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Ordinary Time: Cycles in Marriage, Faith, and Renewal
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year 1993
An unconventional spiritual autobiography, told in a remarkable, outspoken voice and rooted in the messy realities and questions—the 'ordinary time'—of one woman's life, from infidelity to living with multiple sclerosis, to death, to renewing a marriage.
An unconventional spiritual autobiography, told in a remarkable, outspoken voice and rooted in the messy realities and questions—the 'ordinary time'—of one woman's life, from infidelity to living with multiple sclerosis, to death, to renewing a marriage.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
Nancy Mairs
26 books31 followersNancy Mairs was an author who wrote about diverse topics, including spirituality, women's issues and her experiences living with multiple sclerosis. She received an AB from Wheaton College, and an MFA in writing and a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.
She was diagnosed with MS when she was 28, and wrote several essays on her experiences as a self-described "cripple", including "On Being a Cripple," "Sex and the Gimpy Girl," and the memoir Waist High in the World.
She was diagnosed with MS when she was 28, and wrote several essays on her experiences as a self-described "cripple", including "On Being a Cripple," "Sex and the Gimpy Girl," and the memoir Waist High in the World.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 28, 2011
I liked this memoir--so terrifically frank and vulnerable. I read it a long time when I was religion obsessed and found it very helpful. Lots of "womanly" observations: e.g. "One of the most remarkable attributes of the Jesus depicted in the gospels is his concern with physical well-being." And how she comes to believe that God can love us creeps because she loves her adolescent son when he's at that horrible stage--love being fussing over, fretting, worrying about. I'd never heard anything like that before but it resonated.
December 8, 2020
The first chapter in Ordinary Time, Here: Grace, opens with the question from her husband, “You will love me?” Nancy Mairs snaps into attention and in this conversation learns he was in an affair for six years longer than she knew prior, “Twelve of our twenty-seven years of marriage, suddenly called, one way or another into question.”
He was diagnosed with a terminal illness, cancer, and felt a need to confess. She herself had relationships, affairs, outside the marriage. In this book on faith and religion she responds to his next question, “How can you ever believe me again after this?” with, “I’ve believed you all this time. I’m in the habit of it. Why should I stop now?” She writes, “belief becomes a matter of faith, no longer logically connected to the “truth” of its object, which remains unknowable except insofar as as it chooses to reveal itself.” She believes in his freedom to lie, without which he could not freely tell her the truth.
Not only can she believe him, but she can forgive him. Another matter. And he confesses to their two grown children. The family will keep him, if he insisted it would be him who would have to leave. He does not leave. His daughter says to her mother, that is what men do. She ends this first chapter, “Mind what matters: his presence here, for now. Love is not love, forgiveness is not forgiveness, that effaces the beloved’s lineaments by letting him drift, indistinct, through the lives of those who claim him. That way lies lethargy, which is the death of love. I am not married to Saint George, after all. I am married to a man who is, among many other things neither more nor less remarkable, an adulterer. I must remember him: whole.”
She talks about marriage in a way that many embarking into the tradition would be helpful to read. She writes, “But marriage turned out to be in its essence nothing personal. Rather, it took the form of a double helix replicating itself without regard for our particular histories and desires. We dreamed we were creating it (“can we ask any more than that we be set apart under the condition of unity,” I wrote to George during our engagement, “in order that we may effect this unity? What we create then is ours”) and all the while it created us: Husband and Wife. Not Spouse and Spouse, mind you, but Husband and Wife, creatures who’s differing privileges and responsibilities, imposed so immemorially as to have the force of nature, mocked that “unity” of my dreams, which is prescribed by canon law as one of the “essential properties” of marriage. Easier to unite a boa constrictor and a baboon (unless “swallowing whole” counts as “uniting”). We’d known nothing of the impersonal structure and force of wedlock at the outset, however, and our ignorance nearly did us in.”
I read this after reading her book Remembering the Bone House, where she writes about her childhood, the loss of her father, the early marriage years, her pregnancies, her mental health break down, and eventually her affairs. When I learned she wrote about her husband's affair in this book I wanted to read it. He was lauded by her readers for staying with her, as a saint. The fact they remained committed in marriage resonates with my experience. Her writing is excellent, and this book explores their religious path; their conversion to the Catholic faith, and the reasons for that conversion. These two books are a set to read together, or back to back. They show a picture of a time different from now yet similar, in exploring a woman’s perspective of complex personal issues.
