It is no easy feat to write about someone else’s spiritual life while maintaining objectivity, but Kelsey Osgood has managed just that in Godstruck: Seven Women’s Unexpected Journeys to Religious Conversion. In addition to narrating her own conversion to Judaism, Osgood introduces the reader to six other women who convert to a new faith: Quakerism, Evangelicalism, Mormonism, Islam, the Amish church, and Catholicism. They arrive at their decisions in ways as unique as they themselves are, but if there is one thing they might have in common, it is that they were not necessarily in search of the Divine.
Osgood uses the converts’ stories as a springboard to provide an overview of each faith, as well as to offer her own cogent and thoughtful analysis and commentary on organized religion, both historically and modern-day. As such, the reader is afforded a bird’s eye view of religion as well as an up-close-and-personal experience of it through the lens of its adherents.
In a voice that is conversational but deeply informed, the reader is introduced to Angela, a data-driven, Asian American who did not grow up with religion. When she discovered Quakerism, she found not only her own self-worth, but also the value of others. Then there’s Sara, who, as a college junior, witnessed the Boston Marathon bombing. Suffering from PTSD for a long while after, she binge-drank and binge-ate. She began to attend services at a non-denominational Christian church, and one Sunday, “she saw the chains being cut off, her limbs freed … She was sobbing hysterically.” And, as she puts it, “It was on-the-spot miraculous healing and conversion, and I knew everything had changed.”
Kate grew up in an affluent, irreligious “impersonal” family. She came to learn about the Church of Latter Day Saints through a boyfriend and friends and casually began reading their texts. She was drawn not only to the texts themselves, but also to the closeness of the lifestyle she witnessed. She prayed, without expectation, until the night when she felt “a light in my heart, a bloom of happiness, like the most vibrant sunrise you’ve ever seen, so bright you can’t look directly at it.”
For Hana, it was a random email from a roommate that introduced her to the Quran. Her mother died when she was thirteen, and her father was erratic. The verse, “Did He not find thee an orphan and give thee shelter (and care)”? deeply touched her, and led her on a path that brought her to live in Saudi Arabia as a practicing Muslim.
Christina grew up Catholic but became curious about the Amish she saw in her Maryland hometown. In high school, she became obsessed with them and their lifestyle, and instead of attending college, she moved in with an Amish family and ultimately converted.
Orianne grew up “spiritually precocious”; from a very early age, she would look up at the sky, confident God was up there. Her father’s family was Protestant, her mother’s was Lebanese Druze. Although she attended a Catholic school, it was a giant leap to choose to become Sister Orianne of the Daughters of St. Paul.
Each of the women’s stories, while wildly different, share a basic quest for meaning and for the Divine. Osgood extrapolates on each of them to share her own conversion to Orthodox Judaism. As a result, the stories are braided like a challah, each individual strand wrapped up with and connected to the others.
“Nihilism is always crouching at our doors, scratching, asking to be let in.,” Osgood writes. It is a powerful reminder of free will, the ability to choose what to let into one’s life, and what to leave outside on the doorsill, that penumbral place in between worlds. This is not a book about right and wrong or about questions and answers. Rather, it is simply a book about questions. In that sense, it is a very Jewish book, indeed.
Angela Himsel’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Jewish Week, the Forward and elsewhere. Her memoir is listed in the 23 Best New Memoirs at bookauthority.org. She is passionate about her children, Israel, the Canaanites and chocolate.
