Art, stories, miracles, and other nebulous things

A discussion of Nancy French's Ghosted

If you’ve stumbled on this just for the Nancy French content and don’t know or care about me at all, feel free to skip down to the dividing line.

Hi friends! OMG I am so happy to be talking to you because I have been on my own for almost two weeks now, and let me just say that my company is WAY overrated. I am around other people during the work days, but it’s just not enough for this extrovert. I have had tons of time to ponder all kinds of things and somehow I don’t have much in the way of brilliant ideas. Apparently I get all my good ideas from interacting with other people, go figure.

I did get out today to see (and yes, buy) some art. Y’all know I am a late in life, very amateur artist, and I LOVE African art. Because there is SO much beautiful stuff. And when I travel, I feel almost obligated to buy some, because there are so many talented artists and not a big enough domestic consumer base to truly sustain them. At least this is what I tell myself as I drop wads of cash. I sent Kevin some pictures to get his preferences, and I’m guessing this was his reaction.

But seriously, look at this gorgeous work! Can you blame me one bit? Also I didn’t buy all of these, so calm down, Kevin.

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Speaking of art, Nancy French is also an artist and has created so many beautiful pieces that go along with her memoir, Ghosted. ¹(How as that for a seamless transition?)

This piece was inspired by her time in Wasila, Alaska, where she ghost wrote Bristol Palin’s memoir. Just one of the many wild tales in her memoir.

First things first, this book is a page turner. Nancy’s had quite the roller coaster life, only some of which I knew about before reading this. There is tragedy—growing up in poverty, being abused by her youth pastor, almost being murdered by a psychotic boyfriend, her college best friend’s death in a car accident. There is comedy—telling the Romneys (she was Anne’s ghost writer) she could ski when she couldn’t and taking out Mitt when she inevitably fell; she and David getting called repeatedly while they lived in New York by random women only to discover they had David Lee Roth’s old phone number.

And there is faith, both harmful and uplifting. Nancy has experienced the full spectrum. Abuse like hers has sadly become a familiar story line in evangelical spaces, one that, as a journalist, Nancy has doggedly uncovered and combatted. She is a fierce, courageous advocate for victims.

She has also experienced another familiar evangelical storyline, being judged and shunned for her own victimization and pain, even by her own parents. That was a narrative I wanted to hear more about. Later in the book, it appeared they had reconciled, and I wondered how that took place. I have been shamed and judged by my parents, but nothing on this level. I mean, her parents blamed her for seducing the youth pastor at the age of 12! And then they believed the murderous boyfriend’s version of things over hers! I don’t know how you come back from that.

On the other hand, I’m not really surprised. I’ve seen evangelicals choose religiously-correct narratives over the experiences and feelings of people they love over and over. It’s the story of LGBTQ people in those communities. It’s what I experienced as I left my first marriage. It’s what I heard repeatedly from the missionary kids I interviewed for my book. And it’s the same dynamic that caused David and Nancy’s faith community, once a bedrock of their lives, to “ghost” them over their opposition to Donald Trump.

But here’s the thing—and I’m guessing this realization is what helped Nancy reconcile with her parents—most of the people in these communities who act this way are not terrible people in their hearts (some of them definitely are). And most of the parents of my missionary kids truly do love their kids. But this is what toxic belief does to people. It causes them to value certainty over relationship, or even integrity. It’s what it looks like when fear overwhelms love. And it’s tragic for everyone involved. The people who believe this way hurt others, but they also cheat themselves.

Nancy also relates positive experiences with faith, starting with her relationship with David. David’s faith was wrapped in love for her, and his love healed her and helped her find her own faith. David also comes from a context of rigid, certain belief. But somehow he and Nancy have found space in their hearts and minds for things that don’t quite fit. They themselves have been willing to not fit.

And I’ll be honest, in my experience this is not the norm in evangelicalism, and as I’ve discussed before (and as I have repeatedly said on David’s social media posts—unlike Nancy, he ignores me LOL), I wish the “good evangelicals” would grapple more directly with how and why their own theology more often than not produces bitter, rotten fruit. We’ll set that aside for today.

