Practicing Resurrection: A Memoir of Work, Doubt, Discernment, and Moments of Grace [Hardcover]

Nora Gallagher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 2003

Nora Gallagher’s compelling story of a woman at a crossroads, discerning what to do and how to live after her brother’s death, is a continuation of the spiritual journey she chronicled in her acclaimed book, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith.

When her beloved brother, Kit, dies, Gallagher finds her own life no longer makes sense. Stretched between meetings, always ten minutes late, increasingly drained of surprise and humor, Gallagher realizes she’s lost more than her brother. She’s lost her “own wild life,” and a sense of the sacred in the world.

Gallagher sets out to find “a new way to spend” herself. Practicing Resurrection describes the often un-
settling, sometimes comic, and finally redemptive process of discovery as Gallagher discerns a possible call to the ministry, and explores her marriage, her work as a writer, and the natural world. It extends to the full meaning of life after a death as Gallagher finds that experiences of “resurrection” are not believing “six impossible things before breakfast.” The surprising end portrays a vision of ministry redefined and a marriage honestly renewed.

A beautiful and often harrowing account of the exploration of a vocation and of new life after loss, this powerful memoir will inform and inspire anyone trying to discern the signs of a “call” to what might be a deeper purpose, and how to act on it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Gallagher's beloved older brother died of cancer, grief struck intensely: "I would be watering the garden or opening an envelope and Kit's death would spring on me completely new and jolting, as if I'd been hit hard from behind with no warning, and I then would fold up, like a fan." Her work at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara, which she portrayed so passionately in her 1998 memoir, Things Seen and Unseen, now seemed hollow: "I felt an urgency to reclaim the holy in my life, to find a new way to spend myself." Beginning in 1995 where the earlier book left off, Gallagher describes the three-year process she went through to discern whether to become a priest. While involved in making this decision, she and other church leaders were also wrestling with questions that could split the parish: should their gay rector divulge his sexual orientation? Should he perform same-sex weddings? Meanwhile, Gallagher's husband was repeatedly expressing distaste for her heavy involvement at church. In spite of continued affirmation from church friends and diocesan officials, Gallagher began to wonder if her true calling was to writing, despite her persistent attraction to priesthood. Skillfully interweaving multiple themes, Gallagher maintains suspense right up to the epilogue, where various "resurrections" are revealed. With a poet's ear for language and a novelist's eye for essential detail, Gallagher offers a compelling story of her journey toward "a wholeness bought at the cost of suffering."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Gallagher's harrowing memoir of loss and hope recalls a time when everything seemed unreal and fragmented to her. She had learned her brother had little chance of recovering from cancer; she was working in a soup kitchen; she often prayed with great difficulty; and she planned liturgies for her church. The faith that allowed her to survive the scatteredness she felt came in ephemeral glimpses of truth that lightened up particularly dark situations. Through her inner and outer turmoil, she miraculously found a vocation to the ministry. Following it proved life-altering in the highest degree, disrupting her marriage, confusing family and friends, and even making her shake her head at times in ironic disbelief. In recounting her attempt to make sense of the life that was "given" her after her brother's passing, Practicing Resurrection reflects one woman's sincere desire to understand her place in the world, to find purpose and meaning after devastating loss. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1ST edition (March 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375405941
• ISBN-13: 978-0375405945
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,442,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nora Gallagher's novel Changing Light has received outstanding reviews in the New York Times Book Review, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. It is one of three novels chosen by Borders for its March-April Original Voices program. Her memoir Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith received outstanding reviews from the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times among many others and was a bestseller. Annie Dillard called it ' a wonderful book' and said, 'Nora Gallagher...describes church life and spiritual life with absolute accuracy." Her second memoir, Practicing Resurrection, received outstanding reviews and was a finalist for Beliefnet Book of the Year.

She was born in New Mexico, and spent her childhood in its high deserts. After college she worked as a free-lance magazine journalist in the United States, Nicaragua, and Czechoslovakia. Ms. Gallagher is particularly interested in what happens to ordinary people in the shadow of larger events.

Her essays, book reviews, op-eds and journalism have appeared in many publications including The New York Times Magazine, DoubleTake, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Utne Reader, The Village Voice, Mother Jones, and The Los Angeles Times.

Ms. Gallagher has received fellowships from the Wesleyan Writers Conference, Blue Mountain Center,the MacDowell Colony; and Mesa Refuge.

A sermon is collected in Sermons that Work (Morehouse Publishing March 2003) and a poem in the anthology, September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond.


She is licensed to preach by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, is preacher-in-residence at Trinity Episcopal Church, Santa Barbara and serves on the advisory board of the Yale Divinity School. She lives in California and New York City with her husband, the novelist and poet, Vincent Stanley. They are the godparents of five children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a lovely mystery, June 17, 2003

By 

Scoop (Piedmont, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practicing Resurrection: A Memoir of Work, Doubt, Discernment, and Moments of Grace (Hardcover)

I really loved this book.

I liked the pace of it, perhaps because it reminded me of my own exploration of faith. There are those moments of introspection and insight and then, well, life goes on. Gallagher shows that those moments of insight can add up to something significant, particularly if they are interpreted through a deliberate process - her exercise in discernment. The moments she describes are all distinct -- racing on the freeway to church, folding altar cloths, walking in the hills above Santa Barbara -- but they start to add up, to build momentum, early in the book.

I liked the simplicity of her writing. Her portrayals of people and emotions are restrained, but that may be why they are illuminating. I don't know what some of the characters look like, but I do know that I'd like to share a meal with them. I also appreciated her honesty - she reveals her own overly-harsh judgments, and finds ways to expose her own doubts without wallowing in them.

It's a religious book, or a book about religion, I suppose. That's obvious from the title and virtually every page. But my first thoughts about it when putting it down had little to do with religion, or even spirituality. What we see in this book is an individual on a journey to find the work for which she is best suited. It's a mystery, an uncommon mystery.

It's an interesting story, and very well written. It's a book I'll read again down the road.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A profoundly moving statement about Life and Death and Love, July 7, 2003

By 

Carole S (Mill Valley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Practicing Resurrection: A Memoir of Work, Doubt, Discernment, and Moments of Grace (Hardcover)

Nora Gallagher tells a wonderful story about the everyday as well as the "big" events of life. Through a year of searching for answers and asking the needed questions, she goes beyond the usual metaphors to look at how to deal with the death of her brother, how to reconnect to her husband and most significantly, how to make an decision about which road to take next in her life. Readers - don't be put off by the religious words and subtext of this powerful book! It is not a book about going to church, but rather about the value of people, prayer, introspection, respect and bravery in all our lives. Relish its beautiful language and poetic flow. It is well worth your time to live in the world created by Ms. Gallagher!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars by the author of Holy Hunger, June 5, 2003

By 

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas (Northampton, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Practicing Resurrection: A Memoir of Work, Doubt, Discernment, and Moments of Grace (Hardcover)

At the beginning of Practicing Resurrection, Gallagher is at a crossroads, sorting out how to live after her brother's death and wondering whether she is being called to ordination. She is haunted by the sense that, despite her busyness, her life is drained of meaning. She feels trapped in a small world, as if she's just going through the motions and painting by the numbers. What is the larger, wilder, and more vivid life that keeps calling to her from her dreams? And where is the door?
As Gallagher makes clear, resurrection is not about dead bodies coming out of the grave. It is God's energy of renewal and rebirth, a compelling and sometimes dangerous vitality that calls us to live larger lives - to give ourselves more generously and to love without holding back.
Written with the keen eye of a journalist and the open heart of a poet, this marvelous new memoir is a treasure.