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Žiarivá temnota noci
Neotrasiteľná ateistka Sally Readová konvertovala na katolícku vieru v priebehu deviatich mesiacov. V roku 2010 bola Sally označená za jednu z najlepších mladých spisovateliek britskej básnickej scény. Ako feministka s hlbokým protikatolíckym cítením začala písať knihu o ženskej sexualite. Počas zbierania materiálu k svojej knihe sa rozprávala aj s istým katolíckym kňazom. A tento rozhovor ju priviedol k dramatickému duchovnému pátraniu, ktoré sa skončilo priamo vo Vatikáne, kde bola prijatá do Katolíckej cirkvi.
Príbeh je napísaný živým, poetickým jazykom. Autorka veľavravne a presvedčivo opisuje svoje stretnutia s Otcom, Duchom a Synom presne tak, ako jej boli postupne dané. Tieto udalosti vrhli nové svetlo aj na zážitky z minulosti – na otcovu smrť, na jej prácu psychiatrickej zdravotnej sestry, na mladé roky života v Londýne. Osvetlili tiež výzvy, ktoré so sebou prináša manželstvo a materstvo v cudzej krajine. A hoci vieru predtým rázne odmietala, po dôvernom stretnutí s Láskou, so samotným Kristom, sa v nej intenzívne rozvinula a vyústila do veľkej životnej premeny.
Sally Readová je britská poetka, spisovateľka a bývalá zdravotná sestra. Narodila sa v roku 1971 v Suffolku v Spojenom kráľovstve. Študovala na Open University a University of South Dakota v USA. Okrem niekoľkých básnických zbierok napísala autobiografické diela Žiarivá temnota noci (2016) a Zvestovanie: Volanie po viere v rozbitom svete (2018). S manželom a dcérou žije v Taliansku neďaleko Ríma.
Príbeh je napísaný živým, poetickým jazykom. Autorka veľavravne a presvedčivo opisuje svoje stretnutia s Otcom, Duchom a Synom presne tak, ako jej boli postupne dané. Tieto udalosti vrhli nové svetlo aj na zážitky z minulosti – na otcovu smrť, na jej prácu psychiatrickej zdravotnej sestry, na mladé roky života v Londýne. Osvetlili tiež výzvy, ktoré so sebou prináša manželstvo a materstvo v cudzej krajine. A hoci vieru predtým rázne odmietala, po dôvernom stretnutí s Láskou, so samotným Kristom, sa v nej intenzívne rozvinula a vyústila do veľkej životnej premeny.
Sally Readová je britská poetka, spisovateľka a bývalá zdravotná sestra. Narodila sa v roku 1971 v Suffolku v Spojenom kráľovstve. Študovala na Open University a University of South Dakota v USA. Okrem niekoľkých básnických zbierok napísala autobiografické diela Žiarivá temnota noci (2016) a Zvestovanie: Volanie po viere v rozbitom svete (2018). S manželom a dcérou žije v Taliansku neďaleko Ríma.
176 pages, Paperback
First published October 11, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
December 16, 2018
Sally Read as feminist-activist atheist, deeply anti-Catholic, poet was an unlikely convert, which may be what makes this such a good story. And it is a good story. I downloaded it for free from Formed and read it in two days. Fellow sinner that I am, I recognized many of her detours and pit stops, but then there is nothing new under the sun. After Sally came into the Church, she realized her ‘conversion’ had only just begun, her questioning search would never really end, because the God’s love is infinite. She also gained hope for her deceased atheist father.
‘The good atheist’s soul, I had come to see, can almost be a tabula rasa, readied for God. It was Simone Weil who described atheism as a “purification”. My father, the most scrupulous atheist, had rejected the false trappings and evils that can exist in any religion: the superficial consolations, the conveniently personalized god, the sin. And he taught me to do the same. Neither of us were satisfied with half-truths or superstition; we had no fear of supernatural punishment. There had been a gaping space in my soul for truth. … That day I began to see the polar opposites of atheism and Catholicism as synapse-like connections in the infinite medley of our own free will. What we kick against may turn out to be what we are most attached to, where our passion lies, at the quick of our soul. And when those connections flip over into faith—even on a deathbed—they can color an entire life, as one drop of cochineal, added last, colors a tall glass of water.’
Sally Read is a poet and her writing is a subtle blend of British irony, beauty in discovery, and quiet intense emotion. Together it makes for a very enjoyable read. (No pun intended!)
P.S. Actually it was the beautiful quote from my friend, John’s review which drew me to this book. I think that quote where Jesus comes to Ms. Read is far better than the one I cited, but I did not want to be repetitive. But do check his review out, by all means. It is excellent!
December 16, 2018: Minor grammatical correction
‘The good atheist’s soul, I had come to see, can almost be a tabula rasa, readied for God. It was Simone Weil who described atheism as a “purification”. My father, the most scrupulous atheist, had rejected the false trappings and evils that can exist in any religion: the superficial consolations, the conveniently personalized god, the sin. And he taught me to do the same. Neither of us were satisfied with half-truths or superstition; we had no fear of supernatural punishment. There had been a gaping space in my soul for truth. … That day I began to see the polar opposites of atheism and Catholicism as synapse-like connections in the infinite medley of our own free will. What we kick against may turn out to be what we are most attached to, where our passion lies, at the quick of our soul. And when those connections flip over into faith—even on a deathbed—they can color an entire life, as one drop of cochineal, added last, colors a tall glass of water.’
Sally Read is a poet and her writing is a subtle blend of British irony, beauty in discovery, and quiet intense emotion. Together it makes for a very enjoyable read. (No pun intended!)
P.S. Actually it was the beautiful quote from my friend, John’s review which drew me to this book. I think that quote where Jesus comes to Ms. Read is far better than the one I cited, but I did not want to be repetitive. But do check his review out, by all means. It is excellent!
December 16, 2018: Minor grammatical correction
July 13, 2017
This book belongs up there with the Confessions of St. Augustine. Sally Read was raised as an atheist. Discussions of a deity were not allowed in her home. She became a nurse who saw terrible tragedy - physical and psychological. After her father died she fell into despair. But she married and had a child. She became a poet.
