Spiritual memoirs

Among the books that rank highest in my GoodReads library are a collection of spiritual memoirs. I began coming across these books about 14 years ago, And when I did, it was like coming home to a community of people whom I felt I knew at a very deep level.

Today, I find that these books continue to feed my soul with inspiration, insight and questions that challenge me to search ever deeper for answers.

I’m thinking about spiritual memoirs today because I’ve just finished reading “Dakota“ by Kathleen Norris. It's a book about life in North and South Dakota from the point of view of someone whose family comes from the area yet who is herself something of an outsider, owing to The years she spent in New York and her role as a writer. Kathleen Norris makes the point that a writer is, by virtue of her objectivity and slight distance from her subject matter, always regarded with a measure of suspicion. People feel wary about opening up in front of her in case their opinions and attitudes appear in the pages of her books. Not only that, but her very reflective approach to life makes her hard to relate to. As a result, she feels at once intimately involved with the people about whom she is writing and removed from them. 

Kathleen Norris tells the story of how her faith took many diversions over the years. Raised by a staunchly Methodist father and confirmed in a Congregational church, she became disillusioned with religion as she knew it and spent 20 years outside the church. During that time, she worked on her writing., developing   a distinctly poetic style. Later, when she returned to the church, albeit in a different form, she saw that the writing provided her with a spiritual practice, whereby she learnt to plumb the depths of her heart in her search for truth.

This resonates strongly with me because my own spiritual journey has been very similar. Having been a committed  believer in my teens, A devoted church member in my 20s, the leader of a charismatic worship team in my 30s, and a studious Anglican in my forties, I more or less abandoned the church for 10 years. like a sojourn in the desert, living without the external sustenance of sermons, sacred songs and Bible reading necessitated having to dig deep to find inner spiritual resources, and it was through writing in my journal that I found my soul's sensitivity.

I can highly recommend Kathleen Norrises spiritual memoir "Dakota" to anyone who shares my love of slow, thoughtful, and deeply illuminating memoirs.