On "normal" saints: I'm going to need a bigger tweet

Recently on Twitter, a complaint was raised that saints like Elisabeth Leseur get promoted as normal, relatable people despite having social privileges that the targets of this promotion lack.[1] The response was made that holy men and women are never "normal" -- because their holiness makes them unusual, and their lives are always going to be distinctive as a result. This is an interesting discussion to me, and as you can tell, I already have too much to say to be able to say it on Twitter, not least because I think there are some important distinctions that need to be drawn -- so here we are.

So what exactly are we talking about when we talk about "normal"? We have to make a distinction between the spiritual and the historical here. The objection that saints are never spiritually "normal" is exactly right, of course; holy men and women get held up as spiritual role models precisely because they are not normal, and this spiritual excellence often (although I don't think always) puts their lives on a different track than if they weren't so holy.

Historically, though, we can absolutely talk about saints being "normal" -- although it's a fuzzy and, I think, ultimately pretty unhelpful label, although you can't beat it for being popularly accessible I guess. What we're really talking about is how unusual a particular person's background and circumstances were for their time. Is this someone who had a lot of advantages or disadvantages? Were these activities or those choices pretty typical? This is obviously essential to understanding how someone's spiritual life played out in practical terms.

However, the root of the complaint that started all this is in "promotion". Members of the church in all states of life recommend particular saints as role models, and in the modern era there has been a special emphasis on finding "normal" saints who can be relatable to a wide variety of "normal" people. It's at least a post-Victorian thing [2] but John Paul II's unprecedented burst of canonizations was meant to strengthen the saints as agents of teaching and evangelization precisely by increasing their diversity. Eagerness to find a saint for every demographic is part of what gets Elisabeth Leseur a spot in the saint rolodex even though she's not quite there yet.[3]

So at last we come down to the nut of the question: is it classist to suggest that Leseur is a good role model for wives struggling in a marriage to a difficult and irreligious man? Leseur was a wealthy woman at the head of an affluent upper middle class household in 19th century France. Her life was worlds away from what is the average in North American and Western Europe today. I don't know much about her, but I would assume that her job was primarily to direct and manage servants, and to ensure that she and her husband maintained their social status. She certainly didn't have to worry about a career and as far as I know she didn't have to worry about money.

Suggesting that Leseur is relatable for 21st century women can feel, from this perspective, a little bit GOOP-y. However, I would push back against the inclination to dismiss her as an unrealistic, impossibly privileged role model. For one thing, it's undeniable that women do find inspiration and role models in women like Martha Stewart, Gwyneth Paltrow, and a whole host of impeccably curated instagram/pinterest/reality tv stars. Yes, these figures can inspire feelings of shame and inadequacy, but I don't think we can say that's all they inspire, and women so reliably flock to such figures that it's just not true to say they aren't relatable. They clearly are on some level, if only in the realm of fantasy and aspiration. In that sense, Leseur's material circumstances can't be an absolute barrier to being perceived as "normal" and her life story as encouraging.

More importantly, however, Leseur was normal for a woman of her time and social position. The older I get and the longer I spend studying history the more profoundly I am struck by the fact that we all live our lives in a historical context that is totally out of our control. The elements of a holy life are timeless, but we don't live our lives in a vacuum. The options that are available to us -- even to those who are willing to break out of the mold and forge new paths and whatnot -- are limited. Leseur was a married woman who lived a married life that must have looked pretty normal to her contemporaries.  As such I think it's perfectly valid to put her forward as a model for women whose lifestyles wouldn't raise any eyebrows, even though that looks vastly different these days. It's true that none of us are nineteenth-century haute-bourgeoisie [4] but I am tempted to say that's the whole point. She didn't live in a vacuum any more than I do.

If there's a problem, it's less about the desire to find "normal" saints who can help people with the problems in their lives and more about a narrow approach to the saints as historical figures. If we expect "normal" people in the past to look like "normal" people today we're setting ourselves up for failure, or at least fiction. We shouldn't waste time with such an unrealistic expectation. Granted, I would say this, but a good social-historical perspective works wonders. The saints become a million times more interesting and inspiring when we stop trying to set them up as "just like me" dolls and start trying to understand them as people who were called to live in the times they happened to be born in -- which is in fact "just like me" -- and succeeded.

