Bedford Public Library

The cloister walk, Kathleen Norris

eng

Includes bibliographical references

contains biographical information

no index present

non fiction

The cloister walk

Kathleen Norris

Why would a married woman with a thoroughly Protestant background and often more doubt than faith be drawn to the ancient practice of monasticism, to a community of celibate men whose days are centered around a rigid schedule of prayer, work, and scripture? This is the question that Kathleen Norris herself asks as, somewhat to her own surprise, she found herself on two extended residencies at a Benedictine monastery. Yet upon leaving the monastery, she began to feel herself transformed, and the daily events of her life on the Great Plains - from her morning walk to her going to sleep at night - gradually took on new meaning. She found that in the monastery, time slowed down, offering a new perspective on community, family, and even small-town life. By coming to understand the Benedictine practice of celibacy, she felt her own marriage enriched; through the communal reading aloud of the psalms every day, her notion of the ancient oral tradition of poetry came to life; and even the mundane task of laundry took on new meaning through the lens of Benedictine ritual. Kathleen Norris here takes us through a liturgical year, as she experienced it both within the monastery and outside it. She shows us, from the rare perspective of someone who is both insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world -- its liturgy, its rituals, its sense of community -- can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives, no matter what our faith may be

Dawn -- September 3 : Gregory the Great -- St. John's Abbey liturgy schedule -- The rule and me -- September 17 : Hildegard of Bingen -- September 29 : Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, archangels -- The difference -- September 30 : Jerome -- October 1 : Thérèse of the child Jesus -- October 2 : guardian angels -- Jeremiah as writer : the necessary other -- November 1 and 2 : all saints, all souls -- November 16 : Gertrude the Great -- Exile, homeland, and negative capability -- New York City : the trappist connection -- Los Angeles : the O Antiphons -- Borderline -- The Christmas music -- January 2 : Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus -- Passage -- The paradox of the Psalms -- Baptism of the Lord : a tale of intimacy -- January 10 : Gregory of Nyssa -- February 2 : Candlemas/presentation of the Lord -- Celibate passion -- February 10 : Scholastica -- Good old sin -- Acedia -- Pride -- Anger -- Noon -- Degenerates -- New Melleray Abbey liturgy schedule -- Chicago : religion in America -- The war on metaphor -- March 18 : Mechtild of Magdeburg -- April 2 : Mary of Egypt -- Saved by a rockette : Easters I have known -- Triduum : the three days -- Triduum notes -- Cinderella in Kalamazoo -- The virgin martyrs : between "Point Vierge" and the "Usual Spring" -- Minneapolis : cocktails with Simon Tugwell -- A story with dragons : the book of Revelation -- May 15 : Emily Dickinson -- Maria Goretti : cipher or saint? -- Evening -- Genesis -- Road trip -- Places and displacement : rattlesnakes in cyberspace -- Learning to love : Benedictine women on celibacy and relationship -- The cloister walk -- The garden -- The church and the sermon -- June 9 : Ephrem the Syrian -- Small town Sunday morning -- At last, her laundry's done -- Dreaming of trees -- Monks and women -- July 11 : Benedict's cave -- A glorious robe -- Women and the habit : a not-so-glorious dilemma -- The Gregorian brain -- Oz -- Generations -- Monastic park -- August 28 : Augustine -- The lands of sunrise and sunset -- The nursing home on Sunday afternoon -- One man's life -- "It's a sweet life" -- Coming and going : monastic rituals -- "The rest of the community" -- "The only city in America" -- Night