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Rating: 
Summary: perfect for lenten readings
Review: Certain words that are commonly used in religious talk, particularly words which express faith, can be very rich in meaning. For people outside of the faith, the use of such words can make a person feel confused or excluded. Perhaps this is why Kathleen Norris' Amazing Grace, the follow up to The Cloister Walk is so helpful. Norris defines words that are commonly used in faith, words such as salvation, grace, and Church. She also tackles less known words such as Lectio Divina and asceticism as well as words that can be controversial such as unchurched, orthodoxy, "organized religion" and heresy. Her definitions are not Webster like, nor do they reflect the opinion of an organized Church per se, but are based on reflection and an attempt to incorporate these words into her own spiritual life. She also includes a few essays which offer interesting perspectives on faith. Like Cloister Walk, this book is filled with personal anecdotes a swell as reflections upon people who have entered Norris' life and have either knowingly, or unknowingly, touched her spiritually. The book flows and is an easy read, and can be read in a few sittings or reflectively. It is also a book that favorite sections can be read again and again, which seems to be a strength of Ms. Norris' books. The depth of Norris' spiritual insights is also apparent as readers of Dakota and Cloister Walk will recognize. In many ways I saw Amazing Grace as a work in which Ms. Norris is confident in her own spiritual expertise, and shows maturity in her relationship with God which should be a goal for all believers.
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Summary: Religion with a sense of the poetic: inspiring.
Review: I think I might have found a new favorite writer. Annie Dillard, I still love you, but Kathleen Norris' little pieces are just as imagistic, inspiring, and profound, as serious and intent about exploring God with a poet's sensibility and a writer's eyes, yet she unsettles and disturbs me less. Here I find a voice not only expressing, but helping me to work out my own faith. In "Amazing Grace", Norris seeks to wrestle with and around tough, often scary words within the religios lexicon. Her efforts are not to define per se, not in any linear way, but to own and understand the faith and tradition that these words belong to; where they come from, where they're going. In the process, she lays down some of the basics of her own faith and belief - in a sense this book is something of one poet's religious manifesto. This appeals to me so much more than a theology text, though it does basically the same thing! By simply being willing to wrestle with the words, to acknowledge their scariness, abuse, mystery, usefulness, by searching out the concepts behind the words (every word has a meaning, but also a reason) this is a beautiful exploration of faith and God.
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Summary: Not a "comfortable" book, a good book
Review: In Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris challenges her readers to take the Christian faith seriously, just as the she has struggled to do. Her book affirms a call I am receiving, at 26, to embrace my tradition. There is exclusivism, I am realizing, in embracing a religious tradition. This is what makes traditions different--they don't agree on certain points. "Amazing Grace" takes as a point of departure the particularities of the Christian tradition expressed in the language of faith. Norris challenges Christians to find meaning in this vocabulary, even in its exclusiveness, which is, as she knows from experience, not an easy thing to do. If you are interested in a thoughtful, intelligent, and poetic interpretation of what makes Christianity a living religion, this book will be a blessing along your journey.
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Summary: Finding grace in a "dictionary"
Review: Kathleen Norris explores the language of faith that often puts people off or leaves them feeling estranged. Her meditations are not definitions of grace, faith, sin and so forth, but in what was for me a suprisingly spiritual way, she brings the vocablary that puzzles and confuses even regular church attenders up the the present time and present words and concepts in a manner that can have meaning and resonance. She uses personal experience and stories that allow the reader to relate and identify.
Rating:
Summary: Finding grace in a "dictionary"
Review: Kathleen Norris explores the language of faith that often puts people off or leaves them feeling estranged. Her meditations are not definitions of grace, faith, sin and so forth, but in what was for me a suprisingly spiritual way, she brings the vocablary that puzzles and confuses even regular church attenders up the the present time and present words and concepts in a manner that can have meaning and resonance. She uses personal experience and stories that allow the reader to relate and identify.
Rating:
Summary: A life-changing book!
Review: Kathleen Norris has given us all the benefit of her spiritual journey, and I have now given this book to several friends. We're all unique, created "a little lower than angels", and our relationships with God are unique. Not all of us have been born with child-like faith, and this book is profound reading for folks who have struggled along the way. Ms Norris correctly places her emphasis upon the importance of our spiritual vocabulary as a key component of this process. I agree with one reviewer who compared the book to candid conversations with a highly literate, understanding friend. This is not the "warm and fuzzy" language of faith, but the testimony of a woman who has looked long and hard at questions that many of us struggle with in becoming a "woman of fatih", much to her own surprise. Her testimony will speak volumes to many people who grew up in the 1950's and 1960's who need to hear from just such a voice. Buy this book and take the time to absorb what this poet has to say. Highly recommended.