She met some Catholics because of her daughter and met an Orthodox priest. They made her terribly angry. "Suddenly, I wanted this priest with the merry eyes over a barrel. I wanted answers. I wanted, more than anything else, to know how someone intelligent, someone moral, could belong to such a church." She hit him with child sexual abuse, women and the priesthood, hatred of gay people, Church gold, Mary as an insult to women.
After the fights with the priest, she found herself struggling with insomnia. She realized her poetry was her attempt to "nail the truth" and she realized that God was a possibility. She read John of the Cross and questioned. Then came what I call mystical experiences. Her description (she is a poet) is beautiful:
"Something came over me. I felt almost physically lifted up. My eyes stopped crying instantly, my face relaxed. It was like being in the grip of panicked amnesia, when suddenly someone familiar walked into the room and gave myself back to me - a self restored to me more fully than before. It was a presence entirely fixed on me as I was on it, and it both descended toward me and pulled me up. I knew it was him. This was the hinge of my life; this compassion and love and humility so great it buckled me as it came to meet me."
Every Catholic should read this. Everyone who wonders about Catholics and the Church should read this. And everyone who HATES the Catholic Church should definitely read this.
She met some Catholics because of her daughter and met an Orthodox priest. They made her terribly angry. "Suddenly, I wanted this priest with the merry eyes over a barrel. I wanted answers. I wanted, more than anything else, to know how someone intelligent, someone moral, could belong to such a church." She hit him with child sexual abuse, women and the priesthood, hatred of gay people, Church gold, Mary as an insult to women.
After the fights with the priest, she found herself struggling with insomnia. She realized her poetry was her attempt to "nail the truth" and she realized that God was a possibility. She read John of the Cross and questioned. Then came what I call mystical experiences. Her description (she is a poet) is beautiful:
"Something came over me. I felt almost physically lifted up. My eyes stopped crying instantly, my face relaxed. It was like being in the grip of panicked amnesia, when suddenly someone familiar walked into the room and gave myself back to me - a self restored to me more fully than before. It was a presence entirely fixed on me as I was on it, and it both descended toward me and pulled me up. I knew it was him. This was the hinge of my life; this compassion and love and humility so great it buckled me as it came to meet me."
Every Catholic should read this. Everyone who wonders about Catholics and the Church should read this. And everyone who HATES the Catholic Church should definitely read this.
February 13, 2017
Countless conversion stories abound throughout the history of Christianity, but far fewer are those who have been gifted with the grace to tell their love story with God with such beauty that their stories become a classic. St. Augustine did it in Confessions. Thomas Merton did it in The Seven Storey Mountain. And now I believe Sally Read has done it too. I cannot imagine how "Night's Bright Darkness" would not become a contemporary spiritual classic, not only for its spiritual depth but also for its literary merit. Ms. Read can write, and she writes with beauty that flows from the grace of her conversion - mind, body, and soul.
"...what I believed and believe more so every day, through faith and reason, is that the structure of the Church is God’s poem—the transformative instrument of the chaos of the everyday. I believe in my place in that poem, as a being that will help to sustain it. I believe in the power of grace to transform us and to lead us closer to God. I believe that the wisdom of the Magisterium maintains the channels of this grace. I believe that here is meaning, here is love."
"Mary’s body, we are told, was assumed into heaven. Every hair on her head, every finger, every cell is precious to God. She died, we are told, an old woman, but utterly beautiful in the inextricable bond of her flesh and her spirit, because her flesh never forgot, for one moment, the gaze of God. She was filled with God. Her body never moved away from his love and knowledge of her own eternal soul. In prayer and adoration, her womb was readied for the embedding of God himself."
"I know that if I fall, when I fall, though I fall a long way, I am in his arms."
I love reading conversion stories for they are always different - as unique as the soul that is undergoing conversion - yet they all reveal a little bit more about the Divine Lover who woos souls from Eternity, for Eternity.
While this entire little book is a gem, the chapter that touched me most was the chapter on Mary. Ms. Read had been a feminist who had attempted to free Mary from what she perceived to be the misogynistic and patriarchal shackles of the Catholic Church. How her heart and mind was transformed about the Mother of God is on its own a story shot through with grace and love.
How did a bright, committed atheist and feminist who was staunchly opposed to the Catholic Church end up writing so eloquently and with such spiritual insight about God and the Church? Let her tell you in her own words - read this book!
"...what I believed and believe more so every day, through faith and reason, is that the structure of the Church is God’s poem—the transformative instrument of the chaos of the everyday. I believe in my place in that poem, as a being that will help to sustain it. I believe in the power of grace to transform us and to lead us closer to God. I believe that the wisdom of the Magisterium maintains the channels of this grace. I believe that here is meaning, here is love."
"Mary’s body, we are told, was assumed into heaven. Every hair on her head, every finger, every cell is precious to God. She died, we are told, an old woman, but utterly beautiful in the inextricable bond of her flesh and her spirit, because her flesh never forgot, for one moment, the gaze of God. She was filled with God. Her body never moved away from his love and knowledge of her own eternal soul. In prayer and adoration, her womb was readied for the embedding of God himself."
"I know that if I fall, when I fall, though I fall a long way, I am in his arms."
I love reading conversion stories for they are always different - as unique as the soul that is undergoing conversion - yet they all reveal a little bit more about the Divine Lover who woos souls from Eternity, for Eternity.
While this entire little book is a gem, the chapter that touched me most was the chapter on Mary. Ms. Read had been a feminist who had attempted to free Mary from what she perceived to be the misogynistic and patriarchal shackles of the Catholic Church. How her heart and mind was transformed about the Mother of God is on its own a story shot through with grace and love.
How did a bright, committed atheist and feminist who was staunchly opposed to the Catholic Church end up writing so eloquently and with such spiritual insight about God and the Church? Let her tell you in her own words - read this book!
