All God, If God There Be
JULY 18th, 2023
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Linda Carleton likes to think of her memoir All God, If God There Be as what might have resulted had Hildegard of Bingen encountered Me Too. In it, she uses artistic visions to explore her theological questions and facilitate healing from childhood trauma.
Linda grew up in a privileged household where she was groomed to believe her father was a paragon of integrity. It took her fifty years to recognize that the things she believed to be loving attention were, in fact, incestuous abuse. All God, If God There Be presents the dynamics of her childhood, their impact on her development and the importance of finding a spiritual path to her healing.
Since early childhood, Linda has had a spiritual bent. Her memoir focuses on how both her family's insistent atheism and her father's abuse made it difficult to find an outlet for her spiritual longings. Written with sensitivity and grace, All God, If God There Be delves into her early mystical experiences, her resistance to orthodox Christian doctrine, her love of teaching comparative religions, her entry into the United Church of Christ, her decision to become ordained in the UCC, the gratification of a ministry in refugee resettlement, the insights gleaned through mandala journaling, the discovery of New Age spirituality and the surprising integration of all these paths into a life embraced by incarnate light.
“Linda Carleton’s spiritual memoir, All God, If God There Be, is an astonishing opening. . . . Tender, intelligent without being intellectual, sensitive but not maudlin, Linda’s story will be a gift to anyone who reads it looking for answers to the questions of what makes our injured lives livable.”
— Dulcie Witman, LADC, MFA, Wide Open Writing