This point also applies if we step from the historical to the spiritual side of things, incidentally. The saints have achieved holiness precisely because they have followed God's call to address the particular weaknesses of their personality and the sins that are especially tempting to them. My particular struggles might not match exactly with a saint but that doesn't mean he or she can't help me; or my triggers to pride might not be exactly like a particular saint's occasions of sin, but his or her struggle with pride can still give me the example I need.

Ultimately I think that while the communion of saints provides us with a wide range of role models (as well as "holy helpers" with the inside fix), the saints also call us to learn solidarity across time and place and difference. Studying the lives of the saints should provide us with moments of insight into our own lives and connection -- think CS Lewis's definition of friendship as a "me too" moment. But it should also open our eyes to the diversity of human life and struggle. And of course, it's precisely through that diversity that God's mysterious unity becomes clear. I'll end this off before I go too far out of my depth, but I'll just note how struck I always am, when you start looking at saints in aggregate, by the way that diversity starts to align around the same simple (!) characteristics. There  isn't anything new under the sun even as the past is a foreign country; and when I get to a paradox I consider I've arrived in the right place.



[1] Leseur is actually a Servant of God, so rather far from being canonized, but she is often held up as a role model, so for the sake of our discussion I think we can elide the distinction. I will come back to this.

[2] One of my favorite books of saints is the 1949 collection edited by Frank Sheed, Saints Are Not Sad; the title is taking aim at the somber plaster statues of the 19th century.

[3] Although given that for centuries the process for canonization was basically popular acclaim I think it's fair to say that Catholics have a venerable tradition of not worrying too much about promoting people before their time.

[4] I look forward to being corrected in the comments.

Getting real about Lent (sorry, not a book post)

I have not one, not two, but three books to write up for you (Parrot and Olivier in America, Youth Without God, and a Don Camillo collection) -- but I wanted to write up something about Lent so I'm going to go ahead and do that first. Sorry. I do fully intend to write those three up soon, before I totally forget what I had to say about them, so please excuse this digression and we'll be back to our contractual obligations soon.

Right, so. Lent.

I have an abysmal track record when it comes to Lent. As a kid, my family always attended (and not infrequently was in charge of) Friday Stations & Soup nights during Lent, but I had little notion of "giving something up" until I got to high school. Then, it seemed to be mostly a matter of making a big fuss anytime someone (probably me) dared to eat something chocolate during Lent. UGGGGGGH, DON'T EAT THAT IN FRONT OF ME, I CAN'T EAT CHOCOLATE CUZ IT'S LENT, UGGGGH!!!! Between religion class and school Masses I was pretty much aware of the degree to which these various girls did not actually believe in Christianity/Catholicism (Ed. according to them! this is not just me being judgey!), so the whole "giving something up" practice just seemed illogical, hypocritical, and/or superstitious. My Lenten problem was only heightened in college, where the Catholic center seemed to agree with my view on "giving something up" but didn't seem to have much to offer in terms of making sense of Lent. The approved view was something along the lines of "doing something nice extra" but it was nothing on the scale of or with the same tone as those childhood Stations & Soup nights and so it wasn't at all clear what we were doing differently from any other forty days of the year. Really, it's only been in the last five years or so that I've not only gained an intellectual understanding of Lent but also begun to spiritually understand it (that is, understanding it from a more organic place).

Still, even in these last five years, I've struggled to effectively do anything for Lent, because as it turns out I have very little will-power when it comes to small day-to-day choices. A priest once described sacrifices as "practicing saying no to yourself" which really turned a light on for me... which then made it clear how infrequently I really succeed in saying no to myself. Those girls who mechanically gave up chocolate for Lent were actually doing something I would find at least as difficult to do for any reason. It's one of the major recurring spiritual lessons of my life, really, that being perhaps a more intellectually inclined person doesn't let you shortcut around the basic training you get from practices like saying rosaries or novenas or "giving something up". I definitely grew up in an environment that valued, say, meditation over vocal prayer, and being in the top ten of my class academically made me think I was on some kind of spiritual AP track too and shouldn't have to "bother" with the "basics"; but what I've found is that I make more progress in the former when I pay humble attention to the latter. Anyway.

