Jane Sigloh - Gracious Uncertainty: Faith in the Second Half of Life

Praise for Gracious Uncertainty

Jane Siglohs Gracious Uncertainty seems like a sure bet to me. She has the wisdom that comes (if lucky) at a certain age, but a youthful spirit that doesnt settle for received wisdom or a stock response. She investigates experience across her own lifetime to share both what she has come to understand and what remains a mystery. The Bible is her companion throughout but by no means her only inspiration. Best of all, she makes you want to keep better track of yourself. God may be beyond knowing, but what are the hints and guesses that come to us if, like her, we pay attention to our lives? Peter S. Hawkins, Yale Divinity School

Jane Sigloh validates the statement, God made human beings, because he loves stories. Her stories and reflections are personal but, as Carl Rogers says, that which is most personal is most universal. Janes memories and reflections are woven into a practical theology, and they are a sound basis to finding a footing in lifes second half. J. Pittman McGehee, Episcopal priest, Jungian analyst, and author of The Invisible Church: Finding Faith Where You Are

Gracious Uncertainty

Faith in the Second Half of Life

Jane Sigloh

Rowman & Littlefield

Lanham Boulder New York London

Biblical quotes come from various bibles.

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

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Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2018 by Jane Sigloh

Excerpts from Tract by William Carlos Williams, from The Collected Poems: Volume I, 19091939 , copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Names: Sigloh, Jane, 1934 author.

Title: Gracious uncertainty : faith in the second half of life / Jane Sigloh.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017031631 (print) | LCCN 2017033056 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442276260 (electronic) | ISBN 9781442276253 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Older ChristiansReligious life. | AgingReligious aspectsChristianity.

Classification: LCC BV4580 (ebook) | LCC BV4580 .S539 2017 (print) | DDC 248.8/5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017031631

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

For

Ethan MacNeill Engleby

19602008

Go now; write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, so that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever.

Isaiah 30:8

Foreword

Julie Shields and James Lott

About the time we realize that we are mortalwhich is frequently quite a while after we realize that other people are mortalmany of us start fretting about what we want to leave behind. Who will inherit my grandmothers quilt? Who will get the grandfather clock? And that crystal vase thats been in the family forever?

But we also want to leave behind a part of ourselves.

One way is to leave our stories, so our children and grandchildren will know about us and the world we live in. This is partly what Jane Sigloh is doing in this collection. The stories, told with skill and grace and wisdom, are a special gift to her readers. With her eye for details, she creates scenes that come to life before us. We picture a young Jane sitting in church with her grandmother on a scorching Texas Sunday morning, or an older Jane, having fallen while taking a supper upstairs, sitting in the middle of avocados and grapefruit and dirt and dog hair. We feel the insensitivity and ignorance of her grandchild Henrys teacher, and we laugh at the sight of Jane holding on to her nineteen inch fish as she falls overboard and heads downstream.

But as good as Janes stories are and as much as we get to know her and her world, this is far more than a collection of funny and touching stories forming a memoir. The stories summon meditations on what is most important to her: her faith. It is that faith she wants to share, the faith that has sustained her, given her joy, and borne her through sorrow. And with which she lovinglyalways lovinglystruggles.

Jane takes her spiritual experiences seriously but takes herself lightly; a happy blend. Not like a wild-eyed evangelist on a street corner grabbing your arm, nor like a scholarly professor at a seminary occasionally lapsing into Greek (though she has the passion of the one and the erudition of the other); she greets us as a friend sharing her stories and the thoughts that arise from them.

Like a good friend, she shares intimate moments of her lifethe loss of those she loves, times of helplessness and exhaustion, moments of wonder and joy. And especially, what may be hardest for any of us to share, moments of questioning and doubt. These are not academic reflections, nor are they sermons. They are personal, sometimes quirky, always honest inquiries into lifes puzzles and quandaries. As a whole they probe the meaning of Gods providence in our lives.

Typically, each reflection begins with a memory (or sometimes with a casual observation) and the memory or the observation generates a search for insight. As our guide in the search, Jane is sometimes amusing, often herself bemused, but ultimately the conveyor of an essential wisdom.

For many, aging can result in calcified certainties, in despair over loss, or in a nostalgia that is ultimately delusive. But these reflections provide a different model of the wisdom that can come to us as we grow older: the capacity to wonder about life, to open ourselves to the wind of the Spirit, and to rest in what Jane calls gracious uncertainty. As thinking and faithful people, this collection tells us, we can achieve in age an ability to accept our limited capacity to comprehend Gods mystery while at the same time glorying in Gods love.

This collection will speak to those who are living with the challenges of aging and to those who love and counsel them: pastors, families, and friends. But the reflections are also relevant to anyone, young or old or somewhere in between, concerned with spiritual questions, not because the reflections provide answerscertainly not dogmatic answersbut because they show how to go about asking those questions with faith and with honesty.

One finaland personalnote: a blurb on the cover of Janes previous book Like Trees Walking described her as a priest, wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, poet, vintner, cook, gardener, and story keeper. Wed like to add friend. We have both known Jane for years and have been on the receiving end of her affection, humor, and wisdom. We believe readers of this collection will receive the same.

Years ago, one of usJulieattended a Bible study that Jane was teaching. Julie didnt know Jane well then and was a bit intimidated. When Jane turned to her and asked a question, Julie, surrounded by those who had been studying the Bible for months and whom she assumed knew far more than she, confessed, Most of my theology comes from Shakespeare. Without batting an eye, Jane responded, Well, the Gospel is still being written. And so it is.