Book Review-All of Us Together in the End
Matthew Vollmer's beautiful memoir is filled with nostalgia and mystery
In many ways this less of a book review and more of a comparison of my Adventist childhood to Vollmer’s childhood. It’s important for me to state the comparison, because as I have often said, there are two Adventist churches. Matthew Vollmer grew up in the same faith tradition as I did—that is we both went to church on Saturday and our parents believed in the church prophet, but that might be where the comparisons end.
His family lived in one house and didn’t move around, my family moved nearly every year and sometimes more than that.
His parents sent him to an Adventist grade school, then away from home to an Adventist Academy. My parents took me out of school in the sixth grade and refused me a high school education.
His father was a dentist who provided for his family. My father was unstable, struggling to make a living, and called himself “a jack of all trades, master of none.”
His mother wrote notes and tucked them into his school lunches, which he threw away. If my mom had written me a note for my school lunch, I would’ve treasured it forever.
Our childhoods couldn’t have been more different, but we did have a few things in common, which all seem to be related to the writings of the church prophet Ellen White. I’ve come to the conclusion that those writings can be interpreted in dozens of ways.
Vollmer’s parents raised him in the mainstream Adventist church, while I was raised on the fringe. His parents believed in the prophet’s advice to live in the country, but they lived in a house with power and running water. They stayed put to make a home for their family that connected with the community, while my father kept searching for the perfect place to escape the government. My father’s inspiration was the same prophet using the same teachings but they were taken to extreme.
Vollmer attended church seminars where they talked about the time of the end and the apocalypse and all the terrible, scary things that were going to happen to God’s people, just as I did. The difference was that his parents never talked about it at home, whereas mine obsessed over it.
Despite our differences, I can relate to many of the things Vollmer shared about in his childhood, especially those concerning a vegetarian diet. He made me laugh out loud when he estimated how many slabs of peanut butter toast with applesauce his mother had eaten in her life. Many Adventists eat peanut butter and toast with applesauce. It’s a favorite of mine on cold winter mornings.
I found more in common with Vollmer’s adult experience than his childhood days. He didn’t agree with his parents’ religion, and I, too, have disagreed on some issues.
This memoir gives illustrations of grace time and again. Vollmer does not tear down individuals or the denomination, but firmly states his difference of opinion. I found his honesty refreshing.
He seems annoyed with his uncle’s obsession with leading the Adventist Church, and I think he has many faithful Adventists who agree on that point. I personally can’t stomach his uncle’s teachings. And yet, Vollmer points out that this man, who is married to his mother’s sister, loved his mother. Vollmer gives him grace for that and he almost left me with a warm feeling toward a leader who has not given equality to women and has even threatened those who support women’s ordination and equality for our LGBTQIA+ siblings.
One of the most touching stories in this book is when his mother cried over his writing. I’m sure mine would cry over mine, too, if she’d actually read my books. Most parents don’t like it when their adult children write memoirs about the family and church because it’s hard not to take it personally.
It’s generally frown on to write critically about the denomination. Adventists believe they are the one and only true church, so some try to protect the reputation of the church at all costs.
While we have pressure to shield our parents and the church from embarrassment, we need to be honest. A writer can’t stop writing just because someone will be offended by our stories or because the church will be exposed. Writing itself is an act of ownership over the things that have happened to us. It can also be a defiant act of becoming ourselves.
His parents and mine shared the same view of the afterlife—which is soul sleep. Meaning that when people die, they will sleep in the ground until Jesus comes to wake them up and take everyone to heaven.
This story includes a mystery. After his mother dies, his father keeps seeing weird, bright lights out in the woods where there’s nobody else around. Matthew joins his father in the quest to figure it out. This story occurs during the early days of the pandemic in 2020–in the months after his mother died. The mysterious lights in the forest and all of the apocalyptic strangeness of the early pandemic kind of merged together around his grieving over his mother’s death.
As someone whose mother died just three months ago, I found this book to be cathartic and even humorous at times. It felt good to laugh and cry, to remember, and to know that I am not alone and that we all mourn our mothers and will probably mourn them for the rest of our lives. This could have been a depressing tale, but instead, Vollmer turned his grief it into a mosaic of beautiful stories filled with love, laughter, and bright light.
You can find the book here. I listened to the audible version and found it simply sublime.
Peace and freedom,
Cherilyn
Well now I am intrigued! Beautiful review!!
Awesome review, Cheri. I have the book and plan to start reading it tonight.