40. "Get out of That Pit" by Beth Moore

Beth Moore is not someone I'd normally read--I just don't read a lot of evangelical Christian writers. But a friend of my mom's, who I guess knew a little something about the past year of my life, loaned her Get out of That Pit and said it might help me. My mom read it and thought I should, too. I got through about five pages before realizing I needed my own copy so I could underline and mark up the margins. (I do that a lot.)

I don't agree with everything Moore says, and sometimes I think her stories are more tangential than funny. But she has some very wise ideas and advice in the pages of this book, too. Her insights about relationships, friendships, and the toll "pits" can take helped me understand and assimilate some of the things I experienced several months ago.

Moore believes in Satan as an active enemy. I struggle with this concept; for me, Satan has long been more of a tragic hero or comrade-in-suffering. This has, I think, much to do with the way certain people during my formative years (not my parents) portrayed God: as a perfect being who really didn't want to be bothered with the foibles, flaws, and opinions of us mere sinful humans; who was only interested in our utter and abject obedience; who dangled us like squirming spiders over a fire (if I'm recalling my Jonathan Edwards correctly), threatening to drop us into the flames at any moment; and who really didn't like women quite as well as men. Given all that, I don't think it's surprising that Satan--whom even John Milton, the Puritan, made into a tragic hero--came to seem like a kinder, friendlier, and far more creative spirit. He also seemed like an ally. The God being hammered into my skull was definitely not an ally.

I do believe in human evil, so I'm not sure why I struggle with the idea of a supernatural being who's wholly evil. But I think I have to change my mental images: Instead of envisioning Satan as a goth musician in flowing black and purple clothes, I need to start imagining him as a frumpy, fussy, petty, cruel middle-aged man.

One afternoon during our Christmas vacation, my nephew and I were looking out a window. He suddenly turned to me with a very tender expression, said his version of my name, and started patting me on the shoulder. As much as I struggle with the idea of a loving God (and the idea that God's love is not harsh and cruel), I've resolved to remember this pure expression of love from my nephew and cherish it as a very small example of what God's love is like.

38. "The Way of the Heart" by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Henri J.M. Nouwen was a Roman Catholic priest who gave up a teaching career at Yale to work with mentally disabled adults in the final years of his life. He also struggled with severe depression, and his writings about that are powerful, poignant, and brilliantly incisive.

The Way of the Heart is one of his earlier works, written before he left Yale and before he suffered a major depressive breakdown. It's still full of wisdom, however. I found his insights about silence particularly relevant and well-advised in the wake of last weekend's violence and the venomous rhetoric that has surrounded political discourse both before and since that event. I'm resolving to think more carefully before I speak (and write) in anger, to question whether what I have to say will serve any good purpose.

Also poignant, at least for me, are his comments about solitude. He differentiates between the aloneness of isolation and the aloneness that is filled with God's presence--just as silence need not be emptiness but rather can be full of contemplation, reflection, and communion.