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Summary: A poet uses religious words
Review: Kathleen Norris uses religious terms in this autobiographical work detailing a spiritual journey. Through use of the terms, the author is able to spiral through issues of societal and personal importance in a deceptively easy-going manner. The author's way of letting the reader enter into the work is masterly. She became a lay preacher of necessity when a small congregation of which she is a member sought to keep the church open for services as a new pastor was sought. She was told that as a poet she could function in the post. She felt that as a relatively new adherent to the religious way she was not a good choice, but she could hardly refuse in the sense that the community had to be maintained. She came to feel that poems were finished pieces of work, but sermons were ongoing, more of a matter of process and implicitly, in her case, growth. Use of humor prevents the work from becoming maudlin. Hard and careful explication creates a realistic and intelligent result. There is much in the book concerning monasticism which has bearing on the religious practice of an individual believer.
Rating: 
Summary: beautifully written but disappointing
Review: Kathleen Norris's love of the English language makes her often a joy to read. Her stories are often riveting, and some of her chapters are spectacular. Amazing Grace often left me sad, though, since Norris's understanding of Christianity, Scripture, and religion are so modified by her own desires. This is an interesting book about religion, and much of it is very good, but unfortunately large parts of it are not true. Norris seems to like the idea of religion in general (leaning toward Christianity, but finding other religions more or less equally true), but she has a lot of "escape hatches." Particularly since she sees no need for Scripture to be "literally" true, but rather poetically true--apparently just a guide to religious experience--she can explain away the hard passages. But without the hard passages, the beautiful ones lose their power also. Without the beautiful ones--for example, eternity, grace, and God's absolute holiness--Christianity isn't worth the work. Because indeed Christianity is not a "pretty" religion that's always fun, with converts always getting along in perfect harmony and experiencing full joy and wonderful lives. But without hard truths like the damnation sin deserves, grace is meaningless. It was odd to see a Buddhist quoted about his feelings about John 14:6 (Jesus' assertion that He is the only way to God, He is the truth, and He is the life). A Buddhist has by definition rejected John 14:6, and thus his feelings about its "niceness" are irrelevant. Similar "all religions have the same meaning and the same ultimate end" passages appear throughout the book. But religions are not all the same; they contradict each other on the most important points, and insisting there's no big difference between them is saying it doesn't really matter whether or not a religion is true. Christianity isn't about calming our troubled psyches with charming music and religious gatherings; it isn't even about how we define words (although that is important). But it is about truth-and the truth is that Jesus Christ has offered us truly amazing grace, forgiveness to cancel even the greatest sins we have done. This book takes the reader only partway, and that may be a valuable service as long as the reader doesn't stop only partway but takes the next step. The next step is to read what the Bible itself says. Start with what it says about Jesus. He's not at all the way you've pictured Him, if you've never read the Bible for yourself. (If you haven't read the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, start with one of them.) For one thing, Jesus had no sympathy for organized religion that avoided truth, failed to love people, and justified its followers' own pet sins. He got in trouble with religious leaders because He showed love and forgiveness to very sinful people (prostitutes, tax collectors who cheated innocent citizens, etc.). In fact, the religious leaders were the ones who got Him killed-which should say something about how far from a vaguely spiritual "all religions are equal" He must have been!
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Summary: Feeling one's way through Christian-speak.
Review: Norris attempts to terrestrialize the otherworldly idioms of Christian faith. She offers about 80 tractates approaching words and ideas such as eschatology and forbearance. Some of her offerings assume there is a coherent nugget of truth beneath the symbols of language and succeed in exposing it. Many offerings struggle unsuccessfully with labels: fundamentalist, mainstream, hard-core, conservative, liberal, feminist theology. Perhaps this would be difficult to avoid. Many offerings simply fail to do anything other than express the author's feelings. (For some readers this may be OK).