Nancy also tells of some pretty miraculous personal experiences of faith, and frankly, this is the part of the book with which I really, really struggled. Nancy tells several stories that are downright freaky, to use a technical term. David was seemingly healed completely overnight (literally) from a severe gastrointestinal disease. Then there was an episode involving a prophetess who accurately predicted Nancy’s pregnancy, its near loss and eventual happy outcome. There were some other minor miracles scattered in there, too.

And of course there is the macro-level miracle of her life’s resurrection from horrendous abuse, grief, and violence. She believes in prayer. She believes in a God who loves her personally and has intervened in her life to direct her paths towards a beautiful destination.

And I just don’t know what to make of her accounts. I grew up hearing (and still hear from evangelical friends and family) various miraculous tales of conversion, healing, transformation, or experience of God. I could dismiss many of these stories as exaggerated, biased, embellished, or incomplete—a lot of the “transformations” turn out to be temporary, for instance. Some of the people who have told me these stories have proven themselves to be generally full of sh*t.

But I don’t think Nancy French is full of sh*t. I believe her.

When I was a true believer—or rather, when I was trying very hard to be one—these stories made me wonder what was wrong with me. Because I had never experienced such encounters or visions or too-crazy coincidences. Jesus did not feel like my BFF. I prayed every day for 8 years for him to help me love my first husband. On my knees, in tears, begging. Nothing changed. Not even slightly.

I’ve never experienced a discreet miracle. I mostly don’t believe in prayer, except as way of cultivating perspective or gratitude or as some kind of telepathic push of love that brings strength to others. Maybe.

But I have had the feeling of looking back at my life and seeing how big and small choices and chances have brought me to places I have a strange sixth sense were always where I would and should end up.

One non-religious friend who read Nancy’s book upon my recommendation texted me after finishing it, flat-out enraged by Nancy’s view of life as something God directs and of her particular life as something he had decided to redeem. She felt Nancy was putting forward a “corrosive notion..of God giving good fortune to this one, mixed fortune to that one, unalloyed horror and misery to all these ones. How dare she?”

My friend makes an excellent point. My life seems like a kind of miracle to me, and Nancy’s does to her. But what about so many others? What about the millions of people surrounding me right now, in Addis Ababa, in one of the poorest countries in the world, currently dealing with yet another cycle of violence that threatens to destroy people? Where are their miracles?

I grew up asking these very questions all the time, as I observed the poverty and suffering around me through the walls of my privileged bubble. Why was I born an American? A white American no less? With responsible, educated, decent parents? The inequalities and injustices in our world stack up like dry wood and constantly ignite in horrible conflagrations.

Perhaps my friend is right, and, God or no God, everything is just random chance, twists of fate, isolated strands of nothing that our human brains—biologically hardwired to make connections, find patterns, doggedly tie things up in bows—turn into grand narrative and woven tapestry. Maybe if there is a God, that’s a kinder take on him.

But I don’t think any of us know for sure. And that’s kind of the bottom line for me, as someone who has rejected evangelicalism. I refuse to insist that I know the answers. I refuse to be so certain about things that can’t be known that I won’t allow people to have their own experience, to find their own answers, to arrive at some meaning for themselves in whatever way they can.² I think that’s the essence of true friendship and community.

My friend can have her anger at the world’s unfairness and religions that imply God picks and chooses.

And Nancy French can have her miracles.

And I’ll just live somewhere in between, pondering, weighing, wondering, trying to understand.

After all, life is more art than science.

1. Apologies to Nancy and to y’all for not including any direct quotes of her beautiful writing, but I left my book at home when I left on this trip. But trust me, there’s some gorgeous turns of phrase it this book.

2. As long as it’s not harmful to self or others. And you could argue that evangelicalism, even the Nancy French variety, is harmful. My friend would say it is, as it feeds into an arrogance of being chosen by God.