Ordinary Time: Cycles in Marriage, Faith, and Renewal

Ordinary Time is a collection of essays by Nancy Mairs documenting her spiritual journey through a fatherless childhood and adolescents, marriage, parenting and infidelity, conversion and acceptance in the Catholic Church as a self proclaimed feminist, illness and death. Nancy's journey is often an upsetting one as she maneuvers through her life trials. She is very frank about her feelings and life experiences. I was drawn into her story and was in awe as she described her families struggle through her husband's battle with cancer. This was accentuated when later we discover that she is also dealing with a debilitating illness. Her strength and reliance on her spirituality guided her through the "Ordinary Time" of life. I found myself often feeling confused during her story as she does not arrange her journey chronologically. Despite this quirk, which at times was really more of an annoyance, it kept me interested in the story because I were never sure what she might reveal next. I was encouraged the strength she displayed during her many struggles in life. She wrote with such a candid voice that I felt like a good friend sitting around the table having coffee sharing our frustrations. Being a Catholic women myself, I could relate to the feelings of frustration that she had with the Catholic Church but at the same time being attracted to the richness of the history, tradition and teachings of the Catholic Church. I would highly recommend this very easy to read spiritual journey.

~First of all, Mairs is an extraordinary prose stylist. "Each life must hold one, I think: one pain that overarches and obscures all others, one haunting irreversible fault for which one can never atone." There is no other living prose writer who regularly makes me put the book down, take several deep breaths, and then gingerly pick it up again to go back and find out what hit me. This is, I suppose, what the word "breathtaking" originally meant.Second of all, Mairs wriggles between categories with perverse delight: I'm not surprised that some reviewers here express bewilderment. She's never quite where you expect her to be. Catholic activists don't write explicitly about their own sex lives. Inspirational writers don't admit to screwing up on their child-rearing. Feminists don't point out that there was no possible way male authorities could have avoided stifling their voices while they (the feminists) were in a dysfunctional relationship with God. If you're looking for a book to pet you and sooth you and reassure you that everything you already think is exactly right, you've come to the wrong shop. But third -- most surprising of all, given all this -- Mairs is humane, inclusive, tender, and loving. This book is about adultery. In Mair's hands, adultery becomes the paradigm for the human relationship with God: we have all been unfaithful, and we have all felt betrayed. Okay. Then what comes next? What do we do with these betrayals? How do we look at them steadily, and turn them into a deeper love and a more meaningful faith?Painfully, that's how.I love this book. I don't know if you will. Probably not, unless you're one of those people who has to touch paintings to feel the stipple, shut yourself in closets to see what the dark looks like, and touch ice cubes with your tongue.

Autobiographical reflections of a convert to Catholicism, about her committed struggles with marriage and with faith. ("A Catholic feminist? Dear God, couldn't I please be something else?") What I love about this and all of Nancy Mairs's books is her uncompromising honesty about the difficulties of living a human life, and the way she shows that joy and gratitude and humor can be found right in the midst of the big mess we're in. I'm on my third or fourth copy of this book because I keep giving it away. This and "Waist-High in the World" are my favorites by Mairs.

This is a very important and useful book for me. Nancy writes essays about her life from a spiritual perspective. She includes everything that is important in her life: conversion, prayer, sickness, family life, finances, the poor in spirit and health.I was raised as a Catholic and spent 35 years away so I can relate to Nancy's comments about the difference between the church hierarchy and the people. They each have different needs and actions. I prefer the people and have learned to diminish my strong feelings of criticism of the church hierarchy so that it doesn't keep me from being one of the church people and taking care of my spiritual needs. This is one of the most important books that I have read.