Open Secrets
A Memoir of Faith and Discovery
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- ¥1,800
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- ¥1,800
発行者による作品情報
Open Secrets is Richard Lischer's story of his early career as a Lutheran minister. Fresh out of divinity school and full of enthusiasm, Lischer found himself assigned to a small conservative church in an economically depressed town in southern Illinois. This was far from what this overly enthusiastic and optimistic young man expected. The town was bleak, poor, and clearly not a step on his path to a brilliant career.
It's an awkward marriage at best, a young man with a Ph.D. in theology, full of ideas and ambitions, determined to improve his parish and bring them into the twenty-first century, and a community that is "as tightly sealed as a jar of home-canned pickles." In their own way, they welcome him and his family, even though they think he's "got bigger fish to fry." Thus begins Richard Lischer's first year as a pastor: bringing communion to the sick (but forgetting to bring the wafers); marrying two unlikely couples--a pregnant teenager and her boyfriend, and two people who can't stop fighting.
Often he doesn't understand his congregation, and sometimes they don't understand him; for instance, why does his wife hire a baby-sitter and instead of leaving, put on her bathing suit, grab a stack of novels, and hide from the kids? Or why can't Pastor Lischer see how important it is for a woman with little money to buy an elaborate coffin to bury her husband in?
There are also the moments of grace, when pastor and parishioner unite for a common goal: when he asks for prayers for his infant son, and can feel everyone in the congregation ministering to him; when old hurts are put aside to help a desperate young woman finish college and raise her baby; or when he helps save a woman from dying of a drug overdose.
In Open Secrets Lischer tells not only his own story but also the story of New Cana and all of its inhabitants--lovable, deeply flawed, imperfect people that stick together. With his sharp eye and keen wit, Lischer perfectly captures the comedy of small town life with all of its feuds, rumors, scandals, and friendships. In the end he learns to appreciate not only the life New Cana has to offer, but also the people who have accepted him, at last, as part of themselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This memoir explores themes of secrecy and privacy as Lischer tells two stories. The first chronicles his childhood and peculiar, sectarian preparation for Lutheran ministry that began when he was sent from his suburban St. Louis home to a Milwaukee boarding school at age 14. The second takes up years later, in 1970, when, with a newly minted University of London Ph.D., he accepted his first call to ministry in a troubled farming community in southern Illinois. Throughout, Lischer suggests that secrets need to be told and that "privacy is a smoke screen for a therapeutic model of ministry." Lischer's project involves the airing of these problems, whether he is unveiling the nihilism of his fellow seminarians or sordid and painful events in the lives of his parishioners. While his portraits of these events and people are masterfully drawn, Lischer's tendency to make himself the hero of his narratives (despite earnest attempts at self-deprecation) grows tiresome. Moreover, his willingness to vividly recount every humiliating detail of his parishioners' bouts with sexual sin, domestic violence and mental illness seems exploitative, especially when compared to his quick, vague, tidily resolved summary of his own marital problems at that time. Despite these flaws, Lischer's book is satisfying and worthwhile. Not only does he write beautifully, but he also tells the unvarnished truth about both tragedy and redemption in a Christian community.