With that lengthy bit of background, I have hopes for this year. I want to try, and to succeed or fail as it may be, with as little fudging of the goal posts as possible. This blog post is part of that, as I tend to sort of throw together a Lent plan on Fat Tuesday and then retrospectively tweak it. So here I am, putting it all in complete sentences on the public internet.

As our friend Count Fosco would say: "Behold -- the programme!"

Fasting

As I mentioned above, this is a hard one for me, and I am aiming high this year. No snacking. I am a big-time stress eater, and I know it's a spiritual problem for me and not just a diet or budget problem. It's stress, but it's also boredom and escapism. I know from long experience at this point that when I let myself get into a habit of lots of extra treats and snacks during the day and in the evening, it's a sign that I'm not dealing with what I need to be dealing with. This has certainly occurred to me as a possible Lenten sacrifice before, but I've avoided it out of either pride ("giving up snacks? boring") or cowardice ("too hard, I'll never be able to do it"). This year, though, I'm taking aim. I'll probably want to complain about it like those girls in high school, and if it's super hard, it's super hard. As a corollary: I will be focusing on eating three proper meals in the day (except the big fasting days obvs) in order to counteract the drifting.

Prayer

This devotional site BlessedIsShe.net sort of came out of the blue for me; I had never heard of it, and I think it's new, except I haven't seen anything announcing its newness. I just saw a retweet and when I clicked through liked what I found. Anyway, I ordered their Lenten journal (you can get it as a digital download) and I'm going to give the prayer journaling a try. I already have a few "extra" prayers and novenas going on for various intentions so there's that too; but praying with scripture is something I'm a bit lazy about so I want to make an effort to stay on track with it this Lent.

Almsgiving

The funny thing about the three parts of Lenten sacrifices is how very bad I am at all three of them. I guess that's, like, the human condition but there you go. Anyway, I think what I need this Lent is to be more hands-on. Some years I feel like what I need is to put a crowbar in my wallet and give some money away, but this year I think I need to actually perform some service. One of the young adult groups I attend does a monthly Saturday mission helping with a parish food bank, and so I am tentatively planning to participate in one of those Saturdays (I haven't seen the dates yet, so assuming that works out). Otherwise, I am "challenging" myself to participate in some other service day (there's always a few during Lent). Again with the pride: I tend to think that I, in my specialness, don't need some kind of National Honor Society-style pre-packaged service day, but that's ridiculous.

So there you go: an actual three-point plan for Lent, formulated nearly a week in advance of Ash Wednesday. *makes pumping iron gesture*

Something Different: Something Other Than God

A few points to note before we get started today, class:

1. This is a review of a Catholic book written for a Catholic audience. Act accordingly.
2. This post contains links to where you can buy the book, but they are not affiliate links.
3. This post is being entered in a random drawing for a prize being offered by the author of the book to mark its launch and encourage people to read and write about it. However, the post is not sponsored or anything like that, and the opinions here are 100% my own, blah blah blah.

Now, on with the post... 

It occurred to me this afternoon that the Church gives us saints in response to our desire for celebrities. A celebrity is someone we want to think we know; they represent something — sex, or genius, or a particular system of belief — and we watch them like hawks. We think we know them, and we think we know their story, ignoring the fact that they are human beings like we are, in the middle of an uncertain life with unknown twists and turns ahead. When our celebrities fall or stray from their designated narrative we criticize them, we question or abandon our beliefs and affiliations, we recontextualize and rationalize and talk and talk and talk. We want so much to see particular values played out in someone else’s life, to have someone to point to (not always positively; we want someone to represent wrongness as much as to be our role model). The saints are an answer to this. Their lives have been lived, with all their messiness, but they have lived out particular virtues and heroisms, and we know that they have run the good race. In short, the Church tells us that if we want someone to model for us what virtue and devotion look like, we should look to these saints who are now eternally with God. (True to Philippians 4:8, the Church apparently isn't particularly concerned with providing bad examples.)

I was thinking about this because the book I’m reviewing here, Jennifer Fulwiler’s Something Other Than God (click for links to buy, a free excerpt, a video featuring a man in a banana suit, &c), is an example of a genre I really don’t ever read: the conversion story.

This is the gif Fulwiler made to celebrate the book launch. She is my people.

