No two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike
Book Club: ATGIB Chs 7-9
Hi everyone!
I wish we could gather in person so you all could see the big cheesy grin you’ve put on my face this week as you’ve engaged with me and the book in comments, texts, and phone conversations. This is a dream long fulfilled more me, and I’m just really grateful you’re here!
She was all of these things and of something more that did not come from the Rommelys nor the Nolans, the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only - the something different from anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivelent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, ch 8
This week our reading was chapters 7-9. The exploration of Francie's family background, her birth story, and how these things shape her is the sort of exploration that’s found in the marrow of Viriditas.
We could certainly explore Katie and Johnny’s spirituality through self, others, environment, and the transcendent (and please do this in the comments if you’d like!), but I’m going to invite us to reflect on how we see and anticipate Francie’s backstory informing her sense of self.
In How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, they describe the impact on a child over time when we label them, saying this often creates a role for a child to live into. The first example given is how a nurse called one of their babies stubborn when he was born, and how over the years when the parent had struggles with him, she would think, “He is stubborn.”
How your parents think of you can often be communicated in seconds. When you multiply those seconds by the hours of daily contact between parents and children, you begin to realize how powerfully young people can be influenced by the way their parents view them. Not only are their feelings about themselves affected, but so is their behavior.
Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
I wonder what you noticed in these chapters about how Francie’s family talk about her, and how this influences Francie’s sense of herself and her behaviors? I remember in my first year of Clinical Pastoral Education in our Childhood Spirituality seminar, we were asked to share our birth stories, and then to reflect within our group on how that story shaped our understandings of ourselves. Were we told that we’ve always been late? Or difficult? Or easy compared to others? How do those stories shape us?
Diana Garland’s book Sacred Stories of Ordinary Families explores this idea from a faith perspective and suggests how a family’s faith is shaped by how they tell and share their family stories. She writes, “All families have stories. All families have potential stories; they have experiences stored in their collective memories that have not yet been shaped into stories.”
Garland also suggests that these stories find new meaning when shared with an audience who can faithfully bear witness to them. As I read these chapters, I wondered if that was the experience for Smith. Even with an imaginative retelling where maybe some facts were changed, I wonder if she felt some sense of power and ownership of her story in a new way by being able to tell it through this book.
In the comments this week I’d like to create a safe space for us to explore two themes:
What parts of Francie’s origin story felt especially poignant as you read it? What stories has Francie been told about herself, and how do you anticipate this shaping her life, positively or negatively?
What part of your own origin story feels especially poignant to you? What have you been told about yourself over the years, and can you identify any ways this has shaped the way you narrate your own story?
I recognize the second question is a vulnerable one, so please know there is no expectation that you share at all, or that you are more vulnerable than you would like to be. I’m also aware that talking about these things can often open up tender places within us; I’m here and glad to be available for one-on-one conversations with any of you who may need or want this.
I’ll share mine in the comments too (though this will have to wait until after my kids go to bed tonight - about 8pm BST).
Just for fun…
Chapter 9 gives the names of two of the songs Johnny sang and played while they cleaned the school house, and I’ve popped them into a Viriditas playlist on Spotify if you’d like to hear. Not sure what this playlist will be like in coming months, but for now it’s got those plus a few others I’ve found recently that seem fitting for the vibe of Viriditas.
A reminder of the reading schedule
June 9 - Chs 1-6
June 16 - Chs 7-9
June 23 - Chs 10-14
June 30 - Chs 15-22
July 7 - Chs 23-26
July 14 - Chs 27-32
June 21 - Chs 33-38
June 28 - Chs 39-42
Aug 4 - Chs 43-49
Aug 11 - Chs 50-56
Thanks again, as ever, for being here. In a short span of time, creating and participating in this space has become a highlight of my week and something that nurtures my own spirituality. I look forward to reading your comments this week!
See you in the thread below,
Janette x
I loved the image of Francie's being snuggled between Katie and Aunt Sissy on her first night on earth, and Aunt Sissy's fierce determination to get Francie what they believed would be important for her. Already we get a sense of the strength of the women in her family and have seen in the first 6 chapters how Francie is becoming one of them, too. Another reality is that her story started with such pain and heartache, and there is a sense things will go on as they began. And yet we've been told Francie has some of the qualities of her family that she needs to endure it, plus her own something that was unique to her. I'm excited to see more of what that is.
As for my own life... I am named after my grandmother, and we've always been very close. My mom has often said her purpose on earth was to bring the two of us together. My grandparents were the first people to take me on a missions trip and it was during this experience I felt a call to ministry. We are some of the only members of the larger extended family that are still involved in the same denomination. So not only do I feel a personal connection, but I have a vocational connection to them as well. As I reflect on it, I definitely feel like being named after her is something that made me feel like a good relationship between us was a given. In recent years I've considered leaving the denomination I was brought up in, but that connection with my grandparents is something that makes this very difficult for me to imagine actually doing. The story and experience of our relationship continues to inform my decision making for my future.
There was so much that was simultaneously hard and beautiful in these chapters, and I'm anticipating that this may be a running theme in my reaction to this book. What struck me most, though, was that simple sentence at the end of chapter 9: 'That's how the library of Francie Nolan was started.' Having already seen how deeply the world of books is imprinted into Francie's sense of herself, it was powerful to witness these three strong women, her Mother, her Aunt, and her Grandmother, deciding on her first day on earth that she would be a reader.
It made me think a lot, actually, of the stories I'm always told about myself as a child. More than anything, what I hear is that I always, always wanted books. My parents often tell me that I was bored incredibly easily unless I had a book (this much has not changed), and then I was totally absorbed, even when they were fabric baby books. I'm reminded, too, of a home video of me as a toddler taken at Christmas, opening a Cinderella book and joyfully saying (in broken toddler English), "it's what I've always wanted!" I think reading about Francie's origin story has really brought home to me just how crucial it is to my sense of myself that I am a reader.