Whirlybirds and Ordinary Times is a work of creative nonfiction, a collection of personal essays organized around the liturgical Christian church seasons. The form is one that wanders, claims no particular special knowledge or authority, is grounding in its personal experience, and seeks to make sense of things by asking questions and telling stories. Katie Savage describes truthfully what she sees and how she sees it in hopes of understanding her faith and her place in it.

She says: “There was a time when I knew everything about God. I was young (you’re not surprised) and relatively arrogant (now you’re really not surprised). My team always won when we played Bible trivia games in my church youth group. I knew the stories of Jonah and Daniel and Saul like they were my own family stories, I could quote the most popular Bible verses, I memorized the order of the Biblical books and could spell the names of them all. But somewhere along the way, I lost all that knowledge about God—or at least I began to realize how much there was to learn. Each day that I was a Christian seemed to be a step backward in understanding my faith. I started acknowledging the questions in my heart, began discussing those questions with friends and fellow saints, as those in the church are called, however undeservingly it may sometimes seem. And I discovered, after whining about how difficult all of this Christian stuff was, that the mystery of not knowing was also absolutely, undeniably wonderful.”