Fulwiler grew up as an atheist (in Texas, no less), without any real knowledge of religious culture or lore, and her objections were more to religion itself, as a guiding principle in someone’s life, than to any particular doctrine. This is more the culture that I recognize in my own surroundings, and part of the reason why I like reading Fulwiler’s blog. Her explanations and ponderings speak to the kinds of pushback I feel around me, and the currents I feel invited to fall into (that’s a terrible metaphor but whatever). The other reason her blog is so great is because Fulwiler is a funny, lively writer, who’s able to tell a hilarious story in all its absurd glory. She’s been working on this book for years (always a good sign), and when it was finally available to preorder I jumped on it. I also set up text alerts from Amazon to let me know when it was on its way. One of those texts arrived as I was counting down the minutes to a phone interview; if it had been my mother texting to wish me good luck I might have been annoyed at the near-heart attack it gave me, but since it was this book, I was just that much more excited. Priorities.

I was so psyched when it came I had to document the moment. And the tiles in my building's foyer. FEEL THE EXCITEMENT.

If I had to pick two words to describe the writing I might choose “clear” and “tight”. I was seeing reports on Twitter of people reading it in four or five hours, and I believe it. It’s not a quick read in the sense that there’s nothing to it, but in the sense that it draws you in and doesn’t slow you down. Since I’m a grad student I am contractually obligated to (a) like books, but also (b) make critical remarks, and this is really my only criticism: the book is so lean and focused that it can feel, well, too lean and focused. All the description of Fulwiler’s pre-conversion life is centered on her spiritual crises and the questions she had trouble answering within an atheist worldview. I would have liked a little more — I hate phrases like “word painting” or “pen portrait” but fine. I would have liked a little fuller pen portrait of atheist Jennifer Fulwiler, rather than getting it later on as a contrast to whatever was currently happening in the narrative. That being said, this tight focus gives the book a humble quality: it's not here to offer too much interpretation beyond the demands of the narrative. So, in my usual academic way: it's a plus and a minus.

The focus of the book is on the conversion process itself which is wrapped up in several dramatic changes that took place in her and her husband’s lives at the same time. This story is really interesting and relatable, even though it deals with fairly unusual circumstances, and in spite of the (realistic) complexity of all this, it's easy to follow. If you want to know the details, you should buy the book (also available as an ebook).

Which brings me around to the thoughts I opened this post with (eh? eh? I’m a writer). Conversion stories are like memoirs, being autobiographical narratives published while the writer is still alive. (That sentence is mocking me, pointing out that there is a ton of theory on exactly this topic that I have not read, but I am pushing through.) A conversion story could potentially play into a desire to latch onto celebrities, pulling us away from the real spiritual growth that could come from studying the lives of the saints into the roller coaster drama of constantly evaluating someone else’s life and opinions. As I was reflecting on the book, I thought about how difficult it would be to publish a narrative of your life like this. It would be strange to read a book written by a friend, offering her decided-on version of the part of her life which included you, particularly if you were part of the “before” picture. So what’s the point? Given that we don’t want to be idolizing our contemporaries, what’s the point of reading a story like this?

My answer to that question is that a book like this offers a unique kind of faith-sharing, where we can see what thoughts were going through someone else's mind and what challenges they faced, all in the context of a larger trajectory. Each of us is in the midst of our own story, striving to make little before-and-afters out of our faults and failings. Each of us is called to conversion throughout our lives: am I embracing that, or am I just trying to get comfortable? A story like this can also make us reflect on how we are helping others on their own way. Am I the camp counselor who pressures people in my care to conform? Am I the parishioner who celebrates the presence of a seeker?

This isn't a book that has all the answers, and of course it shouldn't be; Fulwiler, still alive (and long may she be) is not a saint, and she wisely isn't setting herself up as a celebrity either.* What it is, is a fascinating story about how — to quote the subtitle — the author "passionately sought happiness and accidentally found it." Something Other Than God is more than just a blog book; for one thing it gives a much more complete version of Fulwiler's story than I ever picked up reading her blog. More importantly, it's also a thoughtful account of how "conversion" means changing your life along with your mind. I enjoyed it just as much as I thought I would, and I can't wait to read/hear other people's thoughts about it.

* I am emphatically not telling Jennifer Fulwiler "Careful Icarus", just to be clear.**
** Mostly I added that footnote so I could link the Careful Icarus clip. I'm only human.