pat loughery

The poet Kathleen Norris writes,

Like all who choose life in the slow lane – sailors, monks, farmers – I partake of a contemplative reality. Living close to such an expanse of land I find I have little incentive to move fast, little need of instant information. I have learned to trust the processes that take time, to value change that is not sudden or ill-considered but grows out of the ground of experience. Such change is properly defined as conversion, a word that at its root connotes not a change of essence but of perspective, as turning round; turning back to or returning; turning one’s attention to.

“Dakota: A Spiritual Geography” (Kathleen Norris)

If you wish to understand the contemplative life in our current world, you ought to begin by reading Kathleen Norris. The above book and “The Cloister Walk” (Kathleen Norris) are two of my favorites, and I expect that her other words are at least as good.