June 26, 2017
To be a poet, a true poet, is to be infected with the same sort of madness that produces prophets. It's a calling, a vocation to stare into the depths of meaning and the dark abyss of words, to stand exposed beneath a pitiless sun and to teeter upon a knife ridge between unfathomable falls. This is the story of how a poet became a prophet. And it's quite the most brilliant and compelling conversion story I've read since... well, to be honest, since Augustine. Whether Sally Read's story will resound down the ages in the same way is unlikely, but it speaks with a particular clarity to another product of the peculiar culture that has produced us both: a culture of lights and wonders and flashing distractions; where we can speak across worlds, live the thrills and tragedies of other lives, and rush, rush, rush, always rush, to the freshest, hottest promise of purpose.
Sally Read was a poet before she became a prophet. It was the uncompromising nature of her immersion into the nature of meaning, the play and dance of sounds and shapes, semantics and syntax, that is the stuff of poetry and the foundation of words and worlds that opened her up - an atheist born, bred and convinced - to the raw nature of reality and, most profoundly, its wonder. And Wonder spoke. It showed her, it revealed itself, it sang to her. And, in its speaking, it showed itself to be a Person.
Really, I can say little else other than to urge you to read this book. If you have any interest in language, precisely deployed to tell a story and evoke that which is beyond language, then read this book. If you have any interest in how today's aggressively secular culture can be reopened to grace, then read this book. If you have any interest in reading an extraordinary story by an extraordinary and slightly scary woman, then read this book.
Sally Read was a poet before she became a prophet. It was the uncompromising nature of her immersion into the nature of meaning, the play and dance of sounds and shapes, semantics and syntax, that is the stuff of poetry and the foundation of words and worlds that opened her up - an atheist born, bred and convinced - to the raw nature of reality and, most profoundly, its wonder. And Wonder spoke. It showed her, it revealed itself, it sang to her. And, in its speaking, it showed itself to be a Person.
Really, I can say little else other than to urge you to read this book. If you have any interest in language, precisely deployed to tell a story and evoke that which is beyond language, then read this book. If you have any interest in how today's aggressively secular culture can be reopened to grace, then read this book. If you have any interest in reading an extraordinary story by an extraordinary and slightly scary woman, then read this book.
September 19, 2018
My book club's next pick. I'm about halfway through and am not sure if I like Read herself much but I am sure that I like her unutterable honesty. She is aggressive and argumentative and irrepressibly attached to modern thinking. We've all either been her or met her. What I love is her searing honesty about herself and her conversion. I can forgive almost anything of such an honest person.
Am enjoying this thoroughly and it is a revelation.
UPDATE - FINISHED
It's interesting being a convert and reading this. I recognize moments so specifically from my own journey and yet, of course, they are completely foreign because they were shaped to Sally Read's soul and not my own. It makes them all the more inspiring for me.
Moved me to the point of tears several times and has helped me on my own journey at this point.
Am enjoying this thoroughly and it is a revelation.
UPDATE - FINISHED
It's interesting being a convert and reading this. I recognize moments so specifically from my own journey and yet, of course, they are completely foreign because they were shaped to Sally Read's soul and not my own. It makes them all the more inspiring for me.
Moved me to the point of tears several times and has helped me on my own journey at this point.
February 1, 2017
Simply amazing
I normally stick to more academic texts, ones steeped in doctrine and theology when it comes to the faith. This book, however, broke through that and added so much depth to the understanding of Christianity. The writer, a poet by trade, weaves words together that express some of the mysteries the way simple explanation can not. I highly recommend to anyone who yearns to understand what conversion to Catholicism in this day entails.
I normally stick to more academic texts, ones steeped in doctrine and theology when it comes to the faith. This book, however, broke through that and added so much depth to the understanding of Christianity. The writer, a poet by trade, weaves words together that express some of the mysteries the way simple explanation can not. I highly recommend to anyone who yearns to understand what conversion to Catholicism in this day entails.
August 23, 2021
One of the best conversion stories I have ever read. The words she uses to describe her journey give voice to all of us who have been lost and are seeking God. He was there all along. The beauty of how he draws her to himself is amazing. Love this book!
September 10, 2025
This was a powerful, beautiful, and humbling story of redemption and surrender. Sally Read starts off her story as an atheist and feminist who is writing a book on female reproductive health. Her attempts at pushing buttons and at trying to make a statement end up backfiring on her in the best way possible, as she finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into the love of God.
I adore conversion memoirs, especially those where God uses our own shortcomings and flaws as a means of bringing us closer to Him. This book was beautifully written, never got too emotional, too flowery, or (on the flipside) too academic. It's a fascinating, easy-to-read, and really beautiful story and a reminder for me (as a revert) of the pain and glory of the journey.
I adore conversion memoirs, especially those where God uses our own shortcomings and flaws as a means of bringing us closer to Him. This book was beautifully written, never got too emotional, too flowery, or (on the flipside) too academic. It's a fascinating, easy-to-read, and really beautiful story and a reminder for me (as a revert) of the pain and glory of the journey.
October 18, 2018
This memoir is concise and lovely, with no sentimentality or cloying pietism. Not surprised that l'Osservatore Romano balked at publishing her conversion story!
December 15, 2018
I was torn between wanting to speed through this book and a desire to slow down and savor all the beautiful moments. I ended up reading it straight through and then going back and re-reading the memorable, beautiful descriptions: what it was like to confess all of life's sins, the experience of praying in a chapel with windows open to the sea, the brokenness of sitting at a sick child's bedside. But don't assume it's all seriousness. There are plenty of amusing details from the perspective of an Englishwoman entering into Italian life. It is really a life-changing book which made me appreciate my faith more.
November 8, 2017
In this book, unlike any other that I’ve read, the author uses breathtaking imagery to describe the indescribable in a way that pierces the heart. Thank you, Sally Read.
May 11, 2020
A beautifully written conversion story.
March 19, 2021
Fascinating account of a hot mess atheist finding (gasp!) God and becoming (double gasp!) Catholic.
