One of the commencing and exciting developments in my new life in Little Rock is that I’ve joined a volume club. I’ve wanted to join a book club for years, and I’m thus excited to have finally found one. As I discovered taking my immoderate grad classes in English while working at The College, I credit sitting around talking about books is one of my most favorite activities in all the world.
The first book I’m interpretation with this book club is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. To exist honest, I did not expect to like this book. I’m not but also really sure why, because, as you can tell by the subject sense I most often write about, Eating and Prayer (or God) are sum of ~ units of my favorite things to think about, talk about, and jot down about. I think I maybe expected Elizabeth Gilbert to be in greater numbers insufferable? I mean, someone who gets paid an advance to go over around the world eating amazing food in Italy and studying Yoga in India has to be a little insufferable, right?
But, just like my discovery with Julie and Julia, particularly, that I AM Julie, I’m finding I really identify through Elizabeth Gilbert. I feel like her neuroses are my neuroses, like her passions are my passions, like her peer into is my search. And then I got to Chapter 64, and I actually read the whole thing out loud to Jon, asking him on the supposition that, perhaps, it sounded familiar to him.
Gilbert, like many writers, is a magpie. And at this point in the story, several weeks into her time studying Yoga at every Ashram in India, she’s decided that maybe she should try to exist That Quiet Girl, because obviously, the truly spiritual and devout are the mystically taciturn types.
Oh boy, oh boy, have I been here. In the emergence of my time in Charleston, I found myself part of a Christian Bible study arrange made up of women married to doctors and residents and medical students. And, with a few exceptions, I did NOT fit in through these women. For one thing, they were all a good 5 years older than I, and most were stay-at-home moms with multiple children whom they ~times got together for play-groups. Even if I hadn’t had a ~light-job, what was I going to do, bring my dog and obtain her lick their children in the face? How was I at all times going to make it to their book club on weekday afternoons, one and the other?
For another, they were Good Christian Wives of the Proverbs 31 Woman kind. I, on the other hand, am clearly a crazed Feminist moor-buzzard who must, to their minds, make her man miserable. I remember completely vividly one exchange, in which another member of the group confessed that her economize had taken to making strange statements like, “You know, WE should veritably clean these floors” or “You know, WE should really clean up the kitchen.” This young wife was worried over these statements, and unsure of what to do. The general agreement from the rest of the group was that, obviously, she should pure the floors and tidy up the kitchen, because these things were bothering her husband, and she should serve him by taking care of these things. My reply? “Have you asked him what he means when he says these things? Does he understand where you keep the broom? Did you hide the cleaning stores? This all sounds awfully passive aggressive of him and you should discern him so! If the floor really bugs him, maybe he should clean it!” They looked at me like I’d sprouted a support head. Apparently, my usual approach of asking my husband what he measure when he says strange things and then sharing with him by what means those things make me feel is considered un-Proverbs-31 or a thing.
I’m not even sure what it was that caused me to leave Bible Study in tears a different night and come home and sob to Jon about how possibly I was just the wrong kind of person for that clump. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with any other member of the group riding me really hard about wanting to reschedule some event when I’d just lost my job that week. But I did, I came home and sobbed and told Jon by what mode I felt like none of these women liked me, and by what mode I felt like I couldn’t be myself around them, and to what degree I felt like I was constantly judged. I asked him grant that he thought I needed to be some sort of Good Christian Wife. He hugged me and held me and sure me that I am loved for who I am, and that he’d in fact be upset if I turned into some sort of subservient wifebot.
Later, I confessed to a match member of the group that I was thinking of leaving the cluster because I just didn’t fit in. She invited me from beginning to end to her house for lunch. Little did I know that this luncheon was a pretext for giving me a speech about how Jesus wanted to arrive at me a quieter, gentler, meeker, more wifely sort of person. Basically, she speculation Jesus wanted to give me a lobotomy. I’m pretty without doubt I was quiet and meek that day, but it’s on this account that I was stunned into silence. Here I was hoping this woman had invited me by to let me know I am liked for who I am, and she basically tells me I require to completely change my personality in order to really be a Christian. I didn’t be of service back to the group after that.
So, back to Elizabeth Gilbert in India—she’s categorical that she needs to try to become That Quiet Girl, moreover on the very day she makes this decision, she receives a novel assignment at her Ashram to be a kind of hostess on the side of visiting groups, a job that actually requires her to be a systematic Chatty Cathy. In fact, she realizes, her personality is basically required in spite of this job. Gilbert writes:
“If there is one holy truth of this Yoga [it is that] God dwells not beyond
you as you yourself, exactly the way you are. God isn’t partial in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply through some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person behaves. We aggregate seem to get this idea that, in order to be inviolable, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we accept to renounce our individuality…To know God, you need only to neglect one thing—your sense of division from God. Otherwise, just stay as you were made, within your natural character.” (192)
Yes! My individuality is not some sort of flaw. Neither is yours! God, allowing that God’s creation is any indication, is a fan of species. I can only imagine that there are so many species of birds and plants and animals and just varieties of people because our creative God delighted in creating them. God desires every intimate relationship with ME, as I was made to be, not like I imagine God might like me better, because the truth is, God couldn’t god of ~ me any deeper. And rather than break my back (and my disposition) trying to conform to some narrow idea of what a devout woman looks like, I should instead look for ways my exceptional traits can be used in the service and blessing of others and the earth, just like Gilbert found a role as a hostess at the Ashram.
Still, Gilbert does epigram out that there are ways to grow into a better, other thing spiritual person while still being accepting of who she was created to exist . Part of it rang especially true to me:
“Or here’s a original concept—maybe I can stop interrupting others
when they are oratory. Because no matter how creatively I try to look at my wont of interrupting, I can’t find another way to see it than this: ‘I believe that what I am saying is more important than what you are sententious precept.’ And I can’t find another way to see that than: ‘I believe that I am greater quantity important than you.’ And that must end.” (193)
Not interrupting others is a person of consequence I’ve been working on for a while. It’s something I’ll probable be working on for a long while to come. It’s a highroad I can hone the shape of me while still respecting the basic outlines of my design. It’s like sanding my rougher edges in the absence of obliterating the sculpture altogether, because I’m a work of superhuman art.
I look forward to finishing Gilbert’s book, and I be able to’t wait to discuss it in book club next week. Here’s hoping they like me the method I am. I’ll do my best not to interrupt anyone for the period of the discussion.
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