I Want To Be Left Behind: Finding Rapture here on Earth, A Memoir
by Brenda Peterson
2010

This is an excellent book and I found it quite difficult to read. I read it one chapter at a time with breaks in between and had to renew my library check-out. It’s 275 pages across twelve chapters plus a prologue and an epilogue. It’s a memoir about growing up in an extremely devout Southern Baptist family during a time of great social change where her values and the values of her family are increasingly diverging.

Her whole extended family are devout Southern Baptists who talk excitedly about looking forward to the Rapture, are stalwart Republicans who supported the Vietnam War, don’t believe in global warming, and don’t approve of those hippies. They are also loving people who care for her and for each other, live closely with nature, hold holiday feasts like no one else, and support their friends and neighbors. Peterson realized relatively early that she didn’t have the same faith or beliefs as her family, and thus struggled with how to be true to herself and her beliefs without hurting her loved ones. In a warm and welcoming social group that is all looking forward to the end of the world when they’ll be taken directly to heaven, how can she say that she actually wants to stay behind and protect the world instead?

The twelve chapters of the book progress through time from Peterson’s young childhood, through her education and exploration of other faiths, her young adulthood of trying to find a career path, to being the established nature writer that she grew into. Every chapter is a story about the stretch, pull and tug of growing into someone that doesn’t fit with her family but is also forever a part of that family: how the love and discomfort go side by side, for both her and her family members.

It is very timely as US politics become ever more polarized. I highly recommend it.