Status
Available
Publication
Anchor (2005), Edition: Reprint, 305 pages
Description
Karen Armstrong begins this spellbinding story of her spiritual journey with her departure in 1969 from the Roman Catholic convent she had entered seven years before -- hoping, but ultimately failing, to find God. She knew almost nothing of the changed world to which she was returning, and she was tormented by panic attacks and inexplicable seizures. Armstrong's struggle against despair was further fueled by a string of discouragements -- failed spirituality, doctorate, and jobs; fruitless dealings with psychiatrists. Finally, in 1976, she was diagnosed with epilepsy, given proper treatment, and released from her "private hell." She then began the writing career that would become her true calling, and as she focused on the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, her own inner story began to emerge. Without realizing it, she had embarked on a spiritual quest, and through it she would eventually experience moments of transcendence -- the profound fulfillment that she had not found in long hours of prayer as a young nun. Powerfully engaging, often heartbreaking, but lit with bursts of humor, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary history of self.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member DubiousDisciple
This is a new sequel to Karen’s first book, Through the Narrow Gate, after the first sequel, Beginning the World, flopped. Because, she says, she was “not truthful.”
Perhaps Karen overcompensated on the “truthful” part this time around. The result is a brutally honest autobiography of a
Karen spent seven years as a nun in a Catholic convent, then tried to put God behind her and enter the secular world of London. Yet, God would never quite go away. God hung around in a love-hate relationship until Karen finally faced her demons, and found religion again … this time in writing about God. Faith, Karen learned, is not an intellectual assent but an act of will, a deliberate choice to believe. Believers (among whom Karen confesses multiple times she is no longer) cannot prove or disprove their doctrines, but must consciously decide to take them on trust.
One of Karen’s shortcomings as a nun was that she could never connect with God through prayer. There was simply nobody on the other end. Many years later, she realized she was looking for God where he could not be found. Faith, she came to understand, is not about belief, but about practice. Religion, says Karen, is a “moral aesthetic,” an “ethical alchemy.” If you behave a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they conform to some metaphysical, scientific, or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. You will not discover them to be true until you put them into practice in your own life, where they compel you to act in such a way as to bring out your own heroic potential. Faith, Karen now believes, should make you more human, not less.
On the very last page, Karen looks down to find that, while she has climbed out of darkness, she has come full circle. The Spiral Staircase. “As I go up, step by step, I am turning, again, round and round, apparently covering little ground, but climbing upward, I hope, toward the light.”
Perhaps Karen overcompensated on the “truthful” part this time around. The result is a brutally honest autobiography of a
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repeat failure. At one point, Karen despairs, “I was an ex-nun, a failed academic, mentally unstable, and now I could add epileptic to this dismal list. … Even God, for whom I had searched so long, is simply the product of a faulty brain, a neurological aberration.”Karen spent seven years as a nun in a Catholic convent, then tried to put God behind her and enter the secular world of London. Yet, God would never quite go away. God hung around in a love-hate relationship until Karen finally faced her demons, and found religion again … this time in writing about God. Faith, Karen learned, is not an intellectual assent but an act of will, a deliberate choice to believe. Believers (among whom Karen confesses multiple times she is no longer) cannot prove or disprove their doctrines, but must consciously decide to take them on trust.
One of Karen’s shortcomings as a nun was that she could never connect with God through prayer. There was simply nobody on the other end. Many years later, she realized she was looking for God where he could not be found. Faith, she came to understand, is not about belief, but about practice. Religion, says Karen, is a “moral aesthetic,” an “ethical alchemy.” If you behave a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they conform to some metaphysical, scientific, or historical reality but because they are life enhancing. You will not discover them to be true until you put them into practice in your own life, where they compel you to act in such a way as to bring out your own heroic potential. Faith, Karen now believes, should make you more human, not less.
On the very last page, Karen looks down to find that, while she has climbed out of darkness, she has come full circle. The Spiral Staircase. “As I go up, step by step, I am turning, again, round and round, apparently covering little ground, but climbing upward, I hope, toward the light.”
