Bare Your Soul ed. by Angela Watrous

This “Thinking Girl’s Guide to Enlightenment,” is an exposé of women’s spirituality, offering 25 essayed snapshots from women of all backgrounds and traditions. The pieces highlight the full gamut of beliefs—from recovering Catholics to a post 9/11 switch to Islam to butch agnostics—celebrating women’s spiritual journeys.

Angela Watrous used an even hand when she chose the essays, and most of the writing is smooth, accessible and unpretentious. In “Coming Clean,” by the editor herself, she says she felt like her spirituality had surfaced like her sexuality. “It felt like there’d never been any decision to make in the first place…the first time I realized I was a lesbian, it happened the same way: an immersion in community, a sudden awareness and, finally, an undeniable pull to make a choice that had already been long decided somewhere deep inside of me.”

Bare Your Soul is a balanced, measured and enlightening picture of spirituality amid this third-wave of feminism, although, like other anthologies, individual pieces are hit and miss. Yet, I enjoyed the hits and pocketed jewels of enlightenment—a shared view expressed in a compelling way; an experience that, although unlike my own, opened a door for me; writing and beliefs that were particularly smart.

Specifically, Maliha Masood’s “The Practice of Faith” is a standout discussion of conflict between her rigid Islam heritage and her “rugged individualism” surrounding her in United States. Stephanie Groll also hits home as she explains in “Million Step Program” how, because she had no spiritual foundation, she worked hard to shrink her body from the view of the world. Groll explained how she did it: “Not by starving myself, but by shutting my mouth.

Tanessa Dillard also make an interesting observation in “Church of Godly Men” about increase of not only the frequency but also the strength of her church’s overtly prejudiced comments. She said her head felt heavy and twisted as she listened to the sermons, baffled that they blasted gays as vehement sinners, but turned a cheek to the child molesters and scandalous adulterers sitting in the same pews. Equally, she found it alarming that the church supported the patriarchal attitude that women should serve and not speak. She points to these veins within the Christian church as the reason some of the most outspoken critics of organized religion are ex-members.