Pastrix

 Today I want to talk about a book I am reading for my religion class called Pastrix: the Cranky and Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber. Upon reading the first few pages, I told my mom that she should check it out, but I should mention to my mom and anyone else who possibly wants to read the book: Nadia is very opinionated, straightforward, and extremely (as she likes to put it) "misanthropic". She is very interesting and I like how I really have to think about what she writes in this book, but I think that last characteristic of hers is what makes it hard for me to really connect with what she writes. I am not really misanthropic in any way. Yes, I think that there are extremely senseless and heartless and (insert word here)less people out there, but the definition of a misanthrope is "somebody who hates people: somebody who hates humanity, or who dislikes and distrusts other people and tends to avoid them", which is not me. At all. Anyway, despite that, I LOVE the book and how I can really hear her tone; she is incredibly funny, and I am... I don't want to say "in awe" (of her life story (so far)), because that sounds wrong... it's more like I think that the fact that she was on a path that was (in my opinion) in the complete opposite direction from God and Jesus and somehow got there anyway is really intriguing.
Nadia talks about the experiences that she has had throughout her life with church/religion. As a kid, she went to a Church of Christ (I don't know what that is, and the internet says a lot of things about it, but the most common is: "a group of Christians who use only the New Testament as the source for Christian doctrine and practice and who consider themselves to be part of the original church (Wikipedia)") and stopped going when she realized that she was smarter than the Sunday School teacher. When she was in her late teens/early 20s, she discovered Wicca, which she loved, but that was just a period in her life when she (paraphrase) "hung out with God's aunt." She says she never stopped believing in God during these periods in her life, but that the way she was told to behave/the ways that the groups of people with these beliefs acted were either wrong for her or only right for certain periods of her life.
At one point in her life, she attended AA meetings, and she says that getting better felt "like I was on one path toward self-destruction and God pulled me off of it by the scruff of my collar, me hopelessly kicking and flailing and saying, "I'll take the destruction please." God looked at tiny, little red-faced me and said, "that's adorable," and placed me down on an entirely different path." After this, she met her "unicorn", Matthew. She visited Matthew's church and fell in love with the Lutheran religion, and attended seminary, and became the pastor (or Pastrix (hence the title), which is "a term of insult used by unimaginative sections of the church to define female pastors.") of the House for All Sinners and Saints (which apparently is quite famous; I plan to learn more about it). I like that Nadia gives me a alternative way of thinking about God. She states in a video on her website that she never fit into the 'atheist' category, but that she has "struggled with what God looks like" and means for her.
Anyway, wow. That was pretty much a synopsis of (only) the first five chapters of the book. I pretty much gave a summary of her life. But I wanted to share all that before I made my main point.
MAIN POINT
Before Nadia encounters the Lutheran religion, she dabbles in Unitarianism, but says that it wasn't right for her because "Unitarians just don't talk much about our need for God's grace." For her, the grace of God was necessary; she believes that God interfered with her life and repositioned her. The best way I can define what the grace of God is for her is when God interrupts someone's life and repositions them the way he wants. I don't know if this is what Nadia means; she gave a fair number of examples, but I wasn't able to come up with a clear definition.
But, personally I don't see this to be true. I always feel like I want it to be true, like I want to believe that there is a God out there somewhere, but I don't. And at the same time, I don't like the idea of there being a spirit or power that people are supposed to submit to. Belief in God makes me feel like I am a chess piece; I don't really have a choice about where I will be moved and that the outcome is already planned. And I have not experienced anything like what I believe her grace/grace in general to be.
I don't really support the idea of God or gods because I feel like it is the same concept as a supreme dictator; why can't we have any say or figure things out entirely for ourselves? And the idea that we are made by God makes me feel like someone took a chunk of clay and shaped me. And maybe all of that is correct. I just don't like that idea.
But at the same time, I want a category to fit into. I want to be part of a group; not religious, necessarily, but with common beliefs that gives me a label. I feel like one flaw with humans is that we don't want to be put into categories or boxes, but at the exact same time, we want confirmation that we are not the only ones who think, believe or act how we do; so really, we do want categories. Our issue is that we don't want to be confined to ONLY that category; we want the freedom to change and not be held down by the original belief.
It has taken me a long time to type this, and I am starting to get tired, so I apologize if I make typos or don't make complete sense. But to conclude, I like Nadia's book, and it makes me want to find a category that I fit into, I just don't know what category that is. I feel like humanism might be it (which is exactly the opposite of what the awesome misanthropic author prefers), but I need to know more about it, as well as other religions and beliefs. But that is the main point that I wanted to make; I can't believe it took so long. Sorry about the long read! Thanks for checking it out!