STRONG — A minister and a non-believer explore why they believe what they believe in Douglas Walrath’s new novel, “Naked Believer.”

While the characters, Walter and Mary, attempt to bridge their worlds and their differences, they converse about their beliefs. Their relationship develops from friendship to love, Walrath said from the porch of his farm in Strong.

The disbeliever, Mary, is a very caring person and is as strong as the believer, he said. One is not smarter or better than the other. Each is equally credible.

In most stories, such as this, the believer is the caring, warm person and the disbeliever comes to believe. But that is not always what the real world is like, he said.

After working on ten scholarly works of non-fiction, Walrath, whose career includes theological education and consultant work throughout the United States, Canada and England, decided he was going to do something different. 

He read 600 novels to prepare for his last book, “Displacing the Divine: The Minister in the Mirror of American Fiction,“ and decided he wanted to write a novel.

“It has been a huge learning curve to move from non-fiction to fiction,” he said of the novel released in May by Wipf and Stock Publishers. “It has been fun but a lot of work. I threw away more words than I kept.”

He has lived with the characters he invented for four years. They become very real people and begin to talk to you, he said about following their struggles to work out their relationship.

But, this is the first of a planned trilogy of books. The second is about half done and may be out next year, he said.

In “Naked Believer,” set in the early 1960’s, Walter is in his early 30’s. The second book is set in the 1970’s and Walter is 46. The third book will be set in the 1990’s and Walter is an older man, he said. 

In the second book, Walter befriends a retired Philosophy professor who is gay and Unitarian. They attempt to learn how to develop a bridge between their worlds, he said.

In the third book, a parishioner’s husband dies although the congregation prays for him. As pastor, Walter contends with it.

A few years later, the characters face a moral issue.  The widow befriends a man whose wife, an Alzheimer patient, is in a nursing home. She questions whether he has to live the rest of his life without a relationship because his wife is where she is, he said.

Helping people bridge differences was part of Walrath’s work as a consultant working with churches and organizations such as hospitals which were addressing unusual challenges, he said.

With an understanding of human relationships and culture from his training in sociology, he helped people realize why they have difficulty with communications and how to do it better.

Doug and his wife, Sherry, moved to Maine from New York in the 1980’s specifically to purchase the farm called the Hundred Acre Farm.  

Both, he and Sherry, an interpreter for the deaf, provided services where they could travel and still enjoy the rural farm life they wanted, he said. This is home and everyone -six children, 17 grandchildren – comes back to the farm.

Once here, the then Bangor Theological Seminary asked him to teach practical theology. For 12 years, he commuted 86 miles one way, three days a week to Bangor from Strong.

He taught theological students how to practice theology in the real world and how to try to connect with people who are different. 

“First, you have to have respect,” he said. “Respect is a wonderful word … it means someone is worth taking a second look at.”

Walrath had just received an email from a woman whose son, a disbeliever, is married to a woman who is a fundamental Christian. She wrote to tell him that she found his book helpful to read, he said.

On the book cover is a photo Walrath took at Fort Popham a few years ago. He liked the imagery as one walks down the hall – there are flashes of light, then darkness. It is symbolic of the path of the story. 

The books are available locally at Devaney, Doak and Garrett Booksellers and at Barnes and Noble or online at Amazon.com

“I write for myself. It is fun, exciting and I hope someone else will find it to be the same,” Walrath said. “I would write even if no one reads it. I love to do it.”

abryant@sunmediagroup.net

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