Jana Riess: Not religiously up to snuff



(Exchanging Snuffboxes)

The phrase “up to snuff” is itself a bit suspect as far as religion is concerned.  After all, assigning great value to the stimulating effects of sniffed tobacco is not in line with either temperance or discernment.

Nevertheless, Jana Riess sounds as if she is not quite up to snuff when it comes to religion.  Worse than that, this Doctor of American Religious Studies bombed out on Sainthood (the gory details of which can be found in her opus, Flunking Sainthood:  A Year of Breaking

the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor – and if this title sounds creative, then check out these other ones of hers:  What Would Buffy Do?: The Vampire Slayer as Spiritual Guide, Why the Heck Don’t Mormons Swear?: Musings on the Sacred and the Profane, and Sacred Envy: What I’ve Learned

from Other Religions).

With all this knowledge and creativity, how is it that Riess feels she flunked Sainthood?  Well, first of all, for Riess – as for most of us – the spiritual honeymoon has long been over.  In other words, that first-love type

relationship that occurred when Riess “connected with God as a teenager on a mountaintop on one inspired

snowy night years ago” has subsided into one that mimics a long-term marriage.

Riess therefore took steps to “fix” this by embarking upon a year-long plan of “taking on” one spiritual

practice per month.  For example, February’s practice was a month-long, Ramadan-type fast.  Although Riess didn’t physically “cheat,” this fast nevertheless revealed to her “how shallow” she was, and how she was “fasting for the wrong reasons…”  She told NPR’s Michel Martin that March’s practice was “to find God through housekeeping.”  Then there was her month of Christian vegetarianism – not to mention another month of Orthodox Jewish Sabbaths…

Although Riess hasn’t felt up to snuff regarding any of these month-long practices, the resulting awareness of her own spiritual shortcomings can nevertheless be a great gift.  It can help pave the way to empathy for the shortcomings of others – in other words, to forgiveness.

      

Resources

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/up-to-snuff.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jana_Riess

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/06/144789994/flunking-sainthood-lessons-from-failure

Copyright February 4, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved