Bolz-Weber, Nadia Pastrix, New York: Jericho, 2013.
In a seminar on how to read better (but not really talk 'better') for my walk with God, I was encouraged, as was the class, to include biographies and autobiographies of the saints of the church in our reading calendars. The examples of their lives can be inspiring to us. I wonder how Rev. Bolz-Weber would react when I consider her biography to be a seminal work among the 'Lives of Great Christians'?
I don't know how we would get along. I find her a little arrogant, a potty mouth, with very strong opinions about the world and the people in it. She's kind of fringe, but happily married and raising a couple of kids. She doesn't ride a Harley, but I haven't decided whether or not that works in her favor.
She is one of those Mainstream Lutherans, from the ELCA and I am one of those Mainstream Presbyterians from the PCUSA. Don't know if I have as many capital "P" Personalities in my congregation, but I got my share. But here are some takeaways that make me glad I am not alone.
She's dealt with toxic personalities in the course of her ministry and had to let them go. The takeaway: We can't always be nice to everybody.
She's found herself in the middle of Spiritual Warfare, which is not popular thinking in the mainstream of Christian thought. The takeaway: The devil exists and *****'s with us.
She single-handedly tried to bring off the Big Event to jumpstart growth and it fell out of the sky like every spacecraft in "Gravity". Done all of that, even the Costco run!
But my biggest takeaway: Find God in the day, in the moment, in the next step.
I think the last Christian biography I read was of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (old country Lutheran...) OMG, am I going to put Nadia Bolz-Weber next to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred for the faith in a Nazi Concentration Camp?
Yah. Both of them have forced me to reconsider and realign my ministry priorities back to the people God's given me to serve. It is too easy to wander up and off into spiritual utopias that don't relate to people who are boots on the ground and trying to live their lives day by day.
Thank you Rev. Bolz-Weber.
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