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LibraryThing member maryreinert
I have never read any of Karen Armstrong's books, but I have seen many references to her writings and have perused her books at the bookstore and found them interesting. I thought this might be a good book to begin with and I was not disappointed. She is an interesting woman who has opened herself
The last chapters of Spiral Staircase are especially interesting and worthy of going back to reread. I find her explanation of the paradox of the absent God and as she says "a presence in my life" insightful. Her analogy of ascending a spiral staircase and her spiritual journey is so apt. Ms. Armstrong has done for me something that I do not have the time, skill, or intellect to do and that is to step back from the boundaries of a very traditional religious upbringing and take a much larger view of this unnameable force in our lives that we so innocently and ineffectually call God.
I would also recommend The Seven Storey Mountain by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton (who is referred to in the last pages of Spiral Staircase). Thomas Merton's faith journey leads to the Catholic Church rather than away from it, but I believe the ultimate destination of both Merton and Armstrong are not that far from each other.
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and has shown all the darkest corners of her being in what I found to be a very matter-of-fact way. She certainly has enough baggage from a rather strange past, but I felt she was honest in dealing with her frustrations, her weaknesses, her mistakes, and her achievements. I do find her bitterness at the Catholic Church a bit much at times; surely there was someone in the convent or in her early Catholic life that was a positive influence. She can be a harsh judge of others, but I think she also judges herself harshly at times.The last chapters of Spiral Staircase are especially interesting and worthy of going back to reread. I find her explanation of the paradox of the absent God and as she says "a presence in my life" insightful. Her analogy of ascending a spiral staircase and her spiritual journey is so apt. Ms. Armstrong has done for me something that I do not have the time, skill, or intellect to do and that is to step back from the boundaries of a very traditional religious upbringing and take a much larger view of this unnameable force in our lives that we so innocently and ineffectually call God.
I would also recommend The Seven Storey Mountain by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton (who is referred to in the last pages of Spiral Staircase). Thomas Merton's faith journey leads to the Catholic Church rather than away from it, but I believe the ultimate destination of both Merton and Armstrong are not that far from each other.
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LibraryThing member erwinkennythomas
From postulant to internationally-known interfaith writer Karen Armstrong’s life has been like a seesaw in The Spiral Staircase with trials, disappointments, and acclaim. Armstrong was certain that her early life in a convent damaged her. She felt as though she had suffered, beaten into
Armstrong continued having fainting spells and hallucinations even as she was attending Oxford University. But despite her illness she was still able to do very well as an undergraduate in literature. On graduating she was able to find boarding with the Harts, and took care of their son Jacob who suffered from epilepsy. All the while she was studying in graduate school where she was pursuing the PhD degree. But she failed to matriculate after her thesis on Tennyson was rejected.
Eventually Armstrong found work as department head in a girls’ public school. This position required her to commute quite a distant to work that she didn’t exactly like. But her health remained a problem, and although she was doing well in her teaching career she was missing too many days because of illness. Having these health issues she was let go from the school. But soon afterwards her real health problem was diagnosed as epilepsy. With medication Armstrong’s health improved and she found happiness in the publication of her book Through the Narrow Gate. This meant stints on TV at the BBC, a show about St. Paul where she travelled to Israel, and learned much more about the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
With the St. Paul’s films completed on a limited budget Armstrong was recruited to work on another TV show about the Crusaders. But this opportunity proved disastrous. However she was able to complete a book on that subject entitled, Holy Wars that was a failure. With quite a few professional failures Armstrong was in a bind for she didn’t know how she was going to be able to make ends meet, but she soon thought about writing A History of God, because of her experiences with the three Abrahamic faiths in the Holy Land.
But this project was interrupted with the uproar over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and with the event of September 11, 2001 Armstrong was in demand as a speaker to talk about the nature of Islam. Eventually she was able to complete A History of God that she described as a turning point in her life, and affirmed T.S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday poem about her climb up a spiral staircase while propagating the belief in the Golden Rule and compassionate living for all.
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submission, and couldn’t even think straight. Moreover she was prone to have fainting spells that her mother superior attributed to her emotional state and proclivity for dramatization. But even after leaving the convent, this condition continued while living in the secular world.Armstrong continued having fainting spells and hallucinations even as she was attending Oxford University. But despite her illness she was still able to do very well as an undergraduate in literature. On graduating she was able to find boarding with the Harts, and took care of their son Jacob who suffered from epilepsy. All the while she was studying in graduate school where she was pursuing the PhD degree. But she failed to matriculate after her thesis on Tennyson was rejected.
