An amazing story

She does go on rather, doesn't she? Good grief! I read in it and then skipped to the end. I wanted to see what happened. She became an atheist and is now happier than she has ever been before. I love happy endings.It seems to me that the crux of the matter is that she felt her husband betrayed her. I must say I'm not real crazy about her husband.

Somehow I get the feeling that a few years from now she will return to religion.I wonder if there is such a thing as a religious temperament.

Well, I skipped a lot. After awhile all her soul-searching began to irritate me. I'm not the right audience for this type of thing.The ending seemed rather strained to me--artificial.

My judgment was probably skewed because of my irritation with her longwindedness. It seemed like a lot of posturing to me. But that's an unfair statement because in any discussion of oneself it is difficult not to posture. It occurs to me now that a spiritual autobiography must be very difficult to write. She did a good job, all in all. And obviously she's intelligent.Having said that, my impression after reading it--or part of it--was that she enjoys soul-searching far too much to give it up. Before too long, a still, small voice will start talking to her again. This is not to say that she is insincere, or no more than anyone else.

By the way, she mentions Karen Armstrong's spiritual autobiography. I don't know if you are familiar with her or not. She is a historian of religion. But in that book we see Karen Armstrong, an ex-nun, working her way back toward some sort of religious belief toward the end. Very good book.

I read The Spiral Staircase. Karen Armstrong is a scholar of religion. She knows a lot. I've also read some of her historical books about religion. However, "New Agey" might characterize her ideas to some extent. She gave up being a nun not because of disbelief but because of a nervous breakdown. Years later she found out she had epilepsy.Some of her ideas are interesting, although any discussion of them is not appropriate here. But what I found that related to "Laura" is that Karen Armstrong is an incorrigible soul-searcher, in the good sense I suppose. Also, her life style has remained "nun-like" throughout her life. She couldn't get "God" off her mind, although this time He was a subject for research rather than an object of worship. And she started having these "religious" experiences in the midst of her studies--religion in a library, so to speak.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-06-2006 05:49 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-06-2006 05:58 AM

Okay, but the fact that she was a nun carries some weight.

She went through a lot. She sacrificed for her beliefs.

"Authority," no. But she knows what's it like to have been a nun, so she can talk about that knowledgably. She knows what's it like to attempt to become worldly, and to fail. That's interesting. It supports my contention that some people have an unworldly, religious nature no matter what their beliefs at the time. That's my view of Armstrong, and I suspect the same of Laura.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-07-2006 09:55 AM

In point of fact, Armstrong discusses this in the book.

Faith, you have to read the book and pick up on the personality. This is a very religious person.