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| The Scent of God: A Memoir | 
 enlarge | Author: Beryl Singleton Bissell
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (29 reviews)
Sales Rank: 523435
Format: Bargain Price
Language: English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 294
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 200
ASIN: B000PSISV0
Publication Date: March 22, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Book Description
When Beryl Bissell entered a cloistered convent in New Jersey, she believed that God had called her to this way of life. At first blissfully happy, within a year she became prey to obsessive compulsions. Her vocation at risk, she overcame these disorders, and persevered for another ten years until returning home to Puerto Rico to care for her ailing father. Thrust into this sensual environment, she was drawn to Padre Vittorio, a handsome Italian priest, and underwent a belated coming of age. For the next three years, she struggled to reconcile human desire with spiritual longing. In spare but lyric language, Bissell weaves a powerful story of love, death, guilt, and redemption--a pilgrimage that reaches beyond dogma to personal truth and evokes a transformation that changes not only Beryl but the lives of those whom she most loves.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 24 more reviews...
 Tragic, moving, and thought provoking August 12, 2008
Somehow, when I read this memoir of a former Poor Clare, it stimulated a long past memory of when a Franciscan friar told me of a favourite, private prayer of Francis of Assisi: "Lord, who are you? Lord, who am I?" One wishes that Beryl and Vittorio had ever been taught to approach both those questions in a solid fashion, or to develop the maturity to truly formulate an answer. The picture which emerges is of sincere, dedicated people who were truly seeking God, but who, perhaps because of the lack of any genuine spiritual direction coupled with an excessive stress on obedience, never developed a true clarity of vision. They seem to be a spiritual mess - not wicked or crazy at all, but so devoid of a sense of personal identity and integration of their values into their lives that one wonders if they had any clear picture of vocation, or even of what love for one another entailed.
To the author's credit, she does not turn her reflections on her life into a 'novel form.' The text raises many questions and provides few answers. There is no element of "we were in the wrong places - we found each other - love conquers all" - and, since things are seldom clear-cut or resolved in this life, it is an honest image. The Scent of God is more a reflection than a standard biography. Many books by former religious mock the life in the convent, or show that the candidate was totally unsuitable, or provide an image of monastic life as either gruesome, romantic, or laughable, and there is none of this here. The paradox is that Beryl seems well suited to the life in the cloister overall, and details which may raise the reader's eyebrows (a mattress stuffed with husks for maximum discomfort; an anorexic being cruelly reproached as if her symptoms were wilful 'bad example') do not detract from a generally positive sense of Beryl's being a good candidate.
Much goes unexplained - and there were areas where a more detailed treatment was neglected when it could have been enlightening. The obsession with the novice mistress is all too common when one is in a situation where pleasing her is seen as the sign of a call to obedience, and when every moment of one's life is under her controlling eye. Yet, just using this as one example, Beryl does not explore the situation with mature hindsight.
Neither Beryl nor Vittorio, at age 30 and 57, seem to have either spiritual or emotional maturity. Vacillating and overly magical in approach (there are multiple instances when Beryl sees dreams or portents as divine signs - winning a book confirmed she was to be a Poor Clare), one wonders if they even understood what true love and commitment is at that point. Beryl's character is highly irritating at that point - narcissistic, totally blind to others' situations and given to childish self-centredness and a sense of 'look at all I gave up,' a supposedly mature celibate who was caught up and flattered with her attractiveness. In one scene, where Beryl is treated for a skin problem and the doctor places her hand on his penis, it is astonishing that a grown woman would see this as flattering, enjoying having aroused him, while being blind to the degradation and abuse.
As Beryl mentions at times, things could have gone differently had she had counsel available. The bishop from whom she putatively seeks advice, then tries to impress, apparently neither sees this nor points it out, which shows he had no abilities in direction or discernment. The tragedy seems far beyond a lost vocation. One wonders if either members of the couple had enough sense of vocation or self to make a choice.
Many elements, again unexplained, are highly puzzling. For a priest to wish to be laicised and marry, yet want to confine intercourse to marriage, is understandable. For him to take his prospective bride into the bed with him is bizarre. One wonders why - a test of control of himself? How did he not become physically aroused - was this a by product of the cancer? Why would a couple who wish to observe the virtue of chastity take such chances?
The memoir is not the weary "I only became a nun because the Church thought only religious were holy - I left with the new theology of marriage" balderdash. My sense was of recording of memories, many which the author herself may not fully understand, which showed a sad lack of the "Lord, who am I?"
 Walk in Her Shoes May 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I don't normally read memoirs but I was intrigued by "The Scent of God". From the very beginning, Beryl Singleton Bissell's prose drew me in as if I walked into her life and shared her childhood, adolescence, and later her tumultous life after leaving the convent. Her story is so honest and raw and I admire her candidness in revealing a love that no Catholic girl/woman would openly confess. Walk with her as she grew up with an alcoholic father and a manic mother. See what it's like to struggle between the secular and spiritual world. Find out how life's twists and turns mold naivety to resilience and survival. Grieve with her as she says good-bye to a love that she fought heaven and hell for. You won't be disappointed.
All That Before Forty August 28, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My life as a man could hardly have been more removed from the one lived by Beryl Singleton Bissell, so I was unlikely to be interested in a book about someone who become a nun at an early age. Yet I found myself riveted by this story which moves in and out of Puerto Rico, New York and Italy, through a long search to define the meaning of faith and to work past the many obstacles encountered along the way. This remarkably fast-paced book, for all its emphasis on a contemplative life, is jammed with intense experiences all lived before the age of forty, and it is so well-written that it immediately establishes common ground with any reader. I give it my highest recommendation.
A Must Have for every Library August 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I just finished this book very early this morning and have been haunted by it all day. Never has a story been so moving for me. Beryl's will and pure sense of the self is astounding and through all of her life challenges, particularly those revealed at the end I believe she still manages to stand tall and find comfort in her journey. There are no mistakes in this life and this story was a gift to me as it actually has strengthened my faith in God. Don't miss this read -- it's a must have for every library.
The Scent of God: A Memoir of Spirituality & Love August 7, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
When I was an adolescent growing up in a small Kansas town, I sometimes dreamt of becoming a nun--even though I was not Catholic. My cousin, Virginia, had given her life to God and went off to a convent. It all seemed so dramatic and selfless, and I admired her courage and commitment to a life of prayer and spiritual discipline.
I have always been intrigued with the women who left their homes, families, friends and all their personal belongings and took vows of poverty and chastity. And I've also been curious about what life is like behind those sacred walls.
When I discovered Beryl Singleton Bissell's memoir, The Scent of God, I devoured it, savored it, dog-eared the pages and filled it with yellow highlighting. I only do that with books that speak to my heart and soul; I know that I will return to those pages again and again.
The Scent of God takes the reader behind the walls of a convent and into the heart and mind of a young woman who wanted more than anything to be "good", to please God and to be loved. While perfectionism and a compulsive need to be in control of her mind and body led to anorexia, controlling her heart would prove to be more difficult.
This is a story about choices, commitments, faith and love. It is about the choice that Beryl had to make between her calling and an Italian priest who won her heart.
Beryl's memoir is beautifully written, weaving in the rituals of everyday life in the convent with the emotional and spiritual evolution of a young woman who comes to trust herself as well as God.
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