I have lived most of my life in
metropolitan areas, although for a short time during early childhood, I lived
in a small rural community in Northern California. While I married a farmer's
daughter, she didn’t live on a farm (her father raised raisin grapes in the San
Joaquin Valley). When it comes to my roots, I have moved quite a few times in
my life. I was born in a hospital in Los Angeles, though we lived in La
Crescenta. I didn’t live there long enough to have any memories. Besides, the
land where my family lived sits under the 210 Freeway. At nine months, we moved
to an apartment complex in San Francisco. We only lived there three years
before we moved to Mount Shasta City, a rural community. Six years later, we
moved to Klamath Falls in southern Oregon. I lived there until going off to
college. In the intervening years, I’ve lived in a number of cities, finally
settling down in a Detroit suburb. Since I’ve lived here longer than any other
place, perhaps this is where I have finally put down roots. So, returning to my
starting place is not in the cards. As it is sometimes said, home is where your
heart is. Although in some ways I still feel connected to the West Coast (I remain
an Oregon Ducks fan), my roots are here. This is where I expect to stay for the
remainder of my life.
It is with this peripatetic life
story as a backdrop that I agreed to read and review Christy Berghoef’s
spiritual memoir, which is titled Rooted. While Berghoef moved around
for a time, as she tells her own story, she eventually returned to the farm
where she grew up. This is where her roots are firmly planted. Her story is, in
some ways, very different from mine. Yet, as I read how she moved from a
conservative evangelical/political starting place to a more progressive one, I
resonated with her story.
So, who is Christy Berghoef, the
author of Rooted? According to her biography, she is an author,
musician, and speaker who lives on the family farm, which is located near
Holland, Michigan (on the other side of Michigan from where I reside). It is
worth noting that the town’s name serves as a reminder that Western Michigan
has a strong Dutch Reformed identity. This is part of her origin story. Berghoef
is married to Bryan, a United Church of Christ pastor serving a congregation in
Holland. Her husband, as readers will discover, ran for Congress as a Democrat
in a deeply red district. Both Bryan and Christy have spiritual roots in the Christian
Reformed Church. They met while they were students at Calvin Theological
Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They would both eventually attend the CRC-related
Calvin Theological Seminary.
With this starting place in a
conservative part of the state of Michigan, in a deeply conservative
denomination, what we read in Berghoef’s memoir is the story of a transition
from being part of this deeply rooted conservative, Reformed Christianity, to a
more progressive Christianity (as revealed by their move to the United Church
of Christ). What is interesting is that this transition takes place at a time
when the Berghoefs were moving from Washington, D.C., where they had planted a
church, so they could make a home in rural Western Michigan.
Memoirs are difficult to review
because, as a reviewer, I don't want to give too much away. The reader needs to
imbibe the stories for themselves because each reader will experience the book
differently based on their own experiences and background. What resonates with
me might be different from what resonates with someone else. Nevertheless, what
a reader will experience in reading Berghoef's beautifully written memoir is the
story of how Berghoef found spiritual sustenance as she and her family returned
to a portion of the land where she grew up. We read of her joys and the
challenges she faced as she wrestled with her faith, especially as she and her
family embraced a progressive form of Christianity while seeking to live out that
faith in a conservative corner of the state.
As I noted in the beginning, I have
spent most of my life living in the city (even though metropolitan Klamath
Falls had a population of less than fifty thousand. Nevertheless, as I read her
memoir, I resonated with what she shared. In part, that is because I, too,
transitioned from conservative evangelicalism (I lived in a conservative part
of the state of Oregon and in my teenage years joined a conservative Pentecostal
church) to a more progressive form of Christianity during my adult years. So, I
resonated with how she described the points of transition in her life. I also
resonated with her description of being connected with the earth, even though I
never lived on a farm (Klamath Falls is an agricultural hub, so I experienced
it in a sense, just not directly).
I may not have experienced the kind
of homecoming she describes here in Rooted, since I don’t have a family
homestead to return to. However, I think we all feel the need to put down
roots, even if those roots are planted in the suburb of a major U.S. city. She raises
a question in the first chapter of the book that I believe sets the tone of her
memoir. It is a question that many of us ask as we traverse life's changes, and
it involves our concern whether "the place and people of my hometown
[would] ever allow me to really feel at home" (p. 5). She asks that
question because she is no longer part of her original tribe. She acknowledges
that her values hadn't changed, but the way she expressed them had. This
transition put her at odds with the conservative community she inhabits. That
truth became very evident when her husband ran for Congress and the family
experienced a strong pushback from their community, including friends of the
family.
As we move through the book,
Berghoef shares the tragedies and triumphs her family experienced as they made
a life on a portion of the family farm while living in an 800-square-foot
cottage. She shares how she found spiritual sustenance in the land while
creating gardens that allowed her to express her creativity and imagination. She
also takes us back to points in her childhood while growing up on that very
farm that connects her youth with her adult life. As she tells her story, we do encounter
the kinds of tragedies that many families experience. In her case, this
included the death of her beloved father, along with the realities of
menopause, something that came earlier than expected. I will leave the
descriptions of these realities for the reader to encounter for themselves. However, I do believe that people will
resonate with her story, especially those people who, like me, share Berghoef’s
transition from conservative evangelicalism to a more liberal form of
postevangelicalism.
One of the important messages that
emerges from Berghoef’s Rooted: A Spiritual Memoir of Homecoming is a
recognition that we all need to feel rooted. Those roots might be planted in
the old family homestead or someplace discovered later in life. After living in
the same house in a relatively affluent suburb for seventeen years, I do feel more
rooted both physically and spiritually than ever before. Perhaps, you, the
reader of this review, sense the need to put down roots, especially spiritual
roots. If so, I invite you to pick up this beautifully written book and allow Christy
Berghoef’s memoir to serve as a guide to finding your place of rootedness.
You may purchase this book at your favorite retailer, or from my Amazon affiliate or Bookshop.Org affiliate.
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