Blessed Are the Nones - by Stina Kielsmeier-Cook (Paperback)

About the Book

When her husband left Christianity several years into their marriage, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook was left struggling to live the Christian life on her own. In this memoir, she tells the story of her mixed-faith marriage and how she found unexpected community with an order of Catholic nuns, discovering that she was not "spiritually single" after all--and that no one really is.

Book Synopsis

When her husband left Christianity several years into their marriage, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook was left struggling to live the Christian life on her own. In this memoir, she tells the story of her mixed-faith marriage and how she found unexpected community with an order of Catholic nuns, discovering that she was not "spiritually single" after all-and that no one really is.

Review Quotes

"Blessed Are the Nones turns 'unequally yoked' on its head. There is no sense of winners and losers, lost and found, broken and born-again. Rather, Blessed is an invitation: How do we dive deeply when confronted with inevitable changes in relationships and faith? Kielsmeier-Cook is an eager cartographer; she maps the path of two faith-full people facing crises--and how they travel together, not apart. With visceral vulnerability, her powerful narratives stir and inform. She is our steady companion in the uncharted territory of those of us who loved--and lived--the evangelical movement of the late twentieth century. Utilizing nuns and nones, mystics and saints as her fulcrum, Kielsmeier-Cook provides equally eager guides for our own journeys of questions, change, wrestling, and doubt, equipping us with resources for our ultimate calling: love."

--J. Dana Trent, professor of religion and author of Saffron Cross: The Unlikely Story of How a Christian Minister Married a Hindu Monk

"Blessed Are the Nones turns 'unequally yoked' on its head. There is no sense of winners and losers, lost and found, broken and born-again. Rather, Blessed is an invitation: How do we dive deeply when confronted with inevitable changes in relationships and faith? Kielsmeier-Cook is an eager cartographer; she maps the path of two faith-full people facing crises-and how they travel together, not apart. With visceral vulnerability, her powerful narratives stir and inform. She is our steady companion in the uncharted territory of those of us who loved-and lived-the evangelical movement of the late twentieth century. Utilizing nuns and nones, mystics and saints as her fulcrum, Kielsmeier-Cook provides equally eager guides for our own journeys of questions, change, wrestling, and doubt, equipping us with resources for our ultimate calling: love."

"A book about doubt is really a book about faith-faith in a God who is present and watching, who is able to withstand our questions and concerns. In this incredibly important and timely book, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook makes space for those on the journey of loving people who are losing their faith-a blend of bracing honesty about our reality and the gorgeous flashes of hope that true religion sows."

"For the many who find themselves evolving in their spirituality in a different way than those they love, it can be a scary, disorienting, isolating experience. Stina's book is a lyrical, honest, moving portrayal of marriage in the time of divergent deconversion and deconstruction. Hopeful without being simplistic, loving without being sentimental, theologically rich without being an answer book, Blessed Are the Nones will be a gift to those reorienting their lives and marriages."

"For the many who find themselves evolving in their spirituality in a different way than those they love, it can be a scary, disorienting, isolating experience. Stina's book is a lyrical, honest, moving portrayal of marriage in the time of divergent deconversion and deconstruction. Hopeful without being simplistic, loving without being sentimental, theologically rich without being an answer book, Blessed Are the Nones will be a gift to those reorienting their lives and marriages."

--Sarah Bessey, author of Miracles and Other Reasonable Things and Jesus Feminist

"I've been waiting years for this book and will be pressing it into the hands of so many people who are trying to figure out what faithfulness to God and each other looks like as their beliefs and relationships shift. Stina is a wise guide and trustworthy companion in the dark woods of the midfaith crisis, and this book is an absolute gift to the church."

"In a time when the idea of a 'mixed marriage' increasingly means marriage between people of faith and the seekers, doubters, and religious wayfarers they find themselves partnered with, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook cracks open her own marriage in order to show us that these can be spiritual unions of great depth. And she also allows us a glimpse into the new kinds of religious communities that are forming all around us in a time when postinstitutional religion becomes a reality for many. Sensitive, observant, and wise, this is a book that brims over with compassion and care for the spiritually adrift."

"In our world in which change happens at breakneck speeds, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook's memoir, Blessed Are the Nones, tells a timely story of learning to grieve and to make our peace with the people and institutions around us as they inevitably change. Her story reminds us that the blessed community that God is crafting on earth is a diverse one, and she paints for us a compelling picture of belonging to one another without uniformity of thought or belief."

"In our world in which change happens at breakneck speeds, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook's memoir, Blessed Are the Nones, tells a timely story of learning to grieve and to make our peace with the people and institutions around us as they inevitably change. Her story reminds us that the blessed community that God is crafting on earth is a diverse one, and she paints for us a compelling picture of belonging to one another without uniformity of thought or belief."

--C. Christopher Smith, founding editor of The Englewood Review of Books and author of How the Body of Christ Talks

"Some people have the impression that both faith and marriage are supposed to be static and changeless. In reality, marriage is a constant negotiation of what it looks like to be married. And to have faith is to daily waiver between some amount of doubt and some amount of belief and to decide which aspects of your faith you have to let go of and which aspects you need to keep. In Blessed Are the Nones, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook beautifully shares her own experience of negotiation and wavering in the most vulnerable and honest terms."

"Some people have the impression that both faith and marriage are supposed to be static and changeless. In reality, marriage is a constant negotiation of what it looks like to be married. And to have faith is to daily waiver between some amount of doubt and some amount of belief and to decide which aspects of your faith you have to let go of and which aspects you need to keep. In Blessed Are the Nones, Stina Kielsmeier-Cook beautifully shares her own experience of negotiation and wavering in the most vulnerable and honest terms."

--Shane Blackshear, host of Seminary Dropout podcast

"Stina Kielsmeier-Cook's memoir of navigating a newly mixed-faith marriage after her husband's deconversion from Christianity is a story of unexpected hopefulness. Kielsmeier-Cook writes about 'spiritual singleness' with an uncommon generosity of spirit toward everyone involved-her agnostic husband, his worried parents, and herself-as she wrestles with letting go of the image of the tidy Christian family she always expected she would have, and finds peace and wisdom in unexpected new places. This is not just a story of faith lost but of faith expanded and deepened."

"This is a necessary book, poignant and true."

"This memoir you hold in your hand is true, not only because it explores Stina Kielsmeier-Cook's wrestling with her loving husband's deconversion and her own doubts-an important part of her life-but because she doesn't cover up or sugarcoat. That is high praise! With Stina I got to know the nuns, the saints, the nones, and new church communities. She sucked me right in. I felt as if I were standing right beside her in her thoughts, encounters, and jaunts in her neighborhood. That is craft. Among the things I loved most is that she doesn't caricature people. Her story reminds me that people are not one-dimensional. I also love how she models being with God and others in the reality of our lives, especially when the reality of things is most definitely not what we wanted or expected. But it is in reality, in the present, where we meet God and find community. Reality is the only place we can live. This is a book for the now."

About the Author

Stina Kielsmeier-Cook is a writer from Minneapolis. She is managing editor of Bearings Online, a publication of the Collegeville Institute, and her writing has appeared in Image Journal, CT Women, Sojourners, The Other Journal, and The Christian Century.