Book Review: The Cloister Walk

When my friend, Kyle, suggested I read Kathleen Norris's acedia book, I checked out every book of hers on loan from my public library (while waiting for the interlibrary loan of the Acedia title). She published The Cloister Walk before Amazing Grace, so I tackled it first. Of the two I've read, I preferred Acedia and me. It took time to digest her writing. I copied various quotes. Yet, some parts didn't sit well with me. Perhaps this is because I don't come from a Catholic background. Perhaps this is because I take a different view of Scripture, not as metaphor to bolster with messages one "can live with."

Kathleen Norris is a Benedictine oblate who is also a writer. The Cloister Walk chronicles her thoughts while staying at various monasteries and what she has learned from cloistered living that can apply to writing and marriage. I valued her insights on writing and marriage, but ignored the veneration of saints and virgin martyrs. I appreciated her comments that matrimony plunges one into "the strenuous process of redemption." Or this comment about writing: "To answer a call as a [writer] is to reject the authority of credentials, of human valuation of any kind, accepting only the authority of the call itself." I second her take on the Psalms: "The value of [Psalms] lies not in the fact that singing praise can alleviate pain but that the painful images we find there are essential for praise, that without them, praise is meaningless." 

However, I reject her belief that we are all intrinsically good and that sin is an aberration from who we are, made in the image of God. While He made us in His image, our natural bent toward sin keeps us from union with Him and thus, our need of a Savior. (Read Romans 5 - By one man, sin entered the world, and by one man, Jesus, grace abounded with the gift of righteousness and reconciliation.) Without Christ as the crux, you simply have "religion." It is only when you recognize your deep need for His substitutionary death on your behalf, paying your sin penalty, that you gain His righteousness and accept his atonement.

Despite this disagreement, I enjoyed reading this book. How marvelous when, in one section, Norris recalls a time in Chicago when her father, wearing his navy trench coat, offered to relieve the cornetist in a caroling Salvation Army band at a kettle. Lovely image. And I concur with her conclusion in one chapter, "Blessed are those who throw the church doors open wide." While I appreciate spiritual retreat, I don't imagine I'll be travelling the cloister walk soon.