Cloister Walk (Paperback)

WHO WILL LIKE THIS BOOK? Norris is a poet. This book is a collection of sketches from inside the monastery, from monastic history, from her own small town, from her vacations, and from the cities she has lived and worked in. Some chapters are long, while others are short. Her themes bounce from chapter to chapter. If you like poetic imagery written in prose and are interested in this theme, you will like this book.

WHO WILL NOT LIKE THIS BOOK? If you like to read technical manuals and books with finely structured outlines, you will probably not like this book. You may feel that Norris rambles too much and doesn't stay with her main point.

This is a nice book for tolerant people of any faith. Everyone can benefit from quiet reflection, from reading scripture, from singing hymns, and from praying. We all have the freedom to worship God in different ways. Kathleen Norris was curious about the catholic faith, although she remains a protestant. Her experience within the monastery is beneficial to her soul and she describes how, as a poet and writer, the rituals, liturgy, and hospitality within the monastic setting further her own understanding of spirituality.

It is a truly remarkable achievement--one born of contradiction and ambiguity. A woman has found such spirituality and insight in communities predominantly organised and lived in by men (I wonder how different or similar this work would be had Norris concentrated on visiting convents?). A protestant has found a home in her own soul for many of the most 'catholic' of practices. Where these insights and practices lead are different at different times, ever changing yet ever constant.

Norris structures her book (and structure is very important for monastic types) in a similar fashion to a monastic day and year. She follows a liturgical calendar, and fills in the gaps with reflections and stories of experiences.

She uses the daily cycle to great effect--for instance, on April 2, the day of Mary of Egypt, Norris incorporates the story of Mary into her narrative in much the same way that monastics incorporate such stories into their practice and contemplation: 'Monks have always told the story of Mary of Egypt to remind themselves not to grow complacent in their monastic observances, mistaking them for the salvation that comes from God alone. ... Repentance is coming to our senses, seeing, suddenly, what we've done that we might not have done, or recognising, as Oscar Wilde says in his great religious meditation "De Profundis", that the problem is not in what we do but in what we become.'

Norris reflects on the difficulties she encountered on her journey, with the monasteries, with her family, with her career, with those who just couldn't understand what it was she was trying to accomplish or find. Much like anyone who tries to discern and follow a call to vocation in life, there are joys great and small, and difficulties great and small, fulfillments and doubts, and lots of reflection. She is frank about her struggles to believe, and finds solace in the doubts of others. 'I believe that Teresa became a uniquely valuable twentieth-century saint, a woman who can accept even the torment of doubt, as she lay dying, as a precious gift, who turns despair into a fervent prayer for others. I think of her as a saint for unbelievers in an age of unbelief, a voice of compassion in an age of beliefs turned rigid, defensive, violent.'

Norris reflects on hospitality, prayer, study, work, community, solitude, silence and music. 'Music is serious theology. Hildegard of Bingen took it so seriously as a gift God made to humanity that in one of her plays, while the soul and all the Virtues sing, the devil alone has a speaking part. The gift of song has been denied him.'

There is a true spirit at work in this book, that reaches out in many different ways to people of all backgrounds. This is true of monastic practice, which is essentially Hebraic in structure, Christian in intent, and universalist in outreach and hospitality. The issues which concern everyone in the world are present in the monastery in ways which give a new perspective. Take, for instance, time: 'In our culture, time can seem like an enemy: it chews us up and spits us out with appalling ease. But the monastic perspective welcomes time as a gift from God, and seeks to put it to good use rather than allowing us to be used up by it.' Time slowed down at the monastery, and that is a blessing to many in the world (and one of the blessings Norris particularly finds), but this slowing allows a recognition of the spiritual aspects of even the most mundane of daily practices.

Finally, I am touched by the infusion of poetry, artistic imagery and wisdom literature throughout the text. Her quote from Emily Dickinson is one which I will take to heart. 'Consider the lilies,' she wrote to her cousins late in her life, 'is the only commandment I ever obeyed.'