Great Reads: Surprised by Oxford, A Memoir

Surprised by Oxford, A Memoir

Surprised by Oxford is the engaging account of Carolyn Weber’s unlikely conversion to Christianity while studying for her masters of philosophy in literature at the University of Oxford.    Carolyn’s love for literature is infectious.  Her generous use of quotes from the romantic writers amplify her story and provide context for her thinking.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book which opens with Carolyn’s arrival at Oxford with “plenty of baggage.”   Carolyn describes both the Oxford campus and her eclectic friends with lyrical language and beautiful prose.   Conversations with students, faculty, and visiting speakers are intellectually engaging and spiritually rich.  She highlights discussions about the Christian faith in vivid detail, raising her objections and the responses that caused her to think differently.

Her spiritual journey is deeply intellectual, filled with thoughtful arguments, methodical reasoning, and reflective consideration.   I’v included several of my favorite excerpts below:

intelligence was, as a friend put it, a “woman’s best cosmetic.”

That is the bizarre thing about the good news: who knows how you will really hear it one day, but once you have heard it, I mean really heard it, you can never unhear it. Once you have read it, or spoken it, or thought it, even if it irritates you, even if you hate hearing it or cannot find it feasible, or try to dismiss it, you cannot unread it, or unspeak it, or unthink it.

“Cynicism is the last refuge of petty minds,” Linnea said with her usual flair.

About the Bible:
I have to say I found it the most compelling piece of creative nonfiction I had ever read. If I sat around for thousands of years, I could never come up with what it proposes, let alone with how intricately Genesis unfolds toward Revelation. That the supposed Creator of the entire universe became a vulnerable baby, born in straw, to a poor girl who claimed to be a virgin and who was betrothed to a guy probably scared out of his wits, but who stood by her anyway. It unwinds and recasts the world and our perception of it: that the Holy Grail is more likely to be the wooden cup of a carpenter than the golden chalice of kings. No wonder this stuff causes war, I thought as I read, between nations and within each of us.

“No wonder Eve’s temptation was intellectual—not sexual, or sensual, or physical, or even, ironically, spiritual, but highly intelligent—a rationalization of her desire, her hubris. Our heads can deceive us just as much as our hearts, if not more so. But then Satan brought Eve and Adam both down because of their intimate relationship. Anything of real value lies in relationship, and yet relationships are where we find ourselves the most vulnerable.”

“Life without faith is death. For life, as it was intended to be, is love. Start loving and you’ll really start living. There is no other force in the universe comparable to that.”

Carolyn’s story is a heartening tale of a God who sought her and found her in the most unlikely place.  It’s a story short on mysticism and long on introspection.    I highly recommend it.

What have you read lately that you would recommend?