The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris [2]
ways, she gives us the result of an ‘immersion into a liturgical
world’. . . . In these last years of the second millennium, when
whirl and whim rule, when there is so much snide and sneering cynicism
around (in politics, in the arts, in criticism) . . . talented visionaries
[such as Norris] point us in another direction: toward an
embrace of moral and spiritual contemplation—one that is blessedly
free of the pietistic self-righteousness increasingly prominent
in our present-day civic life.”
—Robert Coles, The New York Times Book Review
Kathleen Norris is the award-winning poet, writer, and author of the New York Times best-sellers The Cloister Walk and Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. Norris has also published seven books of poetry. A popular speaker, she is an editor at large at the Christian Century. A recipient of grants from the Bush and Guggenheim foundations, she has been in residence twice at the Collegeville Institute at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, and is an oblate of Assumption Abbey in North Dakota. She divides her time between Hawaii and South Dakota.
Other Books by Kathleen Norris
NONFICTION
Acedia & Me
The Virgin of Bennington
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith
The Cloister Walk
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
POETRY
Journey: New and Selected Poems 1969-1999
Little Girls in Church
The Middle of the World
Falling Off
ANTHOLOGY
Leaving New York (editor)
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“My Very First Dad,” © 1987 North Dakota Council on the Arts and COMPAS. Used with permission.
Excerpt from “Protestant Easter,” from Live or Die by Anne Sexton. Copyright © 1966 by Anne Sexton. . All rights reserved.
Excerpt from “For People with Problems About How to Believe,” from An Oregon Message by William Stafford. Copyright © 1987 by William Stafford. .
Excerpts from the Grail Psalms, © 1963, 1986 by Ladies of the Grail, England. Used by permission of GIA, Inc., exclusive agent. All rights reserved.
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First Riverhead trade paperback edition: April 1997
eISBN : 978-1-573-22584-7
Norris, Kathleen.
The cloister walk / Kathleen Norris. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-573-22584-7
1. Monastic and religious life. 2. Catholic Church—Liturgy.
3. Norris, Kathleen, date. 4. Spiritual life. I. Title.
BX2435.N57 1996
255—dc20 96-863 CIP
http://us.penguingroup.com
For the children:
CHRISTINA, JACQUELINE,
LILLIAN, A.J., AND MIKEY
PREFACE
Ten years ago, when I became a Benedictine oblate, I knew two things: I didn’t feel ready to