The life of British poet Sally Read was once a hot mess. She was an atheist and believed in “the right to die, and the right to assisted dying”—the latter a euphemism for medical killing (18). She used artificial birth control, contraceptive pills. Besides poetry, she would have coauthored a book on the vagina, which, by itself is not wrong, but the standard anti-life and anti-God feminist perspective of the book would have made it as suspect as other standard feminist books about women, power, patriarchy, blah blah blah.
And yet, this staunch atheist would choose to become Catholic Christian after a sequence of seminal events in her life. Read’s biographical account of her conversion not only helps us cradle Catholics understand the intellectual roadblocks an atheist would encounter as he or she accepts religious faith. It also embarrasses fake Catholics like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden, he who goes tripping through life (ouch! bad pun, huh?), as though his cafeteria-style Catholicism is normal.
Several episodes were most helpful for a former atheist like Read to come to faith. First was the time after her father’s death, the emotions of which led her to exclaim, “This is hell. I’m in hell” (26). Whether she meant “hell” in the theological or the metaphoric sense is beside the point. Being brought to such a low emotional level made her amenable to understanding that God exists.
Next is a key paradox that Read encountered: God’s “absence was so painfully loud it seems, now, to prove his existence” (27). This paradox doesn’t seem to have been merely poetic rendering, but an existential understanding.
Finally, once she converted, it was easy for Read to see her faith in terms familiar with her vocation of being a poet, which was enhanced or fulfilled by her conversion. Realizing her creativity “was for communion with God” (42), Read writes of her conversion in poetic language. She writes that “the heart kick-started to sense its intrinsic architecture of logic, love and reason” (57). “The Church […] was a poem” (62), a claim she later elaborates how it could be compared to a poem: “step outside the meter, the rhyme scheme, the scansion, the range of metaphor, and you lose its life” (79).
Read’s autobiographical account includes several insightful and cautionary statements. For those who think Catholicism is beyond them, Read responds with a summary of her genealogy: “Despite the atheists, the Orangemen and the Anglicans who were my ancestors, deep in the thick low branches of a British family tree there are always Catholics” (90).
For those who fear believing in God or merely entertaining the idea that He exists, she suggests that “What we kick against may turn out to be what we are most attached to, where our passion lies, at the quick of our soul” (106).
For those who think an aggressive, in-your-face style of evangelization of our secular citizens is appropriate, Read cautions, “If they weren’t ready—if they didn’t have the ears to hear—it was useless to proselytize” (128).
The following quote could function as a summary of Read’s entire biographical account: “The Church taught what I had instinctively always felt as a writer: the smallness of a life does not diminish it; the brevity of a moment does not reduce its importance; death is not the end” (136).
Literature students will appreciate Read’s honesty in her conversion story. Other readers will revel in her imagery and descriptions. Best of all, since they are mellifluously written, the 147 pages can be read in a couple of hours.
Since Amazon collaborates with cancel culture zealots and bans conservative and pro-life books, I recommend not buying this book on Amazon. (Why give your hard-earned dollars to a company that censors books?) Instead, buy this book directly from the publisher: Ignatius.com.
The life of British poet Sally Read was once a hot mess. She was an atheist and believed in “the right to die, and the right to assisted dying”—the latter a euphemism for medical killing (18). She used artificial birth control, contraceptive pills. Besides poetry, she would have coauthored a book on the vagina, which, by itself is not wrong, but the standard anti-life and anti-God feminist perspective of the book would have made it as suspect as other standard feminist books about women, power, patriarchy, blah blah blah.
And yet, this staunch atheist would choose to become Catholic Christian after a sequence of seminal events in her life. Read’s biographical account of her conversion not only helps us cradle Catholics understand the intellectual roadblocks an atheist would encounter as he or she accepts religious faith. It also embarrasses fake Catholics like Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden, he who goes tripping through life (ouch! bad pun, huh?), as though his cafeteria-style Catholicism is normal.
Several episodes were most helpful for a former atheist like Read to come to faith. First was the time after her father’s death, the emotions of which led her to exclaim, “This is hell. I’m in hell” (26). Whether she meant “hell” in the theological or the metaphoric sense is beside the point. Being brought to such a low emotional level made her amenable to understanding that God exists.
Next is a key paradox that Read encountered: God’s “absence was so painfully loud it seems, now, to prove his existence” (27). This paradox doesn’t seem to have been merely poetic rendering, but an existential understanding.
Finally, once she converted, it was easy for Read to see her faith in terms familiar with her vocation of being a poet, which was enhanced or fulfilled by her conversion. Realizing her creativity “was for communion with God” (42), Read writes of her conversion in poetic language. She writes that “the heart kick-started to sense its intrinsic architecture of logic, love and reason” (57). “The Church […] was a poem” (62), a claim she later elaborates how it could be compared to a poem: “step outside the meter, the rhyme scheme, the scansion, the range of metaphor, and you lose its life” (79).
Read’s autobiographical account includes several insightful and cautionary statements. For those who think Catholicism is beyond them, Read responds with a summary of her genealogy: “Despite the atheists, the Orangemen and the Anglicans who were my ancestors, deep in the thick low branches of a British family tree there are always Catholics” (90).
For those who fear believing in God or merely entertaining the idea that He exists, she suggests that “What we kick against may turn out to be what we are most attached to, where our passion lies, at the quick of our soul” (106).
For those who think an aggressive, in-your-face style of evangelization of our secular citizens is appropriate, Read cautions, “If they weren’t ready—if they didn’t have the ears to hear—it was useless to proselytize” (128).
The following quote could function as a summary of Read’s entire biographical account: “The Church taught what I had instinctively always felt as a writer: the smallness of a life does not diminish it; the brevity of a moment does not reduce its importance; death is not the end” (136).
Literature students will appreciate Read’s honesty in her conversion story. Other readers will revel in her imagery and descriptions. Best of all, since they are mellifluously written, the 147 pages can be read in a couple of hours.
Since Amazon collaborates with cancel culture zealots and bans conservative and pro-life books, I recommend not buying this book on Amazon. (Why give your hard-earned dollars to a company that censors books?) Instead, buy this book directly from the publisher: Ignatius.com.