Eventually Armstrong found work as department head in a girls’ public school. This position required her to commute quite a distant to work that she didn’t exactly like. But her health remained a problem, and although she was doing well in her teaching career she was missing too many days because of illness. Having these health issues she was let go from the school. But soon afterwards her real health problem was diagnosed as epilepsy. With medication Armstrong’s health improved and she found happiness in the publication of her book Through the Narrow Gate. This meant stints on TV at the BBC, a show about St. Paul where she travelled to Israel, and learned much more about the monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
With the St. Paul’s films completed on a limited budget Armstrong was recruited to work on another TV show about the Crusaders. But this opportunity proved disastrous. However she was able to complete a book on that subject entitled, Holy Wars that was a failure. With quite a few professional failures Armstrong was in a bind for she didn’t know how she was going to be able to make ends meet, but she soon thought about writing A History of God, because of her experiences with the three Abrahamic faiths in the Holy Land.
But this project was interrupted with the uproar over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and with the event of September 11, 2001 Armstrong was in demand as a speaker to talk about the nature of Islam. Eventually she was able to complete A History of God that she described as a turning point in her life, and affirmed T.S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday poem about her climb up a spiral staircase while propagating the belief in the Golden Rule and compassionate living for all.
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LibraryThing member seidchen
A followup to "Through the Narrow Gate," Karen Armstrong's fine memoir of her time as a Catholic nun, "The Spiral Staircase" recounts Armstrong's development from an ex-religious to a leading scholar of comparative religion. Armstrong's prose can at times be a bit stiff, but her insights, as
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always, are fascinating. She spends a lot of time on the adjustments she had to make in the initial years after leaving her convent. The book really picked up for me toward the end, as she shifted into a different register, charting an interior development of her thinking about religion and spirituality. Show Less
LibraryThing member 2chances
It's interesting: I think I read this book several years ago (although it is possible I read THROUGH THE NARROW GATE, her previous memoir, instead). If I DID read this one, clearly I have changed since that time, because this time, it was Armstrong's struggle with faith that hit me hardest, and I
But this time, I found myself much more intrigued by Armstrong's complete loss of faith, and her subsequent return, not to religion but to God. Her account of her struggle to begin using her mind freely again - after years of deliberately shutting down every vestige of independent thought - and her learning to dismiss the powerful effects of an authoritarian religion - yeah, all that was fascinating. I am Catholic myself, and though I do not experience my faith in the way Armstrong did, I really did understand at a visceral level what she was talking about - the fear of honest questions, the hesitation to use one's heart, mind or experience in approaching mystery. This can be a difficult book to read, in the sense that Armstrong has suffered a great deal of pain in her life and there is no happy-ever-after for her. But it is an honest and powerful book, and I'm glad I took the time to re-read it.
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seem to remember that last time, I was simply mesmerized by her account of life as a nun. Which is horrifying, by the way! When Armstrong talks about life as a nun - and as an ex-nun - and how her formation in the novitiate altered her development forever, I thought about ex-nuns I have known, and of the oddly walled-off quality they often have. That was interesting this time around, too.But this time, I found myself much more intrigued by Armstrong's complete loss of faith, and her subsequent return, not to religion but to God. Her account of her struggle to begin using her mind freely again - after years of deliberately shutting down every vestige of independent thought - and her learning to dismiss the powerful effects of an authoritarian religion - yeah, all that was fascinating. I am Catholic myself, and though I do not experience my faith in the way Armstrong did, I really did understand at a visceral level what she was talking about - the fear of honest questions, the hesitation to use one's heart, mind or experience in approaching mystery. This can be a difficult book to read, in the sense that Armstrong has suffered a great deal of pain in her life and there is no happy-ever-after for her. But it is an honest and powerful book, and I'm glad I took the time to re-read it.
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LibraryThing member pedalinfaith
Karen Armstrong's recounting of the years since she left the convent unpacks the riches of her life as a scholar and solitary pilgrim seeking to reconcile her intelligence and her will with her inborn faith. Slightly out of joint with the fascinations of her generation, she writes about
Here's a little taste from the beginning of the book ...
"Exile is, of course, not simply a change of address. It is also a spiritual dislocation.... Once the fixed point of home is gone, there is a fundamental lack of orientation that makes everything seem relative and aimless." (p. 23)
And from the end ...
