Customer Reviews

I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I just finished reading this book last night and slept feeling very much at peace. Brenda's description of her family and reunions were such a joy to read - I instantly fell in love with her parents. There is so much I learned from this book about nature, family, animals and spirituality. My favorite chapter was In the Gardens - I couldn't imagine how the writer left her job at the New Yorker and moved to the middle of no where to look after a farm and grow corn. Once I read that chapter I cried, I understood the passion and connection she felt with nature and nurturing nature. This book transported my to various family gatherings and experiences from Brenda's life and I now have a better understanding of the Southern Baptist culture, nature, kindness and importance of family - no matter what flavor they come in.

What I particularly liked about Brenda Peterson's spiritual memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind, is that she's gone two steps further than most of our modern thinkers do. When thinking about living a life, there are three things that must be touched upon, especially when one wants to live a good, fulfilling life.

First, is the idea that there should be harmony and what C.S. Lewis called "fair play" between individuals. Second, there is the "harmonisation" (Lewis was British) of the inner life. Third, there is the knowledge of what humanity is here for, what we're supposed to be doing, and what voices we listen to as we do it. Modern thinkers have got the harmony and "fair play" idea down pat. We've got tons of books (memoirs even) about this. It's the loudest cry of our modern world. "Hey, let's play fair. Can't we all just get along?"

While Peterson espouses this idea all throughout her book, she takes us deeper into the personal "harmonisation" of her inner self. When a hasty (probably well-meaning, but ill-advised) comment from a Vacation Bible School teacher frustrates the young Peterson, she begins to assemble her own inner life "harmonisation" at a very young age. Rather than accept the idea that God could not appear in nature (every experience she had with her Forest Ranger father and nature-loving family had taught her exactly the opposite), Peterson began a quest to live a life that fit what she authentically believed already. No one can fault her for that. That's the beauty of the book. It's a journey of inner harmony.

But it's the third point that I find the most to learn from. What is humanity here for? What are we supposed to be going? What voice are we listening to? Is it the loud and angry voice of dogmatic fundamentalism of both Right and Left promising destruction of the earth because of humanity's failings? Or is there another voice we could choose to hear? Peterson has shown that there is a third path: we may not know what is going to happen in the future, but there is "harmonisation" available now, free to anyone who chooses to take it. To some it may look like grace given from a Christian God, to others it may look like a sense of knowing oneself as taught in Eastern religion.

The most beautiful piece of this memoir is that what she offers for us to do does not fit neatly into either of the most dogmatic, fundamentalist camps. Her approach of peace and reconciliation between former harpoon-yielding humans and the gray whales gathered in Baja, for example, is beautifully rendered and a testament to her writing skill. Her same approach to her own family--no malice, no judgment, just grace and truth--seems to me a loving, heartfelt extension of that same feeling. As I read her book, I heard myself singing softly to myself:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.

The key is that Peterson has found a wonderful path to the same place as her family--a love for nature, a love for humanity, a love for God--that provides "harmonisation" for her inner life. And that she has written a book about it and brought us along is a gift. For one thing we can all agree on--earth now is rapturous. And we only have to step out our front door to find it.

In her memoir I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here On Earth novelist and nature writer Brenda Peterson explores the paradox of a family both deeply in love with nature and deeply committed to the belief that the true salvation will only come with the earthÕs destruction.

The lone liberal in a family of conservative Southern Baptists, Peterson writes lyrically about her early childhood in a Forest Service station--and in a world where God and Satan, and the impending Rapture are as real as the forests she loves. She traces her path away from her conservative Southern Baptist childhood, through the Civil Rights era, protests at Berkeley, a fledging career at The New Yorker, another career farming in Colorado, and then yet a third career as a nature writer in Seattle.

Peterson's account of a transformative period in American history is fascinating. Equally fascinating is the more intimate journey she and her family take in finding paths through the deep religious and political schisms that divide them. The climax of the book comes in an epiphany--that fundamentalists and environmentalists butt heads not because they are so very different, but because they are flip sides of the same coin.

One day, Peterson lists the defining characteristics of fundamentalists and environmentalists:
Fundamentalists / Environmentalists
Enraptured by doom / Enraptured by doom
Apocalypse Now / Apocalypse Near
Fear of future consequences / Fear of future consequences
Righteous anger / Righteous anger
Thou shalt not / Thou shalt not
Holier than thou / Holier than thou
Humorless / Humorless
Blame, shame, judgment / Blame, shame, judgment
Evangelical / Evangelical

She continues: "This list was so disturbing to me that I immediately put it in the back of my notebook, feeling disloyal to all my own environmental causes. Yet I could not help but see that both sides were so busy envisioning a future Eden that they took no time to appreciate the present moment. I began to watch myself whenever I tended to fall into the simple formulas of my heritage: black-and-white thinking, a belief that I knew all the right answers. This was a much more unsettling path wandering a wilderness of uncomfortable gray areas. I was seeking common or even uncharted ground. Or, as Rumi says, 'Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field. I will meet you there.'"

The list highlights a central theme: As long as we inhabit the far reaches of any extreme, conversation is difficult--or impossible. That epiphany changes the way Peterson relates to her remarkable family. Increasingly, she seeks common ground, conversation rather than conversion, and in the end learns to find rapture in her family as well as in the world around her.

In an time when concerns about moral and ecological decay give rise to increasingly heated, polarized debate, Peterson's book comes as a breath of fresh air--a reminder that the earth and its inhabitants are a joy as well as a responsibility, and that the best path to our future lies in seeking, and finding, the common ground that lies in the fields beyond. I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here On Earth is available through Amazon, and at bookstores everywhere.

by Sherry Wachter
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

To understand the significance of memoir and the balance an author must try to find, Judith Barrington writes in her book "Writing the Memoir:"
Memoirists have to make peace with the possibility that there is no more an absolute truth in memoir than there is in life. When writing memoir, I sometimes reorder events to make the story work. I approximate dialogue that I can't recall word for word. While taking these liberties with factual truth, I feel honor bound to capture the essence of the interaction in the events. Toni Morrison explains that, "The crucial distinction is not the difference between fact and fiction, but the distinction between fact and truth."
We are often told than keeping quiet is a kind of loyalty, that speaking out is a betrayal of family, colleagues, friends, institutions, country. Women, especially, know that we are expected to keep the peace ... and always "make nice." Telling the truth almost always breaks unspoken laws, whether it be a family or a larger community. No matter what story you tell, there can always be someone who didn't want to be mentioned, someone who ought to have been mentioned, or someone who thinks you got it all wrong. So why risk causing unpleasantness? For some reason particular to you and your life, you need to tell the truth.
It is that unique blend of truth and art - a blend that may take years of practice to achieve - that can touch a reader's heart with immediate sorrow or lift a reader's spirits in a flash of recognition. We all learn from one another's stories, which is, perhaps, the great gift of memoir. We watch the memoirist make sense of her life and no matter how different our circumstances; we find some commonality with her and feel a little less alone in the world.

In her book "Writing for Your Life," Deena Metzger writes:
Whatever our story is, we must come to know it. It is given to us the way we are given ourselves; it is the source and the record of our identity. Perhaps story is the only thing we have at the end of our lives, and it is everything.

In "I Want to Be Left Behind," Brenda Peterson tells the story of attending a Southern Baptist Church in New York City in 1974 with her mother - in Harlem. The scene is filled with both pathos and humor. She writes, "... the thought struck me: my mother, a Southern Baptist conservative had fewer racial stereotypes here in Harlem than her liberal daughter who carried mace in her purse and was hypervigilant on city streets. Mother had entered this church with a much more open heart than mine."

Because introspective passages like this are woven throughout "I Want to Be Left Behind," I knew this was a narrator I could trust. This is a memoirist who has worked to make sense of her life and clearly makes "the crucial distinction between fact and truth."

Now we can only wait for Peterson's sister to write her own memoir.

How refreshing to read a memoir where the author is willing to consider her life experiences with such honesty and humor! Brenda Peterson is a seasoned writer with a keen eye for identifying similar life themes, whether they are dished out from the "right" (Christian fundamentalists) or from the "left" (passionate environmentalists). Midway through her memoir, Peterson lists nine characteristics that fit both fundamentalists and environmentalist, i.e., "Apocalypse Now," "Holier Than Thou" or "Humorless." These kind of insightful observations make this memoir extraordinary, nudging all of us to reconsider any polarizing position we may hold about anything while at the same time enjoying a good read!

I especially like that this author is willing to point out with humor her own short comings and rigid thinking. Peterson has found a way to talk about fundamentalism without polarizing, creating a common ground for each of us to calm down, laugh, and reflect on our own family and life beliefs.

MRM (Oregon)

This is the first book I've read by Brenda Peterson, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Her desire to be free of the strict conservatism and rapture-riddenism of her family changes, over time and with much experience, to an appreciation of them, even though she never goes back to the Southern Baptist religion. She presents the environment, the planet on which we live and move and have our being, as the place to achieve contact with and commitment to the spiritual Beings that we are and the reality that we share with the animals and the trees and the rest of nature. A beautiful book, and one I couldn't put down until I was finished.

Reading memoir gives us the privilege of experiencing life through someone else's eyes. A well-written memoir entertains us and reminds us of the richness in our own lives. Brenda Peterson's I Want to Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth is such a book.

In captivating detail, she chronicles her journey from her beginnings as the nature-loving, intellectually-curious eldest daughter in a family of evangelical Southern Baptists to the writer and earth steward she is today. Frequent moves to her father's posts with the US Forest Service offered her and her siblings a wealth of experiences, anchored by her family's abiding faith. We hear about Sword Drill competitions ("like spelling bees for true believers"), her eye-opening high school years in Berkeley in the 60's, her ejection from Glorietta, a Baptist summer camp, for taking leftover food to a desperately-poor Indian tribe nearby, and her epiphany in a Winn Dixie. The chapter about her time as an editorial staffer at the New Yorker in the early 70's captures a fascinating bygone culture.

Peterson writes lovingly about the natural world, and of her family, her "tribe". Her descriptions of her father (patriarch and steward of forests) and mother (inspired cook and CIA employee) are wonderful portraits of two passionate people who, though very different from their daughter, had a huge influence on the person she is today. Her language is rich and authentic.

An enjoyable, beautifully written journey through the life of an insightful lady
who balances two very different worlds. A tribute, certainly, to the bond of family
and how it shapes us throughout our lives. In parts hilarious and heartbreaking!
Will definitely be gifting this book to friends and family.

While the author and her sister bicker over what is the truth, they both overlook the author's real sin: she wrote an astonishingly boring book.

I suggest this book to anyone the believes in god and loves this earth. Its a great perspective and validated me in common feelings I have.