Book Review: I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth

What I particularly liked about Brenda Peterson’s spiritual memoir, I Want To Be Left Behind, is that she’s gone two steps further than most of our modern thinkers do. When thinking about living a life, there are three things that must be touched upon, especially when one wants to live a good, fulfilling life.

First, is the idea that there should be harmony and what C.S. Lewis called “fair play” between individuals. Second, there is the “harmonisation” (Lewis was British) of the inner life. Third, there is the knowledge of what humanity is here for, what we’re supposed to be doing, and what voices we listen to as we do it. Modern thinkers have got the harmony and “fair play” idea down pat. We’ve got tons of books (memoirs even) about this. It’s the loudest cry of our modern world. “Hey, let’s play fair. Can’t we all just get along?”

While Peterson espouses this idea all throughout her book, she takes us deeper into the personal “harmonisation” of her inner self. When a hasty (probably well-meaning, but ill-advised) comment from a Vacation Bible School teacher frustrates the young Peterson, she begins to assemble her own inner life “harmonisation” at a very young age. Rather than accept the idea that God could not appear in nature (every experience she had with her Forest Ranger father and nature-loving family had taught her exactly the opposite), Peterson began a quest to live a life that fit what she authentically believed already. No one can fault her for that. That’s the beauty of the book. It’s a journey of inner harmony.

But it’s the third point that I find the most to learn from. What is humanity here for? What are we supposed to be doing? What voice are we listening to? Is it the loud and angry voice of dogmatic fundamentalism of both Right and Left promising destruction of the earth because of humanity’s failings? Or is there another voice we could choose to hear? Peterson has shown that there is a third path: we may not know what is going to happen in the future, but there is “harmonisation” available now, free to anyone who chooses to take it. To some it may look like grace given from a Christian God, to others it may look like a sense of knowing oneself as taught in Eastern religion.

The most beautiful piece of this memoir is that what she offers for us to do does not fit neatly into either of the most dogmatic, fundamentalist camps. Her approach of peace and reconciliation between former harpoon-yielding humans and the gray whales gathered in Baja, for example, is beautifully rendered and a testament to her writing skill. Her same approach to her own family–no malice, no judgment, just grace and truth–seems to me a loving, heartfelt extension of that same feeling. As I read her book, I heard myself singing softly to myself:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.

The key is that Peterson has found a wonderful path to the same place as her family–a love for nature, a love for humanity, a love for God–that provides “harmonisation” for her inner life. And that she has written a book about it and brought us along is a gift. For one thing we can all agree on–earth now is rapturous. And we only have to step out our front door to find it.

Grade: A

Tagged as: book record, brilliant, memoir