So There I Was...
By Peggy Senger Parsons, self-published, 2009. 267 pages. $20.00/paperback.
The summer of 2006 saw me, an 18-year-old Quaker boy in the honeymoon period of a call to ministry, wandering the west coast of the United States. I started out in Seattle and, with an ultimate destination of San Francisco, somehow developed an itinerary that included Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Iowa. I've never been very good at geography.
By Peggy Senger Parsons, self-published, 2009. 267 pages. $20.00/paperback.
The summer of 2006 saw me, an 18-year-old Quaker boy in the honeymoon period of a call to ministry, wandering the west coast of the United States. I started out in Seattle and, with an ultimate destination of San Francisco, somehow developed an itinerary that included Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Iowa. I've never been very good at geography.
About a week into my trip, I ended up at Peggy Senger Parsons' house for a couple days. We'd never met, but I'd been reading her blog, where she was steadily publishing the essays that are collected in her new book, So There I Was.... I wanted to hang out with Peggy because I needed accompaniment as I figured out how to be faithful in life and ministry. It turns out that spiritual accompaniment is a gift Peggy has not just in person, but also as a writer. It is equal parts wisdom, humor, pastoral care, and prophetic challenge.
Peggy describes herself as a "freelance provocateur of grace," and in So There I Was..., she tells stories that illustrate what grace looks like when provoked. She rescues a pig-tailed runaway on a tricycle, avoids calamity by following the instructions of mysterious strangers, and plants small, subversive seeds of feminist thought in the minds of children. Her essays on 21st-century spiritual practice include things like "the Discipline of Spiritual Adventure," and her biblical exegesis is heavy on motorcycle metaphors.
So There I Was... could easily be gimmicky, if it weren't for the authenticity and depth of the author's underlying message. Peggy has been a pastoral counselor for a couple decades. She has done trauma healing work with survivors of genocide. When she writes about healing and grace, truth-telling and mythology, it is with palpable conviction and depth of understanding.
Peggy's colorful, creative facility with language often comes at the expense of grammatical convention. Also, she makes more than one oatmeal joke. A single oatmeal joke, in a single publication, might be a forgivable offense-- but two? Potential readers will need to exercise discretion in this matter.
As a whole, this wide-ranging collection of essays maintains a lively energy while presenting meaningful, substantive content. Friends and others with both a deep yearning to be faithful and an irreverent streak will find So There I Was... a valuable resource, a challenge and a comfort. I believe and hope that, in addition to serving these individuals well, Peggy's book may prove a significant contribution to Quakerism as a whole. We need more thoughtful voices speaking from beyond our binary perceptions of liberal vs. evangelical Quaker thought. We need more passion, and we need more public Friends embodying anachronism so that we may begin to face our preconceptions with fresh eyes.
Peggy, as a passionate and compassionate narrative essayist, does all of these things.
Kody Gabriel Hersh is a member of Miami Monthly Meeting (Southeastern YM), currently living in Philadelphia. He has been active with the FGC Youth Ministries Committee and Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns.
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