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The Passion of Reverend Nash
by Rachel Basch
W. W. Norton, 2003, 330 pages
The term passion in the title of Rachel Basch’s second novel can be seen to have at least two meanings. It is on the one hand a potentially redemptive term, as the novel follows Congregational minister Jordanna Nash through experiences of individual and communal suffering. It also indicates one of the defining characteristics this deeply flawed and wounded woman: her abiding enthusiasm for the Gospel and for giving care to her congregation. The combination of these passions adds up to a story line that might very well influence one’s conceptions -- for better or for worse -- of clergy and the institutions in which the Gospel is proclaimed.
Serving a Connecticut congregation, Jordanna Nash is no simple country parson. Her presence itself is imposing: “She was big, tall and thick, not fleshy, but solid, everywhere. Even her face was big. He blue eyes bulged just slightly, and her nose was long and flared a bit at the ends. Her brow was prominent, and her lips were large and naturally red as if she were always sucking on cherry candy. When she spoke, her teeth showed themselves to be as big and tall, as striking, as the rest of her.” Further, she carries with her the severe baggage of two stillbirths, the second of which left her infertile. She is a childless mother in a long-distance and deteriorating marriage attempting to minister to a congregation with members who know little of Jordanna’s past and therefore have no idea as to how it might minister to the minister.
The pastoral challenges facing Jordanna involve women who have what Jordanna lacks -- children, fertility -- but who, for valid reasons, are not coping well with their circumstances. June Nearing is a mother of young children who has been seeing Jordanna for counseling in the wake of the cancer death of her sister; when June goes missing and is assumed to have committed suicide, the snowball that is Jordanna’s life and ministry begins to roll downhill and gather speed as the Nearing family debates whether to file formal charges against Jordanna over her failure to aggressively refer June to professional psychiatric care. Tara Sears, teenaged and pregnant and apparently wanting an abortion, comes to Jordanna for counseling. The contrasting realities of these two women make for a difficult therapeutic relationship. The situations of June and Tara have far different outcomes on the continuum of loss and healing, and the interrogatory lamp that is focused on the role of faith in dealing with life issues such as these is both painful and illuminating.
“We move through our lives [Jordanna preached,] as if assigned a ladder on the day of our birth. We consider life an ascent, always climbing, moving from ignorance to wisdom, from earth, closer to God. And so here we are, each one of us up on our individual ladders, a planet pocked with tilting fools . . . . But what if God predicates our personal salvation on the salvation of the group? What if personal salvation does not mean individual salvation? In Christ, we are all loved, together, at once. . . . And if we are to love one another as Jesus loves us, then we are to do so without comparison, without analogy, without the filter of self . . . Your joy must be my joy, too. . . . Could it be that we are, finally, so inextricably tied to one another, that all must be raised up before anyone can rise?”
Jordanna is a complex and sometimes baffling character with whom it is often difficult to sympathize. She is a wounded healer who has neglected, or, at least, failed to sufficiently address, her own wounds. From the readers’ perspective, she is a series of accidents waiting to happen, and happen they do. Reading this novel I found myself often urging Jordanna to take herself out of the game, to stand apart and regroup. The trajectory of her ministry was plainly spiraling downward and her words and acts of faith not enough to prevent the potential for doing serious harm. She soldiers on, however, isolated in her own pain because she has made of herself an ordained island, unable to offer real compassion because she is not in a position to receive it.
The Passion of Reverend Nash is a rich and challenging read. Rachel Basch fearlessly depicts the contrasts between darkness and light, faith and “un-faith,” loss and redemption, and leaves the reader with no easy answers to universal questions.
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