Former PW religion reviews editor Jana Riess' Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor (starred review in PW, September 12) was just published by Paraclete Press.
RBL: How did this book come about? Why did you decide to write it now?
Riess: Well, I didn't decide to write this particular book. My editor at Paraclete, Lil Copan, commissioned me to write a humorous book about a year devoted to reading spiritual classics, similar to A.J. Jacobs' funny book, A Year of Living Biblically. I started out following this plan but soon realized that the book, and my experience, would be more substantial if I tried to devote myself to a year of engaging in various spiritual practices as well. After almost a year of engaging in one of these spiritual practices per month, I realized I was not succeeding at any of them. Lil Copan then brilliantly suggested I write about my failure, and so the book was born.
RBL: Which spiritual practices attracted you the most? Which ones attracted you the least?
Riess: The one practice I just couldn't embrace was Centering Prayer. It's the only practice I didn't succeed in engaging for an entire month; I gave it up after two weeks. There really aren't any good guides to Centering Prayer, and I hated Brother Lawrence's classic, The Practice of the Presence of God. His notion of mindfulness in the presence of God simply didn't make any sense to me. On the other hand, two practices that really engaged me were the Jesus Prayer and the Orthodox Jewish Sabbath. The Jesus Prayer is just twelve words, and it is helpful and comforting to incorporate it into my everyday life. The practice of the Orthodox Sabbath taught me the value of carving out an entire day and understanding and experiencing the holiness of time.
RBL: What did you learn from writing this book?
Riess: I was quite demoralized when I failed at one spiritual practice after another. What's more, I felt like I was failing at writing this memoir. Yet, when I received a phone call that my father—whom I had not seen or heard from in twenty-six years—was dying and that he wanted to see me, I traveled to Mobile, Alabama, quite stunned and unsure about how I would handle this final meeting. What I learned from my father's sudden reappearance and death, though, is that even though all of those unsuccessful practices felt like dismal failures at the time, they had actually taken root somehow and changed me. They helped form me into the kind of person who could go to the bedside of someone who had harmed me and say, "I forgive you; go in peace."
RBL: What message do you hope people will take from your book?
Riess: What I learned is that perfect is the enemy of good. When we place too much emphasis on perfection, we often set ourselves up for failure, and we feel shame if we fail. Sure, there's a place for shame in life, but when we're feeling shame over actions that are supposed to be bringing us closer to God, something's wrong. We should engage in these spiritual practices in a wildly imperfect way. There's a reason that there are different spiritual practices for different people. We are all necessary in the Kingdom of God, and it's not reasonable to expect that one gift fits all.