The discussion of "salvation" is rather original and quite valuable. The discussion of "`organized' religion" is excellent, containing truths too deep to be recognized by the "sophomoric" and self-congratulatory dogmatisms of Enlightenment. The discussion of "idolatry" is one of the books best. The consideration of "feminist theology" is uncharacteristically protracted as compared to themes like "God" and "grace", and contains very little that Isaiah, Philo, Paul, Augustine, Wesley, or Kierkegaard would accept as being any kind of theology. Seeking to constrain God -- the Absolute -- within anthropocentric ideas of gender is merely another dance with idolatry. Norris succumbs to a popular misappropriation of the word `theology' -- perhaps we are to accept this as poetic license(?), perhaps the loftiness of the terminology is a device to lend importance to the discussion(?). The Uncaused is neither Venusian nor Martian and one must invent her (or his) own "theology" to attain any congruence here. (The issue of religious groups having treated women unfairly is one of socio-anthropology, not theology. Granted, `feminist religionism' does not have the poetic quality of `feminist theology.' )
Norris' consideration of the Virgin Mary is one of the books worst. She wishes to reject either/or rationality and lays claim to a "both/and" view of Mary, but the result is neither/nor. Encased in Catholic doctrine is a veneration of Mary that to Protestant doctrine is idolatrous and blasphemous. The two views are mutually exclusive. And this is not the only discordance that centers on Mary. To bridge the gap between Christian belief in Mary's divine conception and agnostic/skeptical disdain for Mary's virginity, Norris develops an alternate definition of virginity. Her definition is interesting, even valuable, but we wonder what the reader is supposed to think/believe about the issues that Norris skirts. A "both/and" Mary might `feel' nice but is an illusion. In a scene from Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye listens to one arguer and says, "you're right" only to moments later say to the man arguing the opposite, "you also are right." Someone protests that they cannot both be right. Tevye agrees, "you also are right." It doesn't work, even if it "delights my poetic soul" (and still makes me laugh).
I wish this review didn't have to be quite so negative. Perhaps my critique is too harsh; I tend to consider books very analytically. Kathleen Norris is a seeker, which is wonderful. Her openness and sincerity cannot be overlooked; however, if half of the discussions were omitted the book would be stronger. As it is, I hesitate to recommend it. The Norris with whom I find agreement is too mixed up with the Norris who is groping and distracted. This volume is conceived of a very good idea and may be of value to readers curious about the mysteries of Christian-speak, however I would caution them that it has many weaknesses.
Rating:
Summary: Amazingly Good
Review: This book impressed me immensely; well beyond what I had expected and I had read two previous books by Kathleen Norris. It is a marvelous format that works like a sort of "Day by Day" series of inspiring and/or compelling theological thoughts. Rather than follow a litergical order of verses, Norris uses different words and terms associated with Christianity to fuel her observations. I honestly was expecting a sort of academic treatise on what various terms meant. What I got instead was an illustration of the essence of the meaning of various aspects and perspectives of Christianity. From the very beginning I was inspired by what Ms. Norris was sharing. She has observed a lot through her years and has a remarkable ability to recall those observations into illuminating stories.
Part of the impression this book made upon me may have had something to do with the fact that I started reading it towards the end of a retreat I was on. It was at the Benedictine Convent and Abbey where Ms. Norris spent much of her time. I hadn't even considered the connection when I took the book along but I was quickly in tune with her comments about her experiences with the Benedictine nuns and monks. Part of the appeal of her book to me had to have something to do with so many events taking place in locales I am familiar with. However, the broader appeal of the book lies in her sincere devotion to the Benedictine Way while equally active in the main stream Protestant Church. She seems intent on exploring ways to find a closer and clearer meaning to her faith. Like Ms. Norris, I had experienced years apart from religion before returning to it with a sincere intention to become a "Good Christian". However, I needed to first understand what it is that comprises a "Good Christian". Kathleen Norris spoke to me in the voice of experience of someone who has gone quite a bit further than I. I say that even though my journey has led me to ordination as an Episcopal Priest. Ms. Norris shares a lot of her experiences as a somewhat reluctant lay minister in the Presyterian Church. I am satified that she has found her vocation.
Ms. Norris is a Poet in the literal sense because it is her real profession. I'm not one for poetry but I have always enjoyed the rare author who can write prose and leave the impression that one has read poetry. Her book, "Dakota" is a masterpiece of that style as is "Amazing Grace". I confess that I was not as drawn into her book, "The Cloister Walk". I think that is why I was a bit shy about starting "Amazing Grace". However, I am very greatful that I took it on that retreat. I would recommend this book to anyone who aspires to know more about the Christian faith. Those even mildly interested will find a voice that speaks in a clear, compelling and informative manner. Too many similar book instruct; Ms. Norris inspires.
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