Norris' The Cloister Walk

There can be nothing better than a good poet writing prose whether Thomas Lynch, the Michigan funeral director writing about death or Kathleen Norris, writing about her time in a Benedictine monastery. Both show a care for words and phrases that is formed in their lives as poets. Her subject matter is also compelling as she describes and reflects upon her experience living among the Benedictines and the community and rhythms of life that she found there. Some of the many good things that she had to say:
p27 [St Therese] "perfection consists in being what God wants us to be."
p38 "...the pain that comes from one's identity, that grows out of the response to a call, can't be escaped or pushed aside. It must be gone through."
p41 "The work of my life is given to others; in fact, the reader completes it."
p54 "[poem of boy] "I remember him/like God in my heart, I remember him in my heart/like the clouds overhead,/and strawberry ice cream and bananas/when I was a little kid. But the most I remember/is his love,/as big as Texas/when I was born."
p64 "...poetry, like prayer, is a dialogue with the sacred."
p68 "As so often happens, on this day worship reinforced my convictions that only Christ could have brought all of us together, in this place, doing such absurd but necessary things."
p127 "The tragedy of sin is that it diverts divine gifts."
p142 "...when you realize that anything good you write comes despite your weaknesses, writing becomes a profoundly humbling activity."
p147 "...those who know the exact price of things, as Judas did, often don't know the true cost or value of anything."
p154 "...if you're looking for a belief in the power of words to change things, to come alive and make a path for you to walk on, you're better off with poets these days than with Christians."
p165 "[Oscar Wilde] ... the problem is not in what we do but in what we become."
p206 "...it is through our failings and weaknesses, our "ways of imperfection," that we find God, and God finds us, the God who can turn any mess we've made to the good."
p251 "The problem did not start with theology--with my inability to grasp Christ as a living person--but might have more to do with my resistance to accepting the full mystery of the Christ present in any person..."
p261 "...too many young people grow up understanding that "true love" means possessing and being possessed."
p267 "Ceremony forces a person to slow down, and as many of live at a frenzied pace..."
p283 "Laundry is one of the very few tasks in life that offers instant results...For some people, laundry seems to satisfy a need for ritual."
p294 "It is not a choice but a call, and often the people who last in a monastery are those who struggle through their early years reminding themselves of that fact."
p311 "'What is it you seek?'...The ritual answer is anything but easy: 'the mercy of God and fellowship in this community.'"
p313 "Real beauty is always both tough and fragile..."
p315 "I wonder if the pace of modern life, along with our bizarre propensity for turning everything into a commodity, erodes our ability to think symbolically, to value symbols for their transformative power."
p352 "It is the aim of contemplative living, at least in the Christian mode, that you learn to recognize a blessing when you see one, and are able to respond to it with words that God has given you."
p367 "What could it be but sweetness, and God's blessing? His welcome refreshed me and made me see something that's easy to lose sight of in our infernally busy lives. That we exist for each other, and when we're at a low ebb, sometimes just to see the goodness radiating from another can be all we need in order to rediscover it in ourselves."