Grace Period
My Ordination to the Ordinary
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Author Melinda Worth Popham left home for Yale Divinity School at age fifty-six after a barrage of painful life events brought her to her knees and led to the discovery that pain is the Miracle Gro of spiritual growth.
Grace Period recounts the spiritual journey launched by the break-up of her marriage and her teenage daughters descent into an intractable depression that led to an Ivy League seminary, not in pursuit of ordination to ministry but quite simply to her plain old ordinary sacred self. Wise, honest, and unexpectedly humorous, Grace Period is not only about Pophams study of God but about Gods education of her.
In this impeccably written memoir, Popham ... proves herself a highbrow, refined spiritual sister to Anne Lamott.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Anyone who has suffered, or lives with a modicum of spiritual curiosity, will want to press this book into the hands of a friend.
BlueInk Review (starred review)
A stunning spiritual autobiography and a work of profound discernment.
Foreword Clarion Review (5-star review)
Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this impeccably written memoir, Popham (Skywater) recounts a spiritual journey launched by the dissolution of her unhappy marriage and her teenage daughter's descent into an intractable depression. Set in the late 1990s, the story moves from Los Angeles to Yale Divinity School and back again as the author allows herself a grace period in which to rebuild her sense of self, "after having my interior taken down to the bare studs by the events of the past five years." She describes at a leisurely pace, with meticulous detail, what she learns from "mundane miracles and minor accidents, those spiritual fender benders that are collisions with grace itself." The struggles of a turtle to get through a fence and cross the road serve as a metaphor for her own struggles to reach God. She is humble and honest about her shortcomings, as when she erupts with anger and foul language at unsuspecting passers-by when she and her dog get lost, and about achievements as well. When she concludes that her vocation is ordination to "my plain old ordinary sacred self," she proves herself a highbrow, refined, spiritual sister to Anne Lamott. (BookLife)