"To my very great surprise, I was discovering that some of the most eminent Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians and mystics insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and was not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated.... Most would agree with the Greek Orthodox that any statement about God had to have two characteristics. It must be paradoxical, to remind us that God cannot be contained in a neat, coherent system of thought; and it must be apophatic, that is, it should lead us to a moment of silent awe or wonder, because when we are speaking of the reality of God we are at the end of what words or thoughts can usefully do." (pp. 291-2)
Thank you, Karen Armstrong, for hobbling along your way and giving this to the rest of us. Your revelations--both personal and spiritual--restore my sense of honor and trust in my own erratic and sometimes cripplingly ponderous path.
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uncloistered life with the curiosity of an archaeologist, the unhesitating humility of a naif, and the harrowing honesty of an existentialist.Here's a little taste from the beginning of the book ...
"Exile is, of course, not simply a change of address. It is also a spiritual dislocation.... Once the fixed point of home is gone, there is a fundamental lack of orientation that makes everything seem relative and aimless." (p. 23)
And from the end ...
"To my very great surprise, I was discovering that some of the most eminent Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians and mystics insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and was not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated.... Most would agree with the Greek Orthodox that any statement about God had to have two characteristics. It must be paradoxical, to remind us that God cannot be contained in a neat, coherent system of thought; and it must be apophatic, that is, it should lead us to a moment of silent awe or wonder, because when we are speaking of the reality of God we are at the end of what words or thoughts can usefully do." (pp. 291-2)
Thank you, Karen Armstrong, for hobbling along your way and giving this to the rest of us. Your revelations--both personal and spiritual--restore my sense of honor and trust in my own erratic and sometimes cripplingly ponderous path.
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LibraryThing member ablueidol
Living proof that we find God in our failings and weakness.
Karen with others appear on the edge of the mainstream because they want a Christianity that embraces and is open to all not a closed shop of the saved.
I am always struck when I go into Waterstones or Border and see the pitiable 1/2
Karen is part of number of people that embrace a Christianity that is not afraid to change and accept the post industrial world and its knowledge. It can reject the old ideas of the 3 staged world(heaven-earth-hell) and other views and approaches based on the knowledge of the Roman periods.
Read her struggles and how she manages to rethink her faith. And think you don't need to abandon your head to have a more reflective life
Karen with others appear on the edge of the mainstream because they want a Christianity that embraces and is open to all not a closed shop of the saved.
I am always struck when I go into Waterstones or Border and see the pitiable 1/2
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shelve of Christianity(usually world faiths so not even a 1/2 to itself and then 3 racks of mind body and spirit books. The Christian bookshop down the road full of books but empty of people.Karen is part of number of people that embrace a Christianity that is not afraid to change and accept the post industrial world and its knowledge. It can reject the old ideas of the 3 staged world(heaven-earth-hell) and other views and approaches based on the knowledge of the Roman periods.
Read her struggles and how she manages to rethink her faith. And think you don't need to abandon your head to have a more reflective life
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LibraryThing member BrGeorge
Read "Through the Narrow Gate" first. That's the prequel to this memoir, and every bit as good. This book gives everyone a great insight into the background of one of this ages preeminent authors on religious topics. I loved it, and the prequel.
LibraryThing member rayski
An autobiography of Karen’s personal travel through religion from joining the convent to atheism to finding god again. A second story emerges as Karen describes her life failures and how she did and did not deal with them. Her descriptions of the feelings and experiences she experienced were all
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very close to many of those I experienced through my roughest time. Show Less
LibraryThing member Meggo
A powerful story of the author's life after leaving the convent, through studies at Oxford, to her life as an author. Constantly struggling to maintain her sanity in the face of seeming mental breakdowns (which were caused by epilepsy, long undiagnosed), and a rejection and then recapturing of
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faith, this was an eminently readable story. Her rediscovery of faith, of a sort, was a little heavy going at the end, but overall this book was well worth reading. I am glad that it was recommended to me, as it was an enjoyable book. Show Less
LibraryThing member bobbieharv
A former nun whose dissertation was failed at Oxford or Cambridge, finally diagnosed with epilepsy, makes it as a TV commentator and serious author on religions. Good, but not as good as I thought it would be. Her writing is a little wooden at times.
