Quote
“In the commotion, God still speaks to me, which is all I want in the first place. To hear and be near Him…it is in the mess that He whispers loudest…. (page 104).

The Good
The book was simply written and (mostly) free of pretense. As the title implies, Krista looks for and finds grace in the messiness of life. It would make a nice graduation gift to a college student.

The Bad
The author works a little too hard to achieve authenticity. She uses the word “shitty” on page 1 just so we can see how real she is (remember John Kerry’s use of the F-Bomb in a certain Rolling Stone interview?) This struck me about like the acid washed jeans fad from the late 1980s. It’s calculated shabbiness.

I also did not find in the book a cogent theology of grace. Part of the problem is that the chapters are too short to fully develop the subject matter. Almost all of them start by introducing a mini-crisis (can’t find a used copy of a Madeleine L’Engle book) and end with a too-neat solution (oh good, I found one – what a life changing experience – I think I’ll have a good cry). Genuine insights do come through in some places, but the abrupt, often saccharine pieces are more suitable for the local newspaper’s “Reflections” column than for a book length project.

Finch is also too far removed from her subject matter to offer us compelling meditations. In one chapter she drives by a woman pushing her retarded adult son in a wheelchair. I did not have a particular problem with the insight she offers, but it comes off a little too safe. The person who should have written that chapter is the woman pushing the wheelchair. She does not have the luxury of driving away from the life that Finch views from the safety of her car. I suspect that Wheelchair Woman has earned the right to use words like “shitty”.

The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that the book is quick and enjoyable (like an inspirational “Reflections” column), but a little too cute. I think there’s a writer in there somewhere, and she will likely improve with time, but books on messy grace have been done before and done better by others. Ultimately, Finch’s inexperience is the book’s greatest weakness. She has not raised kids, endured severe financial hardship or cared for a dying loved one – in short, she has not lived enough of life to offer us real grace.

Life is noisy, dirty, dangerous–and that is with its best foot forward. But there is more than only chaos, commotion, and calamity. We catch glimpses of the glory when we look in the impossible and preposterous places.

I really wanted to like this book, but the alliteration and lists that have a nice lilt to them in the beginning get old quick. There are several chapters, or sketches (the Table of Contents is called Sketches in this book), that get overwhelmed with her lists. It’s almost like Finch wants to write poetry throughout the book, but then changes to prose. Each section of the book begins with a poem then is followed by short vignettes on different topics. Most of the sketches are just over a page long and skim the surface of the topic she’s talking about. The book is loosely structured, which makes it hard to follow as it’s not in chronologically order and doesn’t have a strong narrative structure. Finch jumps around her life without giving a lot of surrounding detail or connecting narrative to help us transition from one sketch to the other. Although we see glimpses into Finch’s life, the reader doesn’t feel like you get to know her. For example in “This Lounge Chair Thing” she mentions three miscarriages and a cancer scare in another long list, and that’s it. She never elaborates on either the rest of the book. We don’t know what happened. It’s mentioned and then she goes on.

There are nice sections in the book where Finch gets away from lists and adjectives and gives a little more narrative and detail that make that story shine like this paragraph where she describes why we are “hesitant hopers”:

Because hope is an odd cat. That’s probably why we don’t entertain her very often. Everything around us tells us not to invite her in. Hospitals can’t heal, wars don’t end, bonds won’t mend. We’ve asked hope to come, and she has left us high and dry. Why would we summon that kind of company…? …Hope just doesn’t look like we think she will look. She changes her hair color and gets a new wardrobe just when we start to recognize her (p. 116).

I look forward to seeing how her writing develops, but I wouldn’t recommend this book. It would probably be best for those who like to read in short spells. It might be an easier book to read slowly, taking your time. It’s not a good book to read straight through. If you’re interested in short blog-style chapters that are easy to read in five minutes here and there, you might enjoy this book. If you expect a memoir to have more narrative where you feel like you get to know the author, then this book isn’t for you.

I received a copy of this book from The Viral Ooze Bloggers agreeing to post a copy of the review on my website.

I was wrong.

This book is beautiful. It is sublime. Finch (why do I want to refer to her as Krista instead?) has given us a midrash on life by diving us deep into the cracks and dust and up into the mountains of a life lived observing. No, make that a *faithful* life lived observing. No, make that a *normal*, *faithful* life live observing God in the big and the small and in a way that resonates with how I think most people of faith truly are. Not quite perfect, not quite imperfect, striving to figure out what life is all about, and unsatisfied with what our consumer culture is feeding us both physically and spiritually.

Finch is not just a softy either. Her edges stand out in authentic ways from how she reacts to being cut off in traffic to her journey through the land of forgiveness.

By the end of this book I came to be thankful that I had come to know Krista Finch in this way. And that she misses her Grandpa Arlie, loves _To Kill a Mockingbird_, strives to be a good wife and friend, and has some deep thoughts about faith and life give us the glimpses of heaven that God brings to us in the voice of our neighbor.

“Life is a broken jumble of failure, defeat, and unsettled-ness” (p. 35)

And yet…

Finch has uncovered awareness of life as it is–something of which many of us are unaware. We aren’t in touch with nor do we think about the best parts of life. Caught up in the daily grind of work, family, bills, dishes, laundry, what have you, we often neglect our inner selves. We lose our muchness and forget who we really are in the midst of all the noise. Drowning out the noise, however, is a nearly impossible task. Finch reminds us that despite our best efforts, we may only be able to take in a few brief moments. But even in those moments, we can be fully alive.

This book doesn’t exactly beg to be a treat on which you nibble day by day, though it should be read that way. As Is would make a great source for daily reading, devotion or musing and may spark in the reader something new to consider. Finch’s writing is low on the God factor (making her appealing to readers such as myself) but remains holy in its depth of awareness and understanding. Although I blew through this book to make some deadlines and move on to other books I need to read, I highly recommend savoring As Is over the course of time. And then putting it on your shelf to come back to later.

“And this is life…life unfinished, noisy, as is. The very best we can hope for here and now” (p. 32-33)