross in the worship area and to me that felt odd. Now I realize I’m going to come across as a major stick in the mud here, but I also found the tone excessively casual. I’m all for dressing to be comfortable, but we were there to worship God, not paint the deck or do Pilates. To me, it did not come across as sloppy so much as it did arrogant. People used to quake in the presence of God. Now that we understand string theory and genomes and have iPhones and can text our questions to the minister, perhaps He seems less awesome. We can simple roll in wearing our yoga pants and sipping from our half-caf frappawhatsits and log in our time with Him before brunch. People dressed up a bit for Stratford because, well, it’s Stratford and that’s what you do out of respect for the institution. Jesus died on the cross for our sins; is it really too much effort to put on a decent shirt?

I truly don’t think that any disrespect was intended. I imagine that they are trying to adapt themselves to attract more people to hear the Message. And it’s working. The place is packed. There is also an argument to be made that by integrating our modern lives – with all the casualness and desire for comfort and need to text – into our faith, we will more easily integrate our faith into our modern lives. It’s the Everyday is Sunday sort of thinking I suppose. It seems to work for many.

I’m just not sure it works for me.