LibraryThing member Lindsayg
A follow up to Through the Narrow Gate, this book was about how Armstrong came to terms with religion after leaving the church. I actually found it even more interesting than the first one because she goes through so many different stages of belief before settling into the role she eventually took
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on. She ends by becoming a scholar of all the world's major religions, and finds certain truths and beauty in all of them. Where she landed is very similar to my own thoughts, only she's much better at articulating them than I am. Show Less
LibraryThing member Bibliophial
As real an autobiography as you can find, thoroughly honest and self-searching. Vastly intelligent and unflinching too. This charts Armstrong's progress through a traumatic departure out of a convent, through Oxfoprd and a failed D Phil, and into the everyday world. You will know her, and yourself,
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better after reading this. Show Less
LibraryThing member Brasidas
Karen Armstrong is a bestselling author in the field of comparative theology. Some of her more popular books include A HISTORY OF GOD, THE BATTLE FOR GOD, A SHORT HISTORY OF MYTH, and more recently THE CASE FOR GOD. There's no one quite like her. This is her memoir about life after leaving a
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Catholic convent. It is a wrenching story. Armstrong, for reasons never clear even to her, entered a novitiate at 17 with a great belief in her own capacity to find God. The discipline was brutal, the nuns small-minded in the worst way, petty and vindictive. She was there for seven years. It was an initiation that ended up damaging her psychologically for life. When she left the convent she was in no way prepared for secular life. The convent had purged her of personal thought. She did not know how to function in the real world. At Oxford, she found she was very good at creating papers that discussed others' ideas, but these papers were always devoid of her own thoughts. The ironies pile up here at such a rate that the reader is left a little breathless. When she begins to faint at the convent--from a condition diagnosed years later as epilepsy--the nuns chalk it up to her selfishness. For years, at Oxford, she sees a psychiatrist who is so locked into the ideology of his discipline that he can not look beyond it to her real problems. So she goes on and on, undiagnosed. Later, she is implicated in what appears to be a suicide attempt. This is 1963 or so. The attitudes in Britain at that time toward that kind of "self-indulgence" were positively medieval. The nurses at the hospital barely veil their contempt for her, since she's someone "who isn't really suffering." They never quite say it but it's as if they view her as a malingerer. This is just one of moment--and the book has many--that I found shocking one. To think how far we've come in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. We are enlightened today by comparison. Show Less
LibraryThing member wunschie
This fine writer shows us the world of depression.
LibraryThing member rachelep
I received this Book through goodreads giveaways. At first I didn't think I was going to like this book but as I continue to read I went into this Memoir. I can relate to her panic attacks and her fear of having them. I also went through this. Nice story.
LibraryThing member EasyEd
Very interesting read from someone who lived behind the scene as a nun for 7 years. Raises many questions about religion overall and it's personal impact on ones search for spiritual guidance. Tracing the intersection of the 3 big religions back to Abraham was insightful and educational. A good
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sequel to this book would be to explore the dynamics of radicalism in all 3 religions and how these minority groups negatively taint the perception today that the core of any one of these religions has run amok. Show Less
LibraryThing member SLuce
A great read. Would recommend. As close to my view on religion and God as anything I have read.
LibraryThing member dixielandcountry.com
The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong is a very well written autobiography. It is also a very spiritual journey through Armstrong's life. It takes you from her early life and her reasons for joining the convent. Then through her troubling time as a nun, and her internal struggle about leaving her
The book raises a number of questions about religion and one's belief in God. It also contains a great deal of information about religion. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in theology and religion.
In 1962, at age seventeen, Karen Armstrong entered a convent, eager to meet God. After seven brutally unhappy years as a nun, she left her order to pursue English literature at Oxford. But convent life had profoundly altered her, and coping with the outside world and her expiring faith proved to be excruciating. Her deep solitude and a terrifying illness–diagnosed only years later as epilepsy–marked her forever as an outsider. In her own mind she was a complete failure: as a nun, as an academic, and as a normal woman capable of intimacy. Her future seemed very much in question until she stumbled into comparative theology. What she found, in learning, thinking, and writing about other religions, was the ecstasy and transcendence she had never felt as a nun. Gripping, revelatory, and inspirational, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary account of an astonishing spiritual journey.
