I read this book right after Jen Fulwiler's because it popped up on the final screen of my Kindle that said "people who read this book also read. . . .' and I had seen this book reviewed a while ago somewhere on the internet so I perked up and thought I'd check it out.
This book is beautifully written. The author is a poet and I guess because I had just finished Something Other Than God, the different style of writing really impressed me emotionally. Richard Cole writes so richly and in such a raw and honest fashion. I found the book mesmerizing. The more I read the more I felt like the author was telling my story too, to an uncanny degree, down to his trying to give up coffee in Lent or how his realization that when he brooded over his sin of self-absorption, that too was an element of self-absorption. How does one give up one's life for Christ when one's brain constantly and neurotically checks to see if one is giving up one's life for Christ? It's a vicious circle. I know that dilemma oh so well!
And the crying. He cries a lot. When I was first coming back to the Church, I could never go to Mass without crying. I didn't even know why. I think it was a combination of sadness, being overwhelmed by the beauty and the hope, the terrible realization of my own sins and the awful sordidness of the world, all the complexity and mystery. Tears would just stream down my face and my heart would ache. And I too have to keep convincing myself that God loves me. I never feel quite worthy, which is true I guess, but I can't separate that feeling from therefore not being loved. It is a little niggling thought at the back of my mind that I have to deal with constantly.
At the same time this book is funny too. It is wry and self-deprecating.
This book also moves much more slowly then Jen Fulwiler's (and I probably shouldn't be comparing them but since I read them back to back, I can't help it). Something Other Than God is a breezy recounting by someone who is just getting on in life with career and marriage and having babies. Cole begins his conversion journey at the age of 49. He's been married for years. He's already dealt with his own alcoholism, a life and career in New York City, trying out various other spiritual paths for quite some time (years dabbling in Eastern practices and Quakerism) before he finds himself drawn to Catholicism. Whereas I could not relate to Fulwiler's rapid conversion I can really relate to Cole's long, winding road.
Also, every thing that Cole says he likes about the Church are the same exact things that struck me as likable. On every page I was saying yes! So true! Exactly!
I also could relate to the fact that Cole's beloved wife was just not on the same page as he was in his spiritual journey. She was a cradle Catholic who had been really emotionally damaged by a very angry father who came to represent Catholicism to her. She couldn't separate his version of Catholicism from what Catholicism is in its purer form. As the child of an alcoholic father, I know that it is a very tricky business to forgive and to not let anger and hurt drive my soul, color all my judgments and perceptions. Yet at the same time she was so supportive of the author even though it took great sacrifice on her part to be so. It made her worried about their marriage; it made her feel like they couldn't be close. And he was feeling the same way. He describes converting in the way many have, including myself, as a falling in love. Here he was falling deeply in love and his wife was going just the other direction. How do you maintain a solid marriage that way, when the two things that speak to your soul at it's most profound level, your God and your spouse, are in two very different places? It is a really hard and puzzling mystery that you have to plumb every single day in some way or another.
The last part of the book recounts Holy Week and the final days up to his entrance into the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil. I had tears in my eyes while reading it. Again, the fact that he loved the Litany of the Saints and even writes out the first part of it in the book, made me feel like he was telling my story. I have always loved the litany. It makes my heart soar! The whole thing was like a long romance that builds and the Easter vigil is the wedding day. A day of profound joy. There's a honeymoon and then you wake up one morning and have to go to work. The real test is in the every day living out of the vows you've taken. This book was really written 15 years ago but just published now. Cole is still a practicing Catholic, in love with God, but things are now a marathon and not a sprint anymore. Or rather as he puts it, a slow canoe ride where he is enjoying the present and wondering what he'll encounter around the next bend. He relapsed into drinking (when he takes that sip of the Precious Blood at the Easter Vigil I though, oh no! Just take the Host!), but he got back on the wagon eventually. His two boys are older now. Apparently, they homeschooled at least the younger (his oldest son in 3rd/4th grade was having issues at school at the time of the writing of the book). He doesn't say what happened with his wife's faith journey, not that I recall. I wish he had said something about that because I admired his wife so much.
At the end of the book he has a beautiful prayer by Thomas Merton which I am going to copy over and hang in my kitchen. And Cole gives a list of books he read that helped him with his journey as well as some movies. Again, I felt such a connection with him over these lists. He even mentions the best St. Therese movie out there, Therese, directed by Cavalier. I remember seeing that movie as a young 20 something with my mother. It is stunning in its beauty.
This book had such a strong impact on me. It was just the food I needed right now. Thank you, Mr. Cole and thank you, Jesus!
For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.
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