November 27, 2020
Some preliminary thoughts:
What do staunch and atheism and Catholicism have in common?
I received the recommendation to read this text by a dear friend and confident nihilist after I shared with him my internal conflict between the theological openness present in my tradition and the claims of the voices that I love dearly in Roman Catholicism.
Sally Read's writing is exquisite, and I could not help but read her work within a day.
I do believe that we do well to consider this spiritual memoir, The Confessions of the modern age.
Here are several aspects of her story and narration that stirred my heart:
It may seem shocking that a self-proclaimed atheist and modern feminist would undergo a dramatic conversion so swiftly. One might speculate that this transformation had something to do with either the fickleness of the person or the inarguable truth of a worldview. I felt surprised as I began to understand that Read's conversion was a transition to a system that, buried deep within her, as a mother, poet, intellectual, and sensual woman, she already knew to be true.
Many refer to their conversion to Catholicism as something prompted by nostalgia or homesickness for the soul knows that it belongs there, and that is true for Read.
She describes her father's (faith?) in atheism "as having a lot in common with good Catholics, particularly in being uncompromising on truth and having a sound conscience." This description is the overlap that I have witnessed between the Catholic and the naturally virtuous man. She even credits her father's commitments as setting the foundation for her later acceptance of Catholicism as it helped her from avoiding a personal deity or personal God in her image, a failing so many of us are susceptible to as theists. See: "He prepared me to know God. In his atheism, he stripped me of all pretense and selfishness and false worship and rights in regards to God."
She begins sharing her narrative by divulging the stories and memories of tending to the gravely ill in a hospital. Many of these people were incoherent, utterly unable to take care of themselves without the aid of another, and, yet, Read understood that these people's existence was valuable far beyond their usefulness-- a belief that consistent utilitarianism cannot support. Later, she recognizes that it is the imago Dei that constitutes this value, and extends it to herself as she shares her reminder that to worship is often learning to be more than doing.
2.In content and form, Read speaks of the Incarnational reality of faith. Her imagery is vivid, her language physical and sensual, and in content, she understands that the human person is a unified whole, soul, and body. This use of language is particularly true in her descriptions of consuming the Eucharist and in the changes that she made in her sexual ethics:
"Sex is not wrong or shameful. But it, above all, asks us to abide in God's eye-fully known, fully integrated, undivided in body and soul."
"The body is its own thing; it's in cahoots with the soul more than the mind."
3.I love how Sally Read divides her books into "The Father, the Spirit, the Son, The Church, The Mother, The Mystery" She so gracefully places the constitutive parts of her life under the life of the Church.
What emerges from Read is, finally, the poetry that we find in a poet who understands God and the Catholic faith as a poem already written and seeks to have a small place in it-- humility, grace and great beauty.
What do staunch and atheism and Catholicism have in common?
I received the recommendation to read this text by a dear friend and confident nihilist after I shared with him my internal conflict between the theological openness present in my tradition and the claims of the voices that I love dearly in Roman Catholicism.
Sally Read's writing is exquisite, and I could not help but read her work within a day.
I do believe that we do well to consider this spiritual memoir, The Confessions of the modern age.
Here are several aspects of her story and narration that stirred my heart:
It may seem shocking that a self-proclaimed atheist and modern feminist would undergo a dramatic conversion so swiftly. One might speculate that this transformation had something to do with either the fickleness of the person or the inarguable truth of a worldview. I felt surprised as I began to understand that Read's conversion was a transition to a system that, buried deep within her, as a mother, poet, intellectual, and sensual woman, she already knew to be true.
Many refer to their conversion to Catholicism as something prompted by nostalgia or homesickness for the soul knows that it belongs there, and that is true for Read.
She describes her father's (faith?) in atheism "as having a lot in common with good Catholics, particularly in being uncompromising on truth and having a sound conscience." This description is the overlap that I have witnessed between the Catholic and the naturally virtuous man. She even credits her father's commitments as setting the foundation for her later acceptance of Catholicism as it helped her from avoiding a personal deity or personal God in her image, a failing so many of us are susceptible to as theists. See: "He prepared me to know God. In his atheism, he stripped me of all pretense and selfishness and false worship and rights in regards to God."
She begins sharing her narrative by divulging the stories and memories of tending to the gravely ill in a hospital. Many of these people were incoherent, utterly unable to take care of themselves without the aid of another, and, yet, Read understood that these people's existence was valuable far beyond their usefulness-- a belief that consistent utilitarianism cannot support. Later, she recognizes that it is the imago Dei that constitutes this value, and extends it to herself as she shares her reminder that to worship is often learning to be more than doing.
2.In content and form, Read speaks of the Incarnational reality of faith. Her imagery is vivid, her language physical and sensual, and in content, she understands that the human person is a unified whole, soul, and body. This use of language is particularly true in her descriptions of consuming the Eucharist and in the changes that she made in her sexual ethics:
"Sex is not wrong or shameful. But it, above all, asks us to abide in God's eye-fully known, fully integrated, undivided in body and soul."
"The body is its own thing; it's in cahoots with the soul more than the mind."
3.I love how Sally Read divides her books into "The Father, the Spirit, the Son, The Church, The Mother, The Mystery" She so gracefully places the constitutive parts of her life under the life of the Church.
What emerges from Read is, finally, the poetry that we find in a poet who understands God and the Catholic faith as a poem already written and seeks to have a small place in it-- humility, grace and great beauty.
November 5, 2019
This is an engrossing story covering Sally Read's conversion from feminist poet to committed Catholic Christian. Sally Read is a good writer which helps her story along tremendously and enable her readers to understand both the internal changes in her mind and thinking and the lifestyle changes that go along with it.
It is always interesting to read of people who discover God "on their own" rather than being impacted by an individual or church who has led them from non-belief to belief. The gradual unfolding of Sally's God-consciousness makes for a fascinating read - the "hound of heaven" certainly had her in his sights as she "fled Him down the nights and down the days". and "fled Him down the arches of the years". Certainly, she encountered people along the way such as a local group of Catholic mothers and Father Gregory, a mystically-inclined priest.