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faith and her life as a nun. You then follow her life through acidemia and her struggle with her beliefs throughout her life. The book raises a number of questions about religion and one's belief in God. It also contains a great deal of information about religion. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in theology and religion.
In 1962, at age seventeen, Karen Armstrong entered a convent, eager to meet God. After seven brutally unhappy years as a nun, she left her order to pursue English literature at Oxford. But convent life had profoundly altered her, and coping with the outside world and her expiring faith proved to be excruciating. Her deep solitude and a terrifying illness–diagnosed only years later as epilepsy–marked her forever as an outsider. In her own mind she was a complete failure: as a nun, as an academic, and as a normal woman capable of intimacy. Her future seemed very much in question until she stumbled into comparative theology. What she found, in learning, thinking, and writing about other religions, was the ecstasy and transcendence she had never felt as a nun. Gripping, revelatory, and inspirational, The Spiral Staircase is an extraordinary account of an astonishing spiritual journey.
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LibraryThing member Pferdina
Memoir of the second part of the author's life, after she left the convent and tried to make her way in the secular world.
LibraryThing member Meredy
Six-word review: Religious scholar wrestles with personal demons.
Extended review:
Whatever issues I may have had with religion don't seem to amount to much when compared with Karen Armstrong's sojourn in a convent and subsequent attempts to readjust to the secular world. The aftermath of spiritual
I have special appreciation for the account of how she dealt with her own agnosticism and atheism and ultimately arrived at a state of spiritual awareness that did not compromise her integrity.
As a distinguished scholar of the history and varieties of theology and religious practice, Karen Armstrong has written influential books and created presentations in other media. This personal history reveals the dark side of her struggle and the process by which she came to terms with her inner life.
Extended review:
Whatever issues I may have had with religion don't seem to amount to much when compared with Karen Armstrong's sojourn in a convent and subsequent attempts to readjust to the secular world. The aftermath of spiritual
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crisis, thorny with guilt, resentment, confusion, self-doubt, and depression, plagued her for many years and seemed to mock her search for something resembling a normal life. Her repeatedly derailed journey through academe, her attempts to sustain various relationships, and her efforts to build a career on the considerable knowledge and skills she possessed constitute the substance of this exceptional narrative.I have special appreciation for the account of how she dealt with her own agnosticism and atheism and ultimately arrived at a state of spiritual awareness that did not compromise her integrity.
As a distinguished scholar of the history and varieties of theology and religious practice, Karen Armstrong has written influential books and created presentations in other media. This personal history reveals the dark side of her struggle and the process by which she came to terms with her inner life.
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LibraryThing member csoki637
This renewed my enthusiasm to reading all of Karen Armstrong's nonfiction works.
LibraryThing member e2d2
As someone who has discarded religion but searches for spirituality, this book was a touchstone. Armstrong's description of finding bliss in her research and her writing is a place I can relate to. If nothing else, her final plea for practicing compassion as the antidote to religious extremism is
Her conflicted, unresolved frustrations with being an outsider in so many ways is something I equally identify with. I long for a final memoir or essay from her exploring how she's lived as an intelligent woman, single, in a world designed for couples.
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an admirable call to action.Her conflicted, unresolved frustrations with being an outsider in so many ways is something I equally identify with. I long for a final memoir or essay from her exploring how she's lived as an intelligent woman, single, in a world designed for couples.
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LibraryThing member kmmsb459
One of the most inspiring books I've ever read.
LibraryThing member deckla
I read this memoir through the night last night, under the covers, by the light of the iPad. It’s title is taken from a T.S. Eliot poem, Ash Wednesday.
At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
On spiral stairs, each step provides a shift in perspective, and Karen Armstrong has had many perspectives in her long life. This autobiography details those abrupt shifts.
Born in 1944, she grew up in Birmingham, England. Armstrong’s story really begins when she is 17, and joins a Catholic religious order to become a nun. This first stage lasts 7 traumatic years. While a novice and postulant she is repeatedly scolded and, she says, abused. Her personhood was attacked; complete submission was required. However, during that time she matriculates to St. Anne’s College of Oxford University, pursuing a degree in literature, and is still attending when she leaves the order, and loses her faith in God.
