Clay Hale
“TODAY” show anchor Savannah Guthrie released her new faith-oriented book, “Mostly What God Does,” on Tuesday, Feb. 20. To promote the book, Guthrie appeared at Off-Square Books on Friday, Feb. 16, and I just happened to be among the 100-plus attendees.
The subtitle “Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere” rings true, as Guthrie offers life experiences and how those moments were inherently spiritual and full of God’s love.
The lead argument and title of Guthrie’s new read stems from a passage in the Bible verse Ephesians 5:1-2, particularly from a translation known as “The Message.”
“Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you…”
Guthrie uses this message as the theme of her book, which is split into six sections: love, presence, praise, grace, hope and purpose. She offers a foreword as well, but in a lot of ways, the entire first section of love feels like a prologue for the rest of the book.
The love section offers disclaimers and sets up the rest of the book, and it really hones in on the humor. It feels like the beginning of an interview: The reader is the interviewer, probing Guthrie as she offers up her spiritual experiences. She breaks the ice in section one.
The humor throughout the first section and other early sections is also found within the formatting. Guthrie will frequently break the fourth wall from her recollected stories and pull a sidebar (in the form of parentheses, like this). It feels personal and works well for a while, but she stops doing it as consistently in the last four sections — just at the perfect time, before it becomes too annoying for the reader.
Even so, Guthrie maintains a conversational tone throughout the book. She keeps the humor, too, but it happens less often and in a more “Okay, now that we know each other” kind of way. As she dives further into the story-sharing aspect, her sidebars feel more integrated into the book and less like a behind-the-scenes commentary from the author. This approach works better and makes her writing feel more authentic.
In chapter 20 and section four, she recounts a story about how a friend of hers felt that God had told them to stop drinking alcohol.
“I sure hope God never asks me to do that,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie feels personable in lines like this. Drinking, for many in the religious community, can be considered taboo. Though the thought she shares is humorous, it is also rather candid. She tackles an uncomfortable topic — drinking alcohol — and takes a stance that she knows some people that share her faith will not agree with.
She does something similar in section one when making a joke about foul language.
“Less globally, more personally: feeling loved when confronting setbacks and disappointment and loss is damn near (can we curse in a book about faith?) impossible,” Guthrie said.
This wall-break works, and spoiler alert: She uses the same “damn” later on in the book, in keeping with the later sections’ conversational tone.
I admire that Guthrie is frank about using foul language and consuming alcohol in a book about faith. It calls out the hypocritically religious, and I commend her for it.
It felt like I was friends with Savannah Guthrie when I read this book. She cursed, she offered candid experiences and she found the beauty in each of those experiences. It was truly inspirational, though the humor was a bit heavy-handed in earlier sections.
I teared up at the end as Guthrie shared what she felt her purpose was (this is my favorite section of the book).
“It boils down to one word…Interestingly, it is the word I enter every day in Wordle as my first guess. Share,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie shares early on in the book that “Mostly What God Does” is not a memoir. She does not seem interested in even writing a memoir, but the candid, intimate nature of the book almost makes it read like one. And it is beautiful that she shares it.
“I am here in this moment to share my voice, my heart,” Guthrie said. “To share this truth, this single truth. A truth I need to hear as much as I needed to tell. A truth I need to believe as much as I need to share. Mostly what God does is love you.”
“Mostly What God Does” is available wherever you buy books now.
