I have read some stuff by Lauren Winner, magazine articles, essays, and such, and I thought I might enjoy her spiritual memoir, Girl Meets God. Then, I thought I might not.

First of all, does a 20-something girl have enough life experience to write a book? And I gathered from something else I read that she was from the East and was Episcopalian. (Actually, she’s a Southerner, but I didn’t know that.) Would she be disdainful and snobby about American evangelicalism, which happens to be my native soil, warts and all? I knew Ms. Winner claimed to have met God, or something, but did she really become a Christian or did she just experience a conversion from secularism to some kind of vague spirituality, the kind that is in vogue nowadays—as long as it doesn’t get too specifically Christ-centered? Finally, could the girl write? Conversion testimonies are a staple of evangelical life, but if I’m going to read a book about someone’s experience of meeting God, I require that I either know the person personally or that the author be able to write a decent paragraph.

So I wasn’t sure. Lauren Winner put all my fears to rest. She can certainly write. She has a story to tell, the story of a Jewish girl who converts to strict Orthodox Judaism who then somehow becomes a Jesus-follower. She doesn’t try to explain everything that has happened to her because much of her spiritual experience is a mystery, but she does give a measured and coherent explanation for the “the hope that is within her.” She touches on her discomfort with Messianic Judaism, her affinity for ritual and the Anglican church year, her struggles with faithfulness and sexual purity, her lifelong love affair with books and all things book-ish. She is open and unrelentingly honest about her own mistakes, sins, and areas of confusion, and she adheres to an orthodox Christian faith while admitting freely that she doesn’t have it all figured out and boxed up neatly.

The book is structured by the holy days of the Jewish calendar and those of the Christian year as they intertwine and make up the present matter and the memories of Lauren’s spiritual pilgrimage. It’s a good organizational tool, allowing for lots of exploration of the differences and similarities between Judaism and Christianity and also Lauren Winner’s life before and after her conversion. Some of the topics in the book that I found the most interesting were:

* The requirements for a strict adherence to Orthodox Judaism. Ms. Winner had to formally convert to Judaism because, although her father was Jewish, her mother was not. And Jewish-ness is passed down through the female line. So, in college, although she had grown up as a member of a Reform Jewish congregation, Ms. Winner studied Judaism and Judaic law and then underwent a formal conversion ceremony, called a mikvah.

* The reading fast. For Lent, Ms. Winner’s spiritual advisor asks her to give up the thing that is most dear to her, the thing which centers her life even more than religion. He advises her to give up reading for the duration of Lent.

“‘I’d like you to give up reading for Lent.’‘Okay!’ I say recklessly.’Philippians 4:13!’ It is that verse from the Mitford books. In Mitford, Espiscopalians are always running around doing impossible things and chirping ‘Philippians 4:13.’

I found it fascinating to read about someone who actually gave up reading for a spiritual reason, fascinating and a little bit scary.

*The variations on a theme of conversion. Lauren converts to Orthodox Judaism. She later “divorces” herself from Judaism and embraces Christianity and is baptized. She tells her story in several different ways, from different perspectives. She realizes that the story is not over although she seems to be settled, even entrenched, into Anglican Christianity.

* Prayer. “I have a hard time praying. It feels, usually, like a waste of time. It feels unproductive; my time would be better spent writing a paragraph or reading a book or practicing a conjugation or baking a pie. . . Still, there are the weeks when I do pray,the weeks when I trust —or, at least, manage to act like I trust —that prayer does something, even if it is something I cannot see.”

Lauren Winner has written two other books, both of which I plan to read: Mudhouse Sabbath and most recently, Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity. If you’re interested in a young, post-modern perspective on orthodox Christianity, I would highly recommend Lauren Winner’s writing. She has a blog, but it’s not been updated since February.