Marilyn J. Benson grew up in a Minnesota farming family wondering as a child if she was really "saved." Her spiritual memoir recounts her journey out of the fear and guilt of her evangelical Christian upbringing and her struggle to find her agency as a woman in a male-dominated family, culture, and church. Her search wends its way through an evangelical Christian college, marriage, birth of a child in remote Alaska, divorce and single parenting in 1970s San Francisco, a Quaker community in Pennsylvania, and seminary. This is a memoir for anyone seeking their own awakening.
Marilyn J. Benson is a clergywoman, therapist, and spiritual director. She previously worked as a high school English teacher and as a chaplain. She holds a MA in English literature from the University of Minnesota, a certificate of theological studies from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, and an MDiv from United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Ordained in the United Church of Christ, she lives in St. Paul with her husband.
"I deeply admire this book, and the human journey it chronicles with such candor—a journey from fear and guilt to grace and mystery. Marilyn Benson writes wonderfully well about difficult topics, including her quest for liberation from the distortions of fundamentalism. That quest took her to a more reliable form of faith, one rooted in both the natural world and the human world of friendship and family. Like all of us, she made mistakes along the way, but as her title suggests, nothing is wasted: experiencing the darkness can open us to the light. If you're looking for light in the dark, I believe you will find it here, as I did." — Parker J. Palmer, author of Let Your Life Speak and A Hidden Wholeness
"Penning a spiritual memoir is an act of courage, especially if one leaves room for unknowing rather than easy certitude. Forthright, yet lyrical, the author narrates a journey from fundamentalist constriction. . . to a faithful stance of wondering in the face of mystery. Rich in acquaintance with deep spiritual traditions and poetic imagination, this skilled practitioner of spiritual direction and pastoral counseling shines light on the pathway toward human wholeness. Reading this memoir has both deepened my faith and my questions." — Rev. Molly T. Marshall, PhD, president, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
"As readers we walk with Marilyn through vivid and vulnerable accounts of her life as she shows us, in an unassuming way, what it's like to tend to the inner life. She narrates how she has lived into important questions, the same ones that so many of us wrestle with: How might one heal from spiritual abuse and heartbreak? How do we overcome guilt and shame and move toward forgiveness? How do we integrate faith language into our own lives so that we can also live authentically, courageously, and with gratitude? I highly recommend this engaging and wise book to everyone, especially to those who both give and receive pastoral counseling and spiritual direction." — Peter Watkins, MDiv, spiritual director at Sacred Ground Center for Spirituality and School for Formation
"The journey from a childhood haunted by fear of the Rapture and its abandonment of the unsaved takes the reader through many shifts of worldviews and experiences to arrive at an adult mind. Benson manages these expansions without discarding the protective 'ropes' of her childhood faith. College, participation in the wider world, the examination of philosophers Martin Buber and Richard Rohr are a few of the markers of her everexpanding world into maturity and critical thinking . . . Nothing Is Wasted is an apt title for this book and this attitude. The following poses the questions of her search: 'I come back again and again to the image of a rope stretched between two places, a rope that allows safe passage. I wonder about the rope that was put in place for me in my childhood. . . . How did I grow not to trust it? Why didn't I believe it could keep me safe?' With those questions, we readers are in the poetic hands of an experienced writer and thinker." — Mary Moore Easter, author of The Body of the World and The Way She Wants to Get There
"By exposing her painful life experiences with vulnerability, Benson does more than share her story, she invites the reader to uncover their own narratives, encouraging them to read themselves as living texts in need of compassion and interpretation. While it is her story . . . it is also a celebration of the universal journey of liberation and sovereignty." — Dr. Suzanne M. Begin, executive director, ARC Retreat Community
"She speaks in a comfortable voice, becoming for readers a mentor, companion, and beloved friend. Sensual detail—Wet mittens rest on the shelf above the kitchen range,/ winter smell filling the room,/ Warm wet wool and farm animals—grounds the telling in immediacy. Each story unfolds the way a life unfolds. Readers, especially those on their own spiritual journeys, will find themselves in these pages." — Ranae Lenor Hanson, author of Watershed: Attending to Body and Earth in Distress
"A story of the consequences of a strict fundamentalist Christian formation on a young girl and . . . [her] decades-long struggle to move beyond restrictive teachings and male-dominated theology to a transforming theology of goodness, love, and self-trust." — Ruth Halvorson, founding director, ARC Retreat Community
