22
May
2009
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris
I’m probably biased in saying this, but when it comes to spiritual writing (of the non-self help variety, for which there is nothing good) Kathleen Norris is better than Ann Lamott times infinity.
This might be because I don’t always appreciate Lamott’s chosen brand of spirituality and everyday miracles. So, again, shame on me for my baisedness.
But also, at least in this book, Kathleen doesn’t really focus on herself or her own journey. She focusses on a place and a people. It’s not just about finding God in herself and her own existence, but in the people around her, and the spiritual purposes of daily life.
My favorite chapter in the whole book is the one entitled, “The Holy Use of Gossip”. It begins with a story of Norris admonishing a group of high school students for eating scrambled eggs after a long night of post-prom drinking. She tells them, “…everyone knows you don’t get piss-drunk and then eat scrambled eggs. If you didn’t know it before, you know it now.”
She goes on tell a couple of tales mythologized in her small Dakotan town of kooky residents. But her point is much more than funny stories. She writes:
“Like the desert tales that monks have used for centuries as a basis for a theology and way of life, the tales of small-town gossip are often morally instructive, illustrating the ways ordinary people survive the worst that happens to them; or, conversely, the ways in which self-pity, anger, and despair can overwhelm and destroy them. Gossip is theology translated into experience. In it we hear great stories of conversion, like the drunk who turns his or her life around, as well as stories of failure. We can see that pride really does go before a fall, and that hope is essential. We watch closely those who retire, or who lose a spouse, lest they lose interest in living. When we gossip we are also praying, not only for them but for ourselves.”
She also says that the word “gossip” comes from the words “God” and “sibling”, as in sort of a messenger for God.
Spiritual authors these days like to take the mundane and make them into fancy spiritual diatribe. But Norris actually takes something and makes it interesting.
Buy Dakota on Amazon
If you like this book/author, you might like:
Traveling Mercies by Ann Lamott
The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio by Terry Ryan
Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Varieties Of Religious Experience by William James
The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild In the Middle of Nowhere by Debra Marquart
The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton by Thomas Merton
The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong
Spiritual but Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America by Robert C. Fuller
After Heaven: Spirituality in America Since the 1950s by Robert Wuthnow
Searching for God by Francis L Gross
Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Third Jesus by Deepak Chopra
The Lace Makers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri
Walking With Kathleen Norris: A Contemplative Journey by Robert Waldron
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
Altar in the World, An: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor
Bones Of Plenty by Lois P Hudson
40-day Journey With Kathleen Norris by Kathryn Haueisen
Other works by Kathleen Norris:
The Cloister Walk
Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life
The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work”
The Virgin of Bennington
The Year of Common Things
Little Girls In Church
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith
Falling off
Journey: New And Selected Poems 1969-1999
The Holy Twins
