A small irony: I remember being twenty-something and judging older women for becoming loosey-goosey with their spirituality. It drove me wild, wild, when they referred to God—don’t even get me started on the Divine—as Spirit instead of the Spirit, even as I was already conceding that Jesus may not be the Way but a way to tap into truth. The irony, of course, is at age forty I’m well on my way to becoming one of those women. Loose in limbs and church attendance though still committed, irrationally so, to the definitive article for an indefinite presence. Some stability of muscle is still needed, or so my physical therapist tells me.

Which is why Liz Charlotte Grant has my attention. Her new book, Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible, came out this month and, if it’s anything like her, is going to be a rather holy mix of flexibility and fortitude. We met at another one of those dreamy writers’ retreats and spent many a night leaning back in the reclining chairs of our cabin as friendship dawned and the sun set. Given her evangelical roots, I wondered if I might ever lean too far for her taste. And yet I don’t recall her ever flinching. She’s the kind of person, the kind of writer, who you can trust to never calcify your curiosity. She’s wise beyond her years like that.

Looking back now, I wonder if I wasn’t so much judging the older women in my life as envying their field of play. I worried that without the apologetic of their attendance, of their linguistics, we’d be conceding orthodoxy to the oligarchy. What I didn’t realize is their rest, their surrender—as Liz says, is itself a kind of a resistance. And if there’s one thing I want more than anything these days, it’s a restfully resisting spirituality. May it be so.

Erin Lane: What is your favorite thing about being an adult?

Liz Charlotte Grant: I adore indulging my many weirdsies—as in, those strange habits, hobbies, or fixations that happen to capture my attention. As a kid, my time was strictly allocated to important things I had to learn and do. That's still true as an adult. But I enjoy taking alternative paths to reach the same goal. So, sure, I have to make dinner...but can I make a new dish? I have to do laundry, but now I can listen to weird theology or science podcasts as I do it. And I have taken up so many hobbies in the past few years—every summer, I grow gallons of tomatoes in my yard and can them so that we can have sumptuous tomato soup all winter long. I have made my own candles. I own chickens. I knit and puzzle. I guess what I'm saying is, I adore being able to adopt grandma hobbies while living in a thirty-something body.

Erin: You wrote a book, Knock at the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible. Tell us! What shitty script were you trying to tear up?

Liz: I could no longer abide the way that evangelicals—the tribe I grew up within—used [the biblical book of] Genesis as a weapon of the culture wars. Evangelicals read the Bible with no imagination. Then again, mainline Protestants can do that, too! The Bible becomes a tool with which we can bludgeon our enemies. I just did not want to play faith that way anymore.

The other thing I rejected in this writing was the idea of a single narrative existing within the Bible. So often the meaning of the Bible has been determined by a handful of dead white guys. I sought a different lens. I wanted to invite more voices to the table, to learn from those unlike me and to be shaped by their differences.

Erin: Okay. Now flip it. What truer, weirder story did you set out to write instead?

Liz: I wanted to read the Bible as a work of ancient literature, like I learned to read The Odyssey in literature class. I'm not a theologian or seminarian; I'm a creative writer. So I set out to approach the book of Genesis—from the creation of the cosmos to Jacob rolling in the dust with the angel/God/whoever—like the work of art that it is. A masterwork of literature deserves careful attention but does not need to be set onto a surgical table to be dissected. I refused to address the question of historicity, because I wanted to read the book on its own terms, to be swept along in the river of narrative. Reading literature requires a sort of surrender, so I surrendered to the story, the characters, the themes.

I also gave up the idea of being God's apologist. I'm not an evangelist, and I cannot begin to explain why God acts the way God does in the book of Genesis. I have ideas, and those ideas keep me swimming in the stream of belief, but the fact is, no one knows for sure. God is more than God's book, and God is certainly beyond me. So I set out to write an account of wrestling with Genesis that allows for "I don't know" to be a full sentence.

Erin: Writing—and, well, life in general—is about the threat of resurrection. What was the scariest thing about bringing this book to life?

Liz: I had a moment of terror when I heard that Marilynne Robinson had written a book like mine that was releasing six months before; it's called Reading Genesis and she's a Pulitzer Prize Winning author. (I'd already finished mine when hers released!) Meanwhile, I was publishing a humble book on the same topic over here at an indie press, and I wondered, who the hell would buy my version when they could have hers? That gave me heart palpitations, for sure. My agent and editor just told me, Look, you're doing something different. You get to make this work of art. Just keep doing your own thing; that's good enough. Ultimately, my self-doubt was cured by simply doing what needed to be done to bring the book into the world.

Erin: Publishing a book is a shiny milestone! What is something less shiny about a life well-lived you’re celebrating this week?

Liz: Before my book release, I did not have energy for cooking my family dinner, which is my usual daily task. (My husband handles breakfast and cleaning every single dish, Hallelujah.) And I certainly did not have the opportunity to play in the kitchen, as I like to do. But now, I've gotten back to my experimentation. Yesterday I made a Korean Bulgogi rice dish, and I felt that I'd returned to myself.

I'm also a fanatical Denver Nuggets fan, and this year for Christmas, I surprised my kids with tickets to a recent basketball home game. So, a couple of Fridays ago, you could have seen us in the upper corner of your screen, assuming the camera swung up that far. We had an absolute blast.

P.S. Want to celebrate Liz for doing her work and sharing her story? If so, consider joining me (and her) in donating to the American Civil Liberties Union or ACLU, a group of lawyers, advocates, and organizers who are challenging the growing wave of attacks on people’s rights and freedoms.

P.P.S. Curious about other books that invite you to surrender to the story—or your story? I’m working through poet Maggie Smith’s Keep Moving and poet Ross Gay’s The Book of More Delights as my January devotionals. Both are quite lovely for meditative musings. Need more surrendering practices? The Calm app is also companioning me.

P.P.P.S. What story are you surrendering to? Tell me your tiny kazoos (a.k.a. tiny victories) in the comments.