The next 7 years she spends at Oxford. She does well, but during this time, she has fainting spells, and times when the world becomes surreal, or when she has no idea how she ended up in a place doing a particular thing—great chunks of amnesia or sleepwalking or some other mental malady. She sees psychiatrists, and spends occasional weeks in mental hospitals, all the while being successful academically, but emotionally distant, apart, the other.
Her career in Oxford ends in bitter disappointment—she drew an unsympathetic professor on her PhD examination board, and her dissertation on Tennyson was rejected.
After this failure, she finds a position at a private high school for girls. During this time she discovers her psychological problem—she has epilepsy. Another 7 years, and she is let go from that position owing to many missed days.
Then she embarks on a television career, making series about St. Paul, about Islam, about Judaism, until that falls apart, and finally she begins to engage in her true calling, lecturing and writing books on comparative religion, the most successful of which is A History of God.
Writing A History of God results in a reacquaintance with the presence of God in her life. The final chapter of The Spiral Staircase details her spiritual beliefs, although she doesn’t like the word “belief.” In her reading she finds that the greatest theologians “insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and was not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated. Some went so far as to say that it was better to say that God did not exist, because our notion of existence was too limited to apply to God.” She would define God as “practical compassion,” as recognizing the inexpressible awe of encountering the essence of being human. She aligns herself with the mystics, and with the elusive truth of myth. She insists one cannot think or reason God; rather, one has to feel it.
I’m rather firmly entrenched in rationality as a life strategy, so this kind of rejection of reason makes me nervous, conjuring up, in its extremes, snakes and speaking in tongues and such. But Armstrong’s skill in developing her argument belies an approach devoid of reason, and I have to admit, the idea of religion without the “personhood” of God does have its attractions.
At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The
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broadbacked figure drest in blue and greenEnchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
On spiral stairs, each step provides a shift in perspective, and Karen Armstrong has had many perspectives in her long life. This autobiography details those abrupt shifts.
Born in 1944, she grew up in Birmingham, England. Armstrong’s story really begins when she is 17, and joins a Catholic religious order to become a nun. This first stage lasts 7 traumatic years. While a novice and postulant she is repeatedly scolded and, she says, abused. Her personhood was attacked; complete submission was required. However, during that time she matriculates to St. Anne’s College of Oxford University, pursuing a degree in literature, and is still attending when she leaves the order, and loses her faith in God.
The next 7 years she spends at Oxford. She does well, but during this time, she has fainting spells, and times when the world becomes surreal, or when she has no idea how she ended up in a place doing a particular thing—great chunks of amnesia or sleepwalking or some other mental malady. She sees psychiatrists, and spends occasional weeks in mental hospitals, all the while being successful academically, but emotionally distant, apart, the other.
Her career in Oxford ends in bitter disappointment—she drew an unsympathetic professor on her PhD examination board, and her dissertation on Tennyson was rejected.
After this failure, she finds a position at a private high school for girls. During this time she discovers her psychological problem—she has epilepsy. Another 7 years, and she is let go from that position owing to many missed days.
Then she embarks on a television career, making series about St. Paul, about Islam, about Judaism, until that falls apart, and finally she begins to engage in her true calling, lecturing and writing books on comparative religion, the most successful of which is A History of God.
Writing A History of God results in a reacquaintance with the presence of God in her life. The final chapter of The Spiral Staircase details her spiritual beliefs, although she doesn’t like the word “belief.” In her reading she finds that the greatest theologians “insisted that God was not an objective fact, was not another being, and was not an unseen reality like the atom, whose existence could be empirically demonstrated. Some went so far as to say that it was better to say that God did not exist, because our notion of existence was too limited to apply to God.” She would define God as “practical compassion,” as recognizing the inexpressible awe of encountering the essence of being human. She aligns herself with the mystics, and with the elusive truth of myth. She insists one cannot think or reason God; rather, one has to feel it.
I’m rather firmly entrenched in rationality as a life strategy, so this kind of rejection of reason makes me nervous, conjuring up, in its extremes, snakes and speaking in tongues and such. But Armstrong’s skill in developing her argument belies an approach devoid of reason, and I have to admit, the idea of religion without the “personhood” of God does have its attractions.
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Subjects
Awards
LA Times Book Prize (Finalist — 2004)
Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Nonfiction — 2004)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2004
Physical description
305 p.; 5.2 inches
ISBN
0385721277 / 9780385721271
Local notes
autobiography