Introducing Kathleen Norris

For a couple of years now I have enjoyed occasional forays into the wonderful writings of Kathleen Norris. Norris is a poet and essayist living in South Dakota. After turning away from faith as a college student in the sixties, and working in the poetry and art world of New York City in the seventies, she returned to her family roots in Dakota, and to her grandmother's Christian faith and membership in the Presbyterian Church. She later became a lay oblate of the Benedictine Order, but without converting to Catholicism. Norris has written several books on Christian spirituality drawing from the ancient sources through Benedictine spiritual tradition.

Over the next few days I'll be posting some quotes from her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. I hope you enjoy them.

Let's start with this on, quoting a child in one of her writing classes:

"Silence reminds me to take my soul with me whereever I go." (page17)

Priceless!