Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

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.

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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   Written on March 3, 2001
   Summary: When you get called for jury duty, bring this book with you!
The enchanting quality of the prose in Kathleen Norris's "Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith" far outweighs our sporadic vexation with the elasticity of Norris's theology. A charming exploration of the "buzzwords" of the Christian faith, with occasional touches of progressive snobbery, as if she were saying, faith isn't just for functionally literate housewives or octogenarian bead-tellers, it's for people like you and me, college-educated readers of poetry who are turned off by the more moralistic exponents of Christianity.

But even if we differ with Kathleen Norris on one or two things, we cannot reprehend her evident love of the monastic tradition (this, from a Presbyterian), nor can we find fault with the mellow, benevolent tenor of her prose; reading this book gives one a sensation not unlike that of hearing the Anglican monks sing their vesperal antiphons at the Charles River monastery.

Women have contributed much to the literature of 20th century Christianity, whether it be Caryll Houselander, or Evelyn Underhill, or Dorothy Day, or Marianne Moore (whose book-reviews frequently got quite metaphysical!). And there is a broad range of Christian apologetics by women: what kinship do we find between, let us say, Mother Angelica and Rosemary Radford Ruether? Kathleen Norris is between these two extremes, sometimes finding herself bewildered to be participating in the Christian liturgy at all!

When I was called for jury duty last January (a bitterly cold day in Boston/Cambridge, three degrees above zero), I brought this book, and four others, with me to the courthouse. The graceless tedium of waiting, waiting , waiting, was leavened and lightened somewhat by the gracefulness of Norris's meditations. Think of "Amazing Grace" -- if you like -- as a less austere version of Thomas Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation." A few passages will vex, but many more will enchant.