Late last week I purchased the audio book of Julia Sweeney’s one woman show “Letting Go of God”. You may know Julia best from her comedic performance of “Pat”, the androgynous character from Saturday Night Live circa 1990-1994. After Sweeney left SNL, she was hit with a series of family traumas. Her brother Michael was diagnosed and eventually died of lymphoma, and soon after she herself was also diagnosed with cancer. She battled through the disease and came through the ordeal resolved and creatively infused.

The result was a series of monologues that she honed into one-woman shows. Her most recent first premiered in October of 2004 and ran with both popular and critical success for ten months in Los Angeles. Letting Go of God is a funny and moving autobiographical account of how Sweeney explored her traditional Catholic upbringing and eventually found it wanting. She tells the tale, with typical Julia flair and wit, of how she found no comfort in either the Old or New testaments, roamed the globe as she explored other religions and eventually turned to atheism.

There is a great deal in Letting Go of God that I can relate to, both as a Catholic and as one who has survived an ordeal with cancer. I find it fascinating how Julia wrestled with the notion of God in relation to her life and illness and came out Godless on the other side. Unlike her however, there were many times while I was undergoing chemotherapy that I thought I wouldn’t make it through the day without knowing that God was somehow watching over me. That being said, like Julia, I don’t subscribe to the literal notion of Adam and Eve or Noah and the flood. In Letting Go, Julia explains that these tales are not myths, but more “myth-ish” – stories that never actually happened, but were told to help us shape our behavior and our spiritual beliefs. Sometimes this was for the better, and sometimes unfortunately, for the worse.

If you enjoy critical thinking and are prepared to listen with an open mind, then I highly recommend Letting Go of God. I don’t agree with Julia’s ultimate conclusions, but her spiritual journey from wide-eyed “nun-lover” to full-blown atheist is funny, poignant and satisfying. It also cleverly casts light on some hypocritical notions from Catholicism and religion in general. You can get a taste for Letting Go of God over at YouTube and if you enjoy it enough to want more, check out the audio book on iTunes.