Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

I recently finished reading a book entitled Emma’s Journal, by Juli Loesch Wiley. The book is an edited version of Juli’s journal which she kept during the years 1983-88. It is not exactly her conversion story. By this time she had already become Catholic. Rather, it is a story of her struggle for chastity after she had committed her life to Christ.

As a promotion of chaste living, it is not unlike Dawn Eden‘s, Thrill of the Chaste. They both are very personal and brave testimonials about their faults and weaknesses. They both also provide the firm conviction that a chaste life is the authentic, and only path to true happiness and joy.

This is Juli’s description of the book:

The story of an activist’s journey from living as a lay woman in a community of radical sisters to founding a movement combining peace and pro-life conviction. In the process she wrestles with conflict, friendship, suffering, sexuality, grace, pain and love and finds – eventually – her heart’s home.

What I liked about it:

I think that Juli is a very talented writer (this might even be a negative for regular readers of this blog so you can find samples of her writing here and here to decide for yourself). Because her story is so very personal, it is also very compelling. However, she also has a gift with her prose that keeps the story moving and engaging. She allows the reader to discover along with her, the areas of her life that she needs to transform and along the way, perhaps might allow one to be somewhat self-reflective in a nonthreatening way. While the story, I suspect, will resonate with women more than men, there is still much in it for men as well. Men can understand more about the way the women experience the temptations against chastity which I think most will find quite foreign to them. It can provide men insights into feminine psychology (for lack of a better phrase) that can allow Christian men to better empathize and support Christian women in their vocations to holiness.

We need more books of this genre on chastity. It is important for women to realize that they can easily be misled by the false sense of intimacy that they get from corporal intimacy. This is especially important for women who have already begun to engage in pre-marital sexual relations. I say women because this is not the same experience for men.

Some other comments and cautions:

It would not be valid to consider this category of comments as the polar opposite to my “what I liked” paragraph. Rather, these are caveats for those who might be taken aback by some parts of the book. First, there is the issue of some graphic language and mildly descriptive sex scenes. If you subscribe to the Flannery O’Connor school of literary license in this regard, then you will not be disturbed. Myself, I have upset some commentors on this blog for deleting their comments that followed this line of thinking. I will explain more my thoughts on this in a later post. I do not want these thoughts to take away from my recommendation for this book. However, you should realize that if your temperament and/or personal history are such that these would be temptations against purity, then you ought not read the book.

Juli was/is a peace activist. While, I agree with all of her sentiments with regard to peace and violence, I do not agree with all of her moral analyses. Some, especially those who have served in the military as I have, might find it hard to identify with her do to some of these statements. However, I think that we should listen closely to what she has to say in this regard. As I said, I do not agree with everything but she comes closer to the authentic Christian position on the use of violence than the tendency of some of us who have been bred in the military.

Conversations with a female acquaintance (if she would permit, I would say friend) about the book suggested the concern about Juli’s comments about the “fictionalization” of her journal. Well, the first “fictionalization” is that she uses a pseudonym, Emma. I asked Juli about this and she offered that her plans for anonymity changed as she wrote the book. But more importantly, she employed the Emma pseudonym as a psychological tool to allow her to distance herself enough to make this project an emotional possibility. Another concern was the caveat in the preface that some of the characters were composites, leading to the question: what was real and what wasn’t. Juli told me that this was done primarily to make the book more readable. All of the events and conversations were as they occurred but to avoid having to sort through 50-70 different names, for example, she assigned conversations with 8 different sisters to 3 composite sisters…however, all of the conversations were actual. In the end, I would say that this is not an issue.

If you think you would like to read it, you can get a copy for a very modest sum right here.

What others have said: Amy Welborn, Mark Shea, Maggie Gallagher, and Annie Gottlieb

As a postscript, in the book Juli writes about her parents. Here is a very moving witness she gives to the recent passing of her father.