By Mary Jo
Pat Rice’s fine Tuesday blog about religion in romance inspired a lively discussion of the topic. The consensus seemed to be that most readers didn’t want to see religion forced into a story where it wasn’t needed, but they didn’t object to appropriate religious and spiritual references. As RevMelinda said, “As I think was said on Teresa Medeiros day, romances in general often deal with issues that could be viewed as "spiritual" if not religious—love, death, meaning, trust, betrayal, redemption, self-sacrifice, reconciliation, cruelty, kindness, generosity of spirit—and did I mention LOVE (smile)?”
So there is at least an implicit element of spirituality in most romances. So far, so good. But beyond that, a wise metaphysical teacher once told me that everyone has certain basic dilemmas they must deal with in their lives, including relationships, family, work, etc.
One of these basic life challenges is spiritual: to come to terms with one’s own place in the cosmos. This can be through organized religion, or non-organized spirituality, or a rejection of all forms or religion and spirituality. The dilemma the teacher was referring to isn’t about the final choice, but the process of determining what one does, or does not, believe.
So I was contemplating a blog on spirituality when Pat forwarded this comment to me from Janga: “No one has mentioned Mary Jo's books. One of the things I find most appealing in many MJP stories is encountering characters who are fully dimensional, whose spirituality is as much a part of them as are their bodies, minds, and hearts.”
Thanks, Janga! A book for you! This is exactly what I try to do. My metaphysical teacher’s words made an impression on me, and once I began to write, I automatically included spiritual dilemmas where it seemed appropriate. My Asian setting books move among Muslims, Hindus, Confucians, and more. In my Western books, I’ve touched on a range of Christian churches, as well as Judaism.
I’ve only ever received one reader complaint (I was insufficiently doctrinaire), but over the years, I’ve gotten a number of letter and e-mails that appreciated seeing spirituality addressed in an honest and respectful manner. My personal goal is that no one reading my books will know what my own upbringing is.
So I strive to treat all religions with the respect they deserve. How does this work out in practice?
Well, my book 
is a medieval. I’m not over-fond of the period—too brutal and too much bad plumbing—but setting my subversion-of-the-captivity-fantasy in any more civilized era would have made the hero a psychopath. In the 12th century, he fit in just fine. <g> But I decided that if I was stuck with that time period, I couldn’t really tell the story without dealing with the community of belief that existed in Western Europe in the days before the Black Plague undermined that widespread faith.
When my hero and heroine appear, they are novices in religious orders with plans to take vows. The hero, Adrian, chose the church as way to control his own violent potentials, but he leaves the cloister when the rest of his family is massacred and he must take up the responsibility for his inheritance.
The heroine had become a novice because it seemed like a reasonable choice for a young lady in her circumstances, but on the eve of taking her final vows, Meriel has a panic attack and realizes that the life of a nun is not for her. Throughout the book, there is an awareness of the Church, and in Adrian’s case, a definite struggle with sin. There are no evil priests or prioresses—the ones in the book are admirable members of their communities. And when the protagonists first make love—well, the Song of Solomon is pretty sexy stuff!
Just for contrast and because it was historically accurate, I also included a Jewish 
family, a devoted couple and their beloved only son, who are looking for a safe place to live and work. They are also part of the religious texture of the story.
That was possibly my most religious book, but it’s hardly the only time I’ve 
tackled theses themes. In Thunder and Roses, the first of my Fallen Angels books, the heroine is the daughter of a late and much lamented Methodist minister in the mining country of Regency Wales. In an era when the Church of England was focused more on the middle and upper classes, laborers and workers were often spiritually neglected. Dissenters arose to address this lack, and perhaps the best known of these was John Wesley, an Anglican minister who founded what has become the Methodist Church, with an emphasis on education for all and charitable works.
The Methodists were so effective in Wales that to this day, I understand that many of the Welsh are Methodist (and the Welsh male choirs are famous!) In my book, Clare’s spiritual dilemma is her secret belief that her faith is not what it should be. Her father was a selfless man of the spirit, while Clare feels that she can’t live up to people’s spiritual expectations of her. Her struggle with this becomes part of her journey in the story.
Nor are these my only characters who must make spiritual journeys. Terminally ill, Stephen Kenyon of One Perfect Rose must discover what he believes and values most. In my contemporary The Spiral Path, the hero, Kenzie Scott, survived a childhood of Dickensian horrors by detachment and the fantasy world of acting. While he learned to cope very well, he can’t live and love fully until he makes a spiritual journey—one that is symbolized by the labyrinth that he builds with his own two hands.
Perhaps the most spiritual of my three contemporaries is Twist of Fate, where the lawyer heroine becomes involved in a last ditch effort to save the life of a condemned man, and she must come to terms with her Quaker upbringing. The hero of that book is also looking for an absolution that will come only with a spiritual awakening.
Even in my new Stone Saints series, where magic is a matter of course, there is a religious strand, for the wizards came out of their closets during the disaster of the Black Death—and it turned out that many of them were priests and nuns. Since some Christian traditions refer to psychic abilities as ‘gifts of the spirit,’ this makes perfect sense to me. <g>
Are any of my books about religion? No—they are about people living their lives, and sometimes that means a spiritual journey is intertwined with the emotional one.
I’m certainly not the only writer doing this. What are some other books you’ve enjoyed where the spiritual was a significant element rather than the main story? And would you like to see more such stories? Fewer? Or none at all?
Mary Jo