At times I worried for her marriage for her husband was bemused by the changes he observed in her, and her quest was so personal and so extreme that at times she seemed to lose sight of him both in the run-up to her conversion and afterwards as she got involved with setting up daily adoration in a chapel containing the remains of a dead nun.
I couldn't help compare Sally's journey that of Rosaria Butterfield's who travelled from being a lesbian feminist professor of women's studies to a Prebyterian pastor's wife The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey Into Christian Faith. While the destination church was very different, the depth of experience of God and the Spirit is similar and no-one could doubt that God apparently has many different ecclesiastical goals for the people he calls, all equally valid in his sight.
I've read two engrossing Christian books by women recently, this one and also Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You AreOne Thousand Gifts. Sally's being about the fundamental Christian experience of finding faith and Ann's book about finding an authentic spirituality among the rush and confusion of daily life. I will return to both of them before too long with a sense of keen anticipation.
It is always interesting to read of people who discover God "on their own" rather than being impacted by an individual or church who has led them from non-belief to belief. The gradual unfolding of Sally's God-consciousness makes for a fascinating read - the "hound of heaven" certainly had her in his sights as she "fled Him down the nights and down the days". and "fled Him down the arches of the years". Certainly, she encountered people along the way such as a local group of Catholic mothers and Father Gregory, a mystically-inclined priest.
At times I worried for her marriage for her husband was bemused by the changes he observed in her, and her quest was so personal and so extreme that at times she seemed to lose sight of him both in the run-up to her conversion and afterwards as she got involved with setting up daily adoration in a chapel containing the remains of a dead nun.
I couldn't help compare Sally's journey that of Rosaria Butterfield's who travelled from being a lesbian feminist professor of women's studies to a Prebyterian pastor's wife The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey Into Christian Faith. While the destination church was very different, the depth of experience of God and the Spirit is similar and no-one could doubt that God apparently has many different ecclesiastical goals for the people he calls, all equally valid in his sight.
I've read two engrossing Christian books by women recently, this one and also Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You AreOne Thousand Gifts. Sally's being about the fundamental Christian experience of finding faith and Ann's book about finding an authentic spirituality among the rush and confusion of daily life. I will return to both of them before too long with a sense of keen anticipation.
February 17, 2020
I am not, in general, a fan of the genre of conversion stories, simply because most of them emphasize the personality of the writer over their ability to write, and as a result I find many such testimonials third-rate at best. Sally Read has managed to defy this settled judgment of mine, and when a friend lent me a copy with a high recommendation, I (again) temporarily suspended my resolution to only read books by deceased authors, and took it up, hoping to find some reflective material for a retreat I was taking.
The author managed to convey in her initial chapter that she has the language at her disposal. Her narrative manages to move along without excessive detail; her turning points manage to be well-chosen and succinct. Several turns of phrase stood out to me, the most memorable one referring to a moment when in the midst of internal distress she began to search out in prayer for the existence of the God she had been taught to deny all her life: "My mind was open as a fish's eye." Again and again, Read would slip such turns of phrase into her story, almost like miniature poems that adorn the arc of her journey from atheist to believer to Catholic to "Shiite" Catholic (as Jim Gaffigan once put it). My hope for insights that would be suitable for a retreat experience was not disappointed, as Sally discloses much of her interior life in terms that served admirably as a springboard to my own prayer. I understand that she has begun publishing works of her Catholic meditations and I look forward to exploring them, now confident that what flows from her pen is a well-crafted work of piety that has found its expression in a work of literature that doesn't count on the goodwill of the reader to forgive the shortcomings of the writing in the name of the author's devout intention.
The author managed to convey in her initial chapter that she has the language at her disposal. Her narrative manages to move along without excessive detail; her turning points manage to be well-chosen and succinct. Several turns of phrase stood out to me, the most memorable one referring to a moment when in the midst of internal distress she began to search out in prayer for the existence of the God she had been taught to deny all her life: "My mind was open as a fish's eye." Again and again, Read would slip such turns of phrase into her story, almost like miniature poems that adorn the arc of her journey from atheist to believer to Catholic to "Shiite" Catholic (as Jim Gaffigan once put it). My hope for insights that would be suitable for a retreat experience was not disappointed, as Sally discloses much of her interior life in terms that served admirably as a springboard to my own prayer. I understand that she has begun publishing works of her Catholic meditations and I look forward to exploring them, now confident that what flows from her pen is a well-crafted work of piety that has found its expression in a work of literature that doesn't count on the goodwill of the reader to forgive the shortcomings of the writing in the name of the author's devout intention.
August 20, 2022
"The Church taught what I had instinctively always felt as a writer: the smallness of a life does not diminish it; the brevity of a moment does not reduce its importance; death is not the end."
Amen to that! These words are from Sally Read’s "Night’s Bright Darkness"—a spiritual memoir. This book is a conversion story. Sally Read is a poet, a writer, and a mystic. I enjoyed her writing, not so much her experiences.
I couldn’t exactly put my finger on the time (place, time, action) that her conversion happened. It wasn’t an auditory message, like St. Augustine. It wasn’t a personal apparition like Roy Schoemann had. It wasn’t a physical occurrence as St. Paul had. I think Sally’s was intellectual. She figured out that there just might possibly be a God. She wasn’t brought up as a believer, so she didn’t have eyes to see or ears to hear. But she did have a mind to reason.
Once she became open to God, grace flowed. She was blessed with good friends who were spiritually mature, lay women and priests. She also was a reader who voraciously read as much as possible. Also her little daughter seemed to guide her thinking. Her husband tolerated her new found religiosity and eventually accepted it as their family’s new normal.
Personally, I think the quote I began with explains Sally’s conversion. She was a poet, and as a poet she intuitively knew there was beauty in the world. There is always more than what our eyes see, and ears hear, and hearts feel. When Sally opened herself to the possibility of a Creator, she saw the night's light.
Amen to that! These words are from Sally Read’s "Night’s Bright Darkness"—a spiritual memoir. This book is a conversion story. Sally Read is a poet, a writer, and a mystic. I enjoyed her writing, not so much her experiences.
