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rumbledethumps's review
4.0
Based around the author's time spent as an oblate at a Benedictine monastery, this book took me a while to finish. Its (mostly) short chapters each explore different ideas and how monastic life might give people a different view of them than non-monastics. I found myself underlining something on almost every page. Not a book you're going to tear through in one sitting, but more like something you need to sit with.
monicamjw's review against another edition
4.0
This book, part reflection, part biography, makes me want to read more poetry, psalms and spiritual works.
heyjude1965's review against another edition
4.0
I thoroughly enjoyed this book of essays concerning the author's reflections on religious life, monastic life. She is a Protestant, married poet, but she's also a Benedictine oblate (an associate of the Benedictines, taking simple vows but living in the world - I'm sure I botched that definition), which I didn't even know you could be unless you were Catholic. Kathleen Norris has spent many months living, praying, working with the Benedictines and shared such wonderful insight on the cloistered life. This was my Lenten reading for 2020 and I had plenty of time because of the quarantine!
patlo's review against another edition
5.0
Kathleen Norris is a poet who, with her husband, move from Hawaii to rural South Dakota to take over her family farm. In the process of rooting herself in this new place, she discovers a local Benedictine monastery, and she's attracted to the rhythms and depth of life she sees there. It's a gorgeous book about being pilgrims and learning from where you are. Norris is one of a few authors who I'll read everything she produces. Some of her work is less spiritually focused, but none is better.
rachbreads's review against another edition
3.0
This book would have been a 4 star for me but unfortunately I felt it went on about 100 pages too long. Around that point I felt it got a bit repetitive of points earlier made and I wasn't as interested in hearing about her experience back home as I was her experience in the monastery. Worth a read just for the wonderful thoughts in the first 250 pages.
hannahcomer4d's review against another edition
4.0
Norris is a patient speaker, as the Benedictines in her life have been patient with her. She describes daily life for both her and the monks and nuns she knows in all its humble and lovely details, never shying away from difficult questions and gracefully addressing stereotypes and assumptions. I found myself in turn amused, emotionally moved, and calmed by this text.
rafritz1's review against another edition
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
I honestly don't know how this book was so perfect for me. A married protestant poet discovering monastic life is everything I'm interested in rn.