Norris looks at many of the words of faith, exploring them with her prose poet eyes.

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Product Description

From Kathleen Norris, the author who "writes about religion with the imagination of a poet" (Chicago Tribune), comes this unusual, accessible, and profound investigation of Christian faith. Taking as her starting point the "scary words" that can intimidate and distance us from our religious heritage--words like judgment, faith, dogma, salvation and sinner, Norris blends history, theology, storytelling, etymology and memoir to help us reflect on their meanings. Always entertaining, and thought provoking, Norris awakens us to the possibility of belief. Through this exhilarating journey, readers will come to know more about the gradual conversion and the daily struggle for faith that Norris described in her bestseller The Cloister Walk. Amazing Grace will grant an illuminating perspective on how we can embrace ancient traditions and find faith in the contemporary, everyday world.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24531 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781573227216
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
"Our ridiculously fallible language becomes a lesson in how God's grace works despite and even through our human frailty. We will never get the words exactly right. There will always be room for imperfection, for struggle, growth and change. And this is as it should be." With observations like this one, Kathleen Norris, author of Dakota and The Cloister Walk, has again provided a salutary corrective for contemporary Christians in Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. The book is about how she learned to use religious words, such as "incarnation," "idolatry," and "evangelism." Norris is a feminist, a theological conservative, a sophisticate, and a country bumpkin. And she's one of the few living Christian writers who can be described as truly great.

From Publishers Weekly
When poet Norris (The Cloister Walk) found her way back into church in the early 1980s, she was unsettled by what she calls the "vaguely threatening and dauntingly abstract" vocabulary of the church. Many of the words, like "Christ," seemed to her code words churchgoers used out of convenience when they could not find other words to use. Other words?like "salvation," "conversion," and "dogma"?seemed to Norris to be too abstract to reflect meaningfully her own experience. In this "vocabulary of faith," Norris draws upon her considerable poetic skills to refashion the vocabulary of the church into her own religious vocabulary. In each of these meditations, Norris uses anecdotes and humor to invest these words with fresh meanings. On "Salvation," for instance, she tells the story of an acquaintance who had become relatively successful in a new venture with his business partner. But, when Norris's friend realizes that his partner will go as far as committing murder to succeed, he leaves the partnership and returns home. Norris describes this victory as the beginning of salvation, "to make sufficient," because her friend "realized the road he was on was not sufficient; it could lead nowhere but death." In "Conversion: The Scary Stuff," Norris retells the story of Jacob's wrestling with the angel to demonstrate the struggle we all undergo in seeking the face of God. Norris's lyrical prose rings with clarity and grace as she brings life to her experience of the church's vocabulary.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Best-selling spiritual author Norris (a former LJ reviewer) uses her poet's natural grasp of language to clarify terms like faith, grace, and judgment.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Customer Reviews

a mind most open
In her other books, Kathleen Norris has written about the life journey that took her away from home, to Bennington College in Vermont and then to New York City, as she became a poet and lived in the eminently secular literary world; then back to the Great Plains of South Dakota, where she began attending her Grandmother's church and gradually found herself drawn to the Christianity she had forsaken many years before. In this book she tries to do exactly what she describes above, take individual words that she found, and many others still find, off putting from the Biblical and Christian lexicons and reconcile herself to their meanings, however harsh or judgmental or intimidating they may seem.

She does this in a series of very brief essays--about 80 in less than four hundred pages--covering such words as : Dogma, Heresy, and Pentecostal. Between the number of topics she covers and the very personal reflections they provoke, no one will agree with everything she has to say, and many will disagree with most of it. But she brings two extremely important qualities to the task : humility and skepticism.

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People of faith are commonly caricatured as people whose minds are closed to all but their own beliefs. Kathleen Norris exemplifies the fact that quite the opposite is often true, that faith often comes to those whose minds are most open, to both doubt and possibility.

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the courage to ponder
"Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith" is the first book I have read by Kathleen Norris. I'd heard a good deal about her prior to reading it. I was prepared to be disappointed. I was not. "Amazing Grace" is one heck of a book.

Ms. Norris is a rare find. In "Amazing Grace" she combines deep, honest reflection with beautiful, unassuming prose to construct short, sweet, and insightful pieces about words (things like "grace," "judgment," and "hell") that have always unsettled or scared her a bit. She examines each word carefully. Often, she thought of sides of a topic I had never considered. The following is part of the passage on grace...Ms. Norris approaches the subject in a unique and enlightening way (She is speaking in the context of Jacob's flight from his brother Esau as told in Genesis 28):

"God does not punish Jacob as he lies sleeping because he can see in him Israel, the foundation of a people. God loves to look at us, and loves it when we will look back at him. Even when we try to run away from our troubles, as Jacob did, God will find us, and bless us, even when we feel most alone, unsure if we'll survive the night. God will find a way to let us know that he is with us in this place, wherever we are, however far we think we've run. And maybe that's one reason we worship-to respond to grace. We praise God not to celebrate our own faith but to give thanks for the faith God has in us. To let ourselves look at God, and let God look back at us. And to laugh, and sing, and be delighted because God has called us his own."

Kathleen Norris is to be commended for the courage she displays in pondering the questions these often loaded words have left her with. All who read her book will benefit from her thoughts.

"Amazing Grace" was a true joy to read. I recommend it highly.

Amazing Grace
Unlike the the Author, Katherine Norris , I have been a Catholic all my 71 Years and She has renewed my faith and spirituality and taught me more about the religion I grew up in then all the catechism classes and college courses in theology I studied.
She is right up there with Henri Nouen and Edwina Gateley.
What beautiful reading.
Rita Peters