I couldn’t exactly put my finger on the time (place, time, action) that her conversion happened. It wasn’t an auditory message, like St. Augustine. It wasn’t a personal apparition like Roy Schoemann had. It wasn’t a physical occurrence as St. Paul had. I think Sally’s was intellectual. She figured out that there just might possibly be a God. She wasn’t brought up as a believer, so she didn’t have eyes to see or ears to hear. But she did have a mind to reason.
Once she became open to God, grace flowed. She was blessed with good friends who were spiritually mature, lay women and priests. She also was a reader who voraciously read as much as possible. Also her little daughter seemed to guide her thinking. Her husband tolerated her new found religiosity and eventually accepted it as their family’s new normal.
Personally, I think the quote I began with explains Sally’s conversion. She was a poet, and as a poet she intuitively knew there was beauty in the world. There is always more than what our eyes see, and ears hear, and hearts feel. When Sally opened herself to the possibility of a Creator, she saw the night's light.
July 2, 2019
Most of the modern conversion stories I’ve read came about through study. The Protestant student or academic wants to find the TRUTH and convert to whatever Christian denomination the Bible supports. The Muslim or Jew is challenged on their beliefs and reads their religious texts closely to come to a conclusion. The atheist or agnostic studies science, health, or psychology and stumbles into the very real intelligent design of a Creator.
Sally Read’s conversion was different, and I liked it. She did not rely on books to convince her of Catholicism’s verity. God touched her in a series of personal revelations. He revealed Himself through people she cared for as a psychiatric nurse, icons in a church, a priest’s loving guidance, poetry of the saints, and her insightful little girl, Flo. The Lord came to her in the dead of night, wrapping Himself around her in the darkness. He spoke to her poet’s soul in whispers that only she would understand. Read was baptized and confirmed in Rome, having grown up in England. The sights, sounds, and inspiration of Europe were unique to other memoirs. Her writer’s writing sometimes becomes tedious, but important insights are gained into the nature of Catholicism. Her ability to be precise and general explained some truths about the faith in a new, understandable way.
Look out for her next book, coming July 2019: Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World from Ignatius Press.
Sally Read’s conversion was different, and I liked it. She did not rely on books to convince her of Catholicism’s verity. God touched her in a series of personal revelations. He revealed Himself through people she cared for as a psychiatric nurse, icons in a church, a priest’s loving guidance, poetry of the saints, and her insightful little girl, Flo. The Lord came to her in the dead of night, wrapping Himself around her in the darkness. He spoke to her poet’s soul in whispers that only she would understand. Read was baptized and confirmed in Rome, having grown up in England. The sights, sounds, and inspiration of Europe were unique to other memoirs. Her writer’s writing sometimes becomes tedious, but important insights are gained into the nature of Catholicism. Her ability to be precise and general explained some truths about the faith in a new, understandable way.
Look out for her next book, coming July 2019: Annunciation: A Call to Faith in a Broken World from Ignatius Press.
October 20, 2025
I read this for a book club.
I've described my relationship with the Catholic Church as "difficult" for the past 5+ years. I was extremely curious to read about how a born-and-raised, committed atheist came to join the church. As Read described her various issues with the Church before her conversion, I found myself nodding along enthusiastically. I was excited to see how she would confront and work her way through concerns I could very much identify with. Unfortunately for me, this isn't really the book for that. Read's conversion is very much driven by emotion and feeling, not logic. She's clearly very smart, and spent months reading Church literature and talking with a priest, so she knew what she was getting into, but it's not clear how she came around on some very specific issues that were important to her in her former life. I think Read sought structure and rules; while as a cradle Catholic with obsessive tendencies, I have a different relationship with what I feel can be strict expectations.
Overall Read is an excellent writer (she is a poet, and it shows), so it was an enjoyable read, but not quite what I was expecting.
I've described my relationship with the Catholic Church as "difficult" for the past 5+ years. I was extremely curious to read about how a born-and-raised, committed atheist came to join the church. As Read described her various issues with the Church before her conversion, I found myself nodding along enthusiastically. I was excited to see how she would confront and work her way through concerns I could very much identify with. Unfortunately for me, this isn't really the book for that. Read's conversion is very much driven by emotion and feeling, not logic. She's clearly very smart, and spent months reading Church literature and talking with a priest, so she knew what she was getting into, but it's not clear how she came around on some very specific issues that were important to her in her former life. I think Read sought structure and rules; while as a cradle Catholic with obsessive tendencies, I have a different relationship with what I feel can be strict expectations.
Overall Read is an excellent writer (she is a poet, and it shows), so it was an enjoyable read, but not quite what I was expecting.
August 18, 2023
A very frank and honest account from a woman who was brought up a staunch atheist but converted in her thirties to Christianity and eventually was received into the Catholic church. It's a story that puts cradle Catholics to shame.
Read is an English poet who lives near Rome with her Italian husband and daughter. The book is short, six chapters, but quite intense. She returns often to her time as a nurse in London where she first visited a Catholic church with intent.
It's surprising how suspicious and frankly unsupportive her husband was in her conversion. It is a pity she lost friends along the way but that is symptomatic of modern society where supposed liberals are afraid of dialogue about the deeper meaning of life. I suspect that she would not have had the courage to follow this path while her father was alive but it is quite sublime the way she reconciles her father's beliefs within the mystery.
There are a few gaps in the story but it is only right that some things are kept private.
It should be a book that young people are given to read when they start college.
Read is an English poet who lives near Rome with her Italian husband and daughter. The book is short, six chapters, but quite intense. She returns often to her time as a nurse in London where she first visited a Catholic church with intent.
It's surprising how suspicious and frankly unsupportive her husband was in her conversion. It is a pity she lost friends along the way but that is symptomatic of modern society where supposed liberals are afraid of dialogue about the deeper meaning of life. I suspect that she would not have had the courage to follow this path while her father was alive but it is quite sublime the way she reconciles her father's beliefs within the mystery.
