Stafford’s historical fiction hints of introspective biography
by Chuck O’Donnell, Special Writer
Janet Stafford foists racism, gender inequality, marital strife, the loss of loved ones — not to mention the Battle of Gettysburg — upon the characters in her latest book like so many cannonballs launched across the fields during one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil.
As the Hillsborough author put everything into motion and watched how it all tests her characters’ faith across 248 pages — broke it, bent it or fortified it — she came to realize that she was also examining her own complicated relationship with God.
”Walk By Faith,” the second book in her “Saint Maggie” series, is a diary of Ms. Stafford’s own spiritual journey as much as it is a highly detailed piece of historical fiction about Eli and Maggie Smith and their family and friends.
Maggie is a strong Methodist woman who runs a boarding house and a family. She holds everything and everyone together while lapsed-Quaker-turned-intrepid-reporter Eli sends dispatches from the front lines back to newspapers in the north.
When their boarding house and adjacent newspaper office in New Jersey is burned down, Eli decides to relocate the family to Gettysburg. The small town in southeastern Pennsylvania seems like a safe haven for the Johnsons, a black family who lives with the Smiths, but the war could literally be coming through their front door at any minute. And, if it does, will it be wearing blue or gray?
Ms. Stafford, the assistant minister/director of Christian education at the First United Methodist Church in Somerville, says there is plenty of room in modern Methodism for questions and doubt, as Eli does. At the same time, you can be steadfast and devout like Maggie, who, in a time of need, cites from Corinthians II 5:7: “We walk by faith, not by sight.”
”I guess those two are the ying and the yang in me,” said Ms. Stafford. “Like Eli, I’m always questioning things in my life. Whenever I’ve felt God connecting with me or I was connecting with God, it’s been on a small scale, not a giant scale, like it is for some people. My friend calls it having a ‘2-by-4 upside the head’ experience. Like, ‘wham!’ That’s not how it is for me.
”I generally have small moments where it’s like, ‘Oh. Oh. OH! Ok!’ For me, it really is a journey for me. It is a walk.”
And it was a long and circuitous path toward having her first book published at 58.
Ms. Stafford tried unsuccessfully to have various scripts published for years. Life interceded. She became a secretary for Kawasaki Motors in California, worked at Goucher College in Maryland, returned to New Jersey to take a job in the claims and insurance department at Exxon in Florham Park.
At 30, Ms. Stafford heeded a calling, or, as she calls it, a persistent nudging. A friend persuaded her to take a few courses at Drew. Would she become a minister?
”The clergy part was just not for me,” Ms. Stafford said. “Then it dawned on me that I could be a Christian education — a religious educator was also a path. That fit me better.”
With a PhD in North American religion and culture, she has been a religious educator for more than 20 years.
She joined the church in Somerville about five years ago and although her main duties are to shape the religious studies of the children in the congregation, she’s become involved in almost every aspect of church life. Whether she’s helping lead the Sunday service or the book club, she does it with enthusiasm.
”In comparing Maggie to Janet, I’m a little reluctant to do that,” the Rev. Dr. David Lehmkuhl. “But you have to say they both have a sense of pluck and spunk. They’re strong women who make a decision and follow through.”
When it came to following through on “St. Maggie,” well, she needed a little help from Dan Bush. He urged her to take it out of storage, dust it off and publish it herself.
”He’s like, ‘You know you wrote that book. Why don’t you look at it again?’ Ms. Stafford said. “I said, ‘Oh, come on, it stinks.’ I just sort of ignored him like all good girlfriends do. I had a couple of other things happen to me on a theological level that made me think that maybe I should be writing.”
By the time she started writing “Walk By Faith,” Ms. Stafford had become intrigued with the idea of using the Civil War as a prism to look at modern society. Is it still possible to love thy neighbor in what she calls “the turmoil, confusion and challenge that constitutes our communal life in the 21st Century?
”Do I believe that Jesus wiped out my sin and it has freed me up to break away from convention and follow him? On a good day, yes, absolutely,” Ms. Stafford said. “On a bad day, maybe not so much.
”The fact that I made a choice to follow Jesus and be in a relationship with him carries me through. Do I love every person perfectly and always respond in a loving way? Heck, no. But I keep reminding myself that love is far better than living in anger and hatred.”
For information about Janet Stafford and her latest book, “Walk By Faith,” log on to janetrstafford.com.

