Book #24: The Close

The book: The Close by Chloe Breyer

What is this book about: This book is about a 27-year-old woman’s first year at seminary, preparing for ordination as a priest of the Episcopal Church.

Why did I read this book: I am Episcopalian, a young woman, and I have sometimes thought of going to seminary.

What did I think of this book:
I really liked this book for about the first half of it. In the first few sections, you’re learning about the school and the process just as she is. I found her befuddlement, confusion, and even her faults to be rather comforting. It seemed to say that you don’t have to be perfect to think you’re ready to be a priest, that you can still be evolving as a person and have some selfish desires. She is petty and kind of mean to her husband, but it did seem like she was developing and getting somewhere, learning little lessons, or profoundly explicating some truth about a faith journey or a conversation with God.

But then it seems like she just gave up on everyone and everything that didn’t meet her expectations, and then it was hard to put up with her. Nothing is ever as she wants it to be. Churches aren’t good enough, her classes aren’t good enough, her patients at the hospital where she is a chaplain don’t immediately jump up to be converted.

This chaplaincy…she whines and moans about how seminary is too insular, and then how the church is too insular, and how no one seems to care about the real problems she cares about. Then the church sticks her out in the real world, and she bitches about that too, because she doesn’t get enough credit for what she does. Here’s what she says of the chaplaincy experience:

“Beyond the diversity of its patients and its intimate connection with the squalor of city life, what made Bellevue so much the “world outside” was how little time it had for us students of the church. Since this world appeared to have a low regard for my role—my search for signs of external validation were fruitless—I had to learn to rely on myself to find the value in being a person of God working in a secular place. I had to discover this work and assign it worth, myself.” (page 208)

This speaks to her self-absorption. She is constantly seeking outward signs of success and validation. She gripes about how she’s doesn’t have a professor who could be the answer of a Jeopardy question, while her friends are in heavily endowed graduate school programs. Perhaps it’s meant to be funny, but she takes herself far too seriously.

What also became troubling is that she seemed to have no idea what a priest actually did. She sort of just wanted to teach Bible studies and then give historical background that proved her thesis of what this Bible passage actually meant. I saw very little concern for actually caring about things such as sacraments or ministering to a congregation. Real people just seemed to get in her way and not understand her Bible studies.

Breyer opens the book with the question, why am I doing this? And she never really answers it for the reader, or as far as I can tell, for herself. She goes to seminary to learn, not to be shaped as a person (in fact, she writes about having the realization that she’s supposed to be shaped as a person in her second year), and indeed fights every instance where it seems that she could learn a lesson, if it’s not the lesson she wants to learn.

In some ways, I wonder if I’m being too hard on Breyer. This book could be read as sort of a reassurance that the whole world doesn’t change in a year, and that you can’t make it change that fast. Breyer came from a background where she could create social change pretty quickly, but these anecdotes represent the first time the world has told her “no,” and that is hard and jarring and frustrating.

But even as I write that and give her that credit, it would be easier to accept if she didn’t whine all the time, and act like she’s immensely better than everyone else.

What was my favorite part of this book: I liked when she wrote about things she actually did at seminary, such as her classes and her services and her classmates (the people who actually seemed to understand why they were there). It was when Chloe was off doing things by herself (deciding where to intern, CPE) that she got a little hard to deal with.

What did I learn from this book: I did get a glimpse of what seminary was like. I just wish it had been from someone who seemed to understand and actually like the church.

What grade do I give this book: First half: A- Second half: D