There are a few gaps in the story but it is only right that some things are kept private.
It should be a book that young people are given to read when they start college.
August 29, 2017
An honest journey
Considering every soul seeks truth differently according to their inclinations (scientist vs musician vs philosopher vs artist) this book has to be considered not as an attempt to make broad comparisons or serve as a 'template to conversion' nor a defense arguing for God's existence; this is how this woman, a person who seems to have in her personality the lover, the poet, and (surprisingly often) the realist came to see that the consummation of all she had loved and worked for in many forms was actually a Person she had been encountering equally in Beauty as she did in pain throughout her life, before and after wearing the 'atheist' nametag. It is an honest memoir of a life seeking fullness of Life, a life not yet complete, and should be read as such. I give it only 4 stars for the abrupt ending, but all four were earned both in prose and narrative vision. Worth spending time with for all the seekers, religious or not.
Considering every soul seeks truth differently according to their inclinations (scientist vs musician vs philosopher vs artist) this book has to be considered not as an attempt to make broad comparisons or serve as a 'template to conversion' nor a defense arguing for God's existence; this is how this woman, a person who seems to have in her personality the lover, the poet, and (surprisingly often) the realist came to see that the consummation of all she had loved and worked for in many forms was actually a Person she had been encountering equally in Beauty as she did in pain throughout her life, before and after wearing the 'atheist' nametag. It is an honest memoir of a life seeking fullness of Life, a life not yet complete, and should be read as such. I give it only 4 stars for the abrupt ending, but all four were earned both in prose and narrative vision. Worth spending time with for all the seekers, religious or not.
May 31, 2024
I really enjoyed this conversion story of an anti-Catholic atheist, psychiatric nurse, and poet turned Catholic. Her conversion and thoughts are shared in a raw and personal way.
I really loved some of the final parts of her book. Her reflection on her conversion and growth in prayer to trust in God and to be and not just do. I also loved her reflection on Adoration and its importance in our lives, as well as her recognition that a relationship with Christ must be present
"The Church taught what I had instinctively always felt as a writer: the smallness of a life does not diminish it; the brevity of a moment does not reduce its importance; death is not the end." Pg 136
About the priest who walked along sider her during her conversion. "People are hungry - hungry for the Word of God, for sound theology, for truth; in the Western world, this is the hunger of the twenty-first century. " pg 142
I really loved some of the final parts of her book. Her reflection on her conversion and growth in prayer to trust in God and to be and not just do. I also loved her reflection on Adoration and its importance in our lives, as well as her recognition that a relationship with Christ must be present
"The Church taught what I had instinctively always felt as a writer: the smallness of a life does not diminish it; the brevity of a moment does not reduce its importance; death is not the end." Pg 136
About the priest who walked along sider her during her conversion. "People are hungry - hungry for the Word of God, for sound theology, for truth; in the Western world, this is the hunger of the twenty-first century. " pg 142
June 3, 2020
This conversion story is really powerful and breathtaking. It is very clear that Sally Read is a poet and avid writer herself because it reads a lot like poetry. There are parts of her conversion story that might be hard to understand and are abstract, but it's so beautiful because that is what a spiritual experience at its core is-unexplainable. I feel like it's rare to get such an in-depth and vulnerable account of faith over a considerable amount of time. It's also unique because it is countercultural. In this day and age, more and more people fall away from the Catholic Church, but Sally Read boldly proclaims a conversion from atheism to catholicism. Truly beautiful! A must-read for all Catholics and even non-Catholics, but as a Catholic myself, it helped me grow in faith.
September 17, 2017
I have read countless books about Christianity: how to follow God, how to pray for your family, how to live your purpose, how to.....almost everything. No book has impacted me as much as this one. (Other than the Bible). Sally is transparent and honest in sharing where she was, and where she is as of her writing this. I adore her style, and her candid nature in explaining how a person is called by God into the Catholic Church. Amazing, thank you God, and than you Sally for being open to his calling on your life.
March 7, 2019
I read conversion stories to renew my own faith, and this book by Sally Read is excellent and thought provoking
I truly appreciate the authors gift, her writing ability is exceptional, clear and honest. Her conversion would rank as n absolute miracle, there is no indication that she would ever have made such a radical move without divine intervention. I cried many times and empathized with her.
I truly appreciate the authors gift, her writing ability is exceptional, clear and honest. Her conversion would rank as n absolute miracle, there is no indication that she would ever have made such a radical move without divine intervention. I cried many times and empathized with her.
March 29, 2020
Glorious
Sally Read has written THE 21st century conversion story. This is the story of the modern soul, restless, until it rests with Him. I read this book in the equivalent of one night, because the pain she endures in her atheism, and the joy she finds in her new found faith is compelling...and how Sally gets you from A to B is moving, touching and profound.
Sally Read has written THE 21st century conversion story. This is the story of the modern soul, restless, until it rests with Him. I read this book in the equivalent of one night, because the pain she endures in her atheism, and the joy she finds in her new found faith is compelling...and how Sally gets you from A to B is moving, touching and profound.
February 13, 2024
Per usual a conversion happens with or without many obstacles when they meet The Person of Jesus Christ! She is no exception and I believe she is a good writer. There is a brief section on her college years at the University of South Dakota. 😁
“…those close to a convert have to undergo a conversion of sorts themselves…”
“…those close to a convert have to undergo a conversion of sorts themselves…”
November 12, 2017
I am stunned. I have read hundreds of beautiful conversion stories and this one has left me in tears, breathless. My heart soured with her sentences, lyrical and poetic. And with my human flaws: envious of her God-given talent. But I have been blessed with the gift of her book.
August 3, 2022
Very enjoyable. Unlike most conversion stories, she focuses on her almost visceral attraction to the Church rather than an intellectual conviction that the Catholic Church is the true church. To her, the Church is a poem. Very interesting!
December 15, 2024
I once met the author for lunch in Rome, before I knew this had been written. It happened to be Easter Sunday. We heard the Pope’s address in St Peter’s Square. It was a memorable lunch. The author has written several brilliant books; this is one of them.
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