Lauren F. Winner - Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life

On the Path to a Spiritual Life

by

LAUREN F. WINNER

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Authors Note

In order to protect the privacy of friends and family, occasional detailsnames, professions, chronology, and so forthhave been changed. The character of Benjamin is a composite of two people, as is the character of Father Peter.

Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

2002 by Lauren F. Winner. All rights reserved.

Portions of this book previously appeared in the Christian Century, The Best Christian Writing 2000, God Within, and on Boundless.org.

All quotations from the American Book of Common Prayer are taken from the Book of Common Prayer, 1979 edition, the Episcopal Church, U.S.A.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations on the pages listed below are credited as follows: Pages 27, 203 (Hebrews 2:10), 228, 229, 245, and 246 (the Lord... a son and The women... to Naomi )taken from the Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Page 18translated by the author, based on NIV and NRSV translations. Pages 241 and 243 (kissed her mother-in-law, But Ruth clung to her, and he cleaves to her)taken from The Book of Ruth, trans. Meir Zlotowitz (NY: Mesorah Publications, Ltd., 1998). Pages 251, 260, 265, and 270taken from the Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. Page 257taken from the Psalter in the American Book of Common Prayer, 1928 edition, the Episcopal Church, U.S.A. Page 296based on the translation found at http://www.skokiekollel.org/haftorah/vayishlach.html .

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

eISBN 9781565127456

To

J O B AILEY W ELLS

who has been both Paul and Apollos (I Corinthians 3:6)

and

in memory of

I OLA J IMESON C OGDILL (19091994)

Back when Mississippi was dry, Ole Miss students and any other Oxford residents who wanted a drink would drive to Memphis, just across the state line, stock up on beer and whiskey, and haul it back in the trunks of their cars. Memphis was also where you went if you needed fancier clothes than you could find at Neilsons department store, or if you just started feeling itchy and trapped in the small hot downtown and wanted to go out dancing. You didnt need to leave Oxford to find a cherry Coke, which you could share with two straws at the Gathright-Reed drugstore, and you didnt need to leave Oxford to go to church. There are plenty of churches in Oxford: Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Episcopal, all kinds.

Before I arrived this week for a Southern history conference, Id been to Oxford and Memphis exactly once each, on separate trips. I was a bridesmaid at my friend Tovas wedding in Memphis, at the Peabody, the famous hotel where ducks swim in an indoor fountain and where they say the Delta starts.

I dont remember Oxford nearly as wellit had been the stop in between Nashville and Hattiesburg on a rather frantic research trip for my masters thesis, a blur of archives and oral history interviews. I hadnt gotten to do any traditional Oxford activities, like go to a tail-gating party before a football game or recite an ode to Faulkner.

My trip to Oxford this time might not be any more relaxed. Im here giving a paper at a conference on the Civil Rights movement, and my schedule will be full just sitting in the auditorium and listening to historians talk. But the conference ends on Friday and Im staying over till Sunday morning so my plan is to try to do one traditional Oxford thing on Saturday. It hasnt occurred to me that Ill spend Saturday doing the most traditional Oxford thing there is, which is going to Memphis.

The conference, all in all, is stressful. Stressful because I feel very much the youthful, inept doctoral candidate reading a paper in front of all these famous historians, including my thesis advisor and other people whose books line my shelves. Stressful because my dress is ever-so-slightly too tight, and Id managed to leave New York without a single pair of stockings. And stressful because one of the other people speaking at this conference is my erstwhile beau. This conference is small, only a dozen or so people participating; Ill never be able to avoid him.

His name is Steven; like me, hes a history grad student. We tried a transatlantic relationship, Steven in Arkansas (where hes getting his doctorate), me in England (where I was finishing my masters degree). But I freaked out for reasons I still dont entirely understand and broke up with him in May. I last saw him six weeks ago, early August, one very tense afternoon in Virginia. He was there working with papers at Alderman Library, and he stopped by my mothers house the day I was packing to move to New York. I was tired and distracted and we argued and he said I yelled at him the way you yell at someone you love and I denied it and he left. Later, my friend Hannah looked at me pointedly (it was over the phone, but I could feel her looking pointed) and said, That was very unwise. You shouldnt have agreed to meet with him.

Well, I said. That was all I said. I couldnt think of anything else to say.

Two months later, I call Hannah from the airport, this time on my way to Mississippi. Have a good conference, she says, call us when you get there. Then she adds, Dont let Steven get you alone like you did in Virginia.

Steven ignores me at first, wont even make eye contact or say hello, but the second night of the conference we all attend a reception at the Episcopal church, and hes half drunk on red wine by the time I get there. Its the only time Ive ever seen him even approximate drunkenness. He had this delinquent youth in Boston, smoked pot every day from the age of twelve, passed out on the pavement from angel dust, crashed his mothers car after downing too much bourbon, and shoplifted antiques and canned goods. Once, a friend of his had been entrusted with several hundred dollars, to buy provisions for a church youth group trip. He and Steven spent all the money on drugs and then stole $400 worth of groceries: hams, gallons of milk, bags of apples. The chronology has always been a little fuzzyIm not sure when exactly he stopped breaking the law, but I think during college. And since then Steves walked the straight and narrow, the extremely straight and narrow. Doesnt smoke. Doesnt chase skirts. Doesnt drink much. Swims every day. Eats wheat germ in his oatmeal at breakfast.

But there he is, standing on the patio of St. Peters Episcopal, putting away red wine and getting slightly glassy-eyed, which I know only because he decides finally to make eye contact with me. The eyes are enough of an invitation. I walk over to him and we talk about this and that, how smart his paper had been, whether he plans to ignore me for the rest of our professional lives. When everyone else goes inside for dinner, we stay outside and talk, and finally we duck out of the back of the church and find a restaurant, where I drink a gimlet and eat the best chicken Ive had in months. Then we go to Faulkners grave, an exciting and authentic Oxford activity, and Steven, who knows these things, says that when you visit Faulkners grave you have to drink bourbon in his honor. So we find a little liquor store, and buy a tiny bottle of Makers Mark, like the kind they give you on airplanes, and go and sit by his tombstone, and I shiver slightly in the September air, thinking about how Willie Morris had died over the summer, and how my friend Pete, who was in Jackson then, had drunk a bottle of George Dickel in Willie Morriss honor and then gone to Choctaw Books and bought