He was diagnosed with a terminal illness, cancer, and felt a need to confess. She herself had relationships, affairs, outside the marriage. In this book on faith and religion she responds to his next question, “How can you ever believe me again after this?” with, “I’ve believed you all this time. I’m in the habit of it. Why should I stop now?” She writes, “belief becomes a matter of faith, no longer logically connected to the “truth” of its object, which remains unknowable except insofar as as it chooses to reveal itself.” She believes in his freedom to lie, without which he could not freely tell her the truth.
Not only can she believe him, but she can forgive him. Another matter. And he confesses to their two grown children. The family will keep him, if he insisted it would be him who would have to leave. He does not leave. His daughter says to her mother, that is what men do. She ends this first chapter, “Mind what matters: his presence here, for now. Love is not love, forgiveness is not forgiveness, that effaces the beloved’s lineaments by letting him drift, indistinct, through the lives of those who claim him. That way lies lethargy, which is the death of love. I am not married to Saint George, after all. I am married to a man who is, among many other things neither more nor less remarkable, an adulterer. I must remember him: whole.”
She talks about marriage in a way that many embarking into the tradition would be helpful to read. She writes, “But marriage turned out to be in its essence nothing personal. Rather, it took the form of a double helix replicating itself without regard for our particular histories and desires. We dreamed we were creating it (“can we ask any more than that we be set apart under the condition of unity,” I wrote to George during our engagement, “in order that we may effect this unity? What we create then is ours”) and all the while it created us: Husband and Wife. Not Spouse and Spouse, mind you, but Husband and Wife, creatures who’s differing privileges and responsibilities, imposed so immemorially as to have the force of nature, mocked that “unity” of my dreams, which is prescribed by canon law as one of the “essential properties” of marriage. Easier to unite a boa constrictor and a baboon (unless “swallowing whole” counts as “uniting”). We’d known nothing of the impersonal structure and force of wedlock at the outset, however, and our ignorance nearly did us in.”
I read this after reading her book Remembering the Bone House, where she writes about her childhood, the loss of her father, the early marriage years, her pregnancies, her mental health break down, and eventually her affairs. When I learned she wrote about her husband's affair in this book I wanted to read it. He was lauded by her readers for staying with her, as a saint. The fact they remained committed in marriage resonates with my experience. Her writing is excellent, and this book explores their religious path; their conversion to the Catholic faith, and the reasons for that conversion. These two books are a set to read together, or back to back. They show a picture of a time different from now yet similar, in exploring a woman’s perspective of complex personal issues.
May 21, 2017
The author reminds me a lot of Kathleen Norris, in her openness about her journey of faith and her marriage and struggles with depression. I value their sometimes brutal honesty and would consider both of these women guides along my own spiritual journey.
February 3, 2019
Another beautiful essay collection from Nancy Mairs. It is not as tightly focused as "Waist High in the World," but it covers many of the same themes: embodiment, disability, and feminism. I will gladly read anything that Nancy Mairs has written.
May 24, 2020
I’ve been meaning to read this book forever and I’m so glad I read it at this particular time. Beautiful writing that is fully incarnate, spirit and body, explored in the strange and retroactively miraculous season of ordinary time.
August 26, 2018
Interesting memoir with some scattered gems of insight or wisdom. Not as gripping as some memoirs I’ve read but she is a great writer.
August 18, 2011
Reread this one which I hadn't read since I taught it when students were appalled--appalled!--that a good Catholic woman could admit to and discuss her affairs and her failures in a book about marriage. In rereading it now, I can see why it was appalling. Mairs is brutally honest and also a very radical Catholic discussing the ups and downs of her MS and depression, as well as the ups and downs of her marriage. It's a great book. Reading it alongside _Remembering the Bone House_ you get a sense of how Mairs is embodied with spiritually and emotionally, and this is great. I am so glad that I reread her. There's also an undercurrent here of a white woman writing about race that is important, as well as a middle class woman (with some upper class training) confronting social class.
As a cradle Catholic, I am pretty fascinated by Mairs decision to convert to Catholicism and stick with it, although she's critical of many of the church's practices and is a hard core feminist.
As a cradle Catholic, I am pretty fascinated by Mairs decision to convert to Catholicism and stick with it, although she's critical of many of the church's practices and is a hard core feminist.
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April 2, 2008I'll present a paper on this one at a conference this weekend, and a longer version has just been accepted by an editor putting together a volume. Yippee!
December 29, 2009
Fantastic book on faith and marriage. I love Mairs' honesty, her blunt relating of truths.
August 1, 2010
The best of her books. Describes her life as a feminist, Catholic, opinionated, disabled writer.
January 21, 2014
I just could not get into this one so it's another one I didn't finish.
August 20, 2014
Earthy view of life and faith. Contemporary memoir of a woman with chronic illness living her life and struggling with what she believes.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews