Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Non-fiction

When religion is an addiction: Review of Spiritual Sobriety by Elizabeth Esther

There’s a part of me that is reluctant to share anything about this book because the idea of it makes me uncomfortable at the same time it sets me free. Does that even make sense?

9780307731890Admitting that religion is an addiction seems sacrilegious. Can you get too much of a good thing?

The answer is yes and Elizabeth Esther gently guides us through the process of rediscovering a vibrant faith that has been stifled by religion. Spiritual Sobriety: Stumbling Back to Faith When Good Religion Goes Bad is the book I wish I’d read years ago when my whole belief system was falling apart. My “good” behavior didn’t produce the results I wanted from life, and I’ve been wrestling with God ever since.

This book gives us permission to step back from unhealthy systems and practices and relearn healthy spirituality.

While the author is writing from the perspective of someone who grew up in a religious cult, the principles she writes about are applicable in less restrictive religious environments. She explains it this way:

The issue is this: an obsession with spiritual beliefs, rituals, and pursuits that initially helps us but eventually removes our power to make healthy decision and brings significant harm to us and to those close to us. (9)

Elizabeth walks us through a sort of undoing, focusing on reality, moderation and letting go of the need to control others’ behaviors. She also addresses relapse, which is crucial to accept as part of the recovery process with any addiction. That might have been my favorite chapter because it allows for imperfection and acknowledges that transformation is a slow, steady process, not an instant change.

It took me months to read this book but not because the writing was hard to understand. Truthfully, the author got to the heart of so many things I’m dealing with that at times it was overwhelming and I didn’t want to deal with it anymore. It’s a book to take slowly and with great care. I’d advise working through it in partnership with someone else who understands addictive behavior or who is in recovery.

This book isn’t for everyone and it might even make you mad. But if striving for holiness and working harder at religious practices is only making you feel more defeated, this is a recommended read.

I’m going to suggest that we do something really radical, uncomfortable, and borderline blasphemous: we stop trying to be good. (151)

How you react to that sentence is a good indicator of whether or not you should read this book.

What to do in the depths: Review of How to Survive a Shipwreck by Jonathan Martin

I will admit: this is not the kind of book you want to have to read. Storms and shipwrecks, disasters of any kind are not the kinds of things I like to dwell on. Preparing for a disaster is not a priority for me. I prefer, instead, to pretend disaster won’t happen to me, even though it already has.

shipwreckI wish I had had this resource years ago.

In How to Survive a Shipwreck: Help is on the Way and Love is Already Here, Jonathan Martin uses his own experience with a crumbling life as the basis for a guide through the wreckage. It is more hopeful than it might sound.

But it’s also deep and a tiny bit painful. Martin does not provide easy solutions or sweet suggestions. It is a guide full of words like “death” as well “resurrection,” “letting go” and “holding on.” It is the baring of a soul who found out that he couldn’t keep his world from falling apart and he couldn’t put it together without help.

So many words moved me, but here is one passage that sets the tone for the entire book:

But it does not really matter how you got here or why; and it doesn’t really matter if it was God or the devil or yourself or some ancient chaos that spilled up from the bottom of the sea. What matters now is that you are drowning, and the world you loved before is not your world any longer. The questions of why and how are less pressing than the reality that is your lungs filling with water now. Philosophy and theology won’t help you much here, because what you believe existentially about storms or oceans or drowning won’t make you stop drowning. Religion won’t do you much good down here, because beliefs can’t keep you warm when you’re twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea. …

The shipwreck is upon you. And there is no going back to the life you had.

The waters that drown are the waters that save.” (p. 20-21)

I read this book while a series of minor storms hit, leading up to a more devastating one. Martin’s words offer comfort as well as encouragement to not be afraid of the fallout. Everything might fall apart, but that is not the end of everything. And, eventually, good can come from it.

The surprise on the other side of the shipwreck is that, while your capacity for pain proved to be far beyond your wildest reckoning, now you have a capacity to feel everything deeper. You are capable of a depth of empathy and compassion that would have been unthinkable before.” (p. 194)

Martin’s book is a must-read for anyone attempting to navigate one of life’s many storms, or for anyone who is helping someone else navigate one. Take it slow and let the words seep into your soul.