In The Cloister Walk, American poet Kathleen Norris takes the reader through her experiences with life in a Benedictine monastery. She writes 75 short tales, each one dealing with a different observation.. One thing that appealed to me about this book is that Kathleen Norris isn't a catholic, nor is she very into church. Her experiences at the monastery help her better understand herself, as well as others. This paper will attempt to link my experiences with those of Kathleen Norris's and the Catholic Tradition.

Kathleen Norris moves into the St. John's monastery and her book is based on her nine months there. She has a very poetic personality, and goes to the monastery in search of expanding her mind. She doesn't expect to find religious knowledge or to improve her relationship with God. "The monastic life," she says, "has this in common with the artistic one: both are attempts to pay close attention to objects, events, and natural phenomena that otherwise would get chewed up in the daily grind." There are a few main topics with which she pays special attention too, those of celibacy, community living, the liturgy, and time. Each of these topics relates very nicely to

The final subject that this paper will discuss is what Kathleen Norris says about time. "In our culture, time can seem like an enemy. But the monastic perspective welcomes time as a gift from God, and seeks to put it to good use rather than allowing us to be used up by it."

Norris has this to say about celibacy. "Celebate people have taught me that celibacy, practiced rightly, does indeed have something valuable to say to the rest of us. Specifically, they have helped me better appreciate both the nature of friendship, and what it means to be married." Although I cannot relate to the marriage aspect of this statement, I can relate to the friendship part. For 19 years of my life, I chose to remain celebate. The friendships that I formed in this time with members of the female sex have been very powerful. I can honestly say that I have experienced love without the physical part of my relationships being present. The perfect example of this is my best friend at Notre Dame. We can sit and talk all night long about absolutely anything, and we both know each other as well as ourselves. We help each other cope with the hard times, especially as of late, she has been at my side supporting and loving me the entire way. Should something physical step in the way of this at this point in time, I think that our friendship would be altered for the worst. This all relates to the Catholic tradition of remaining celebate until marriage. The reason the Catholic church does this is so people learn to develop emotional ties rather than physical ones. Should I ever marry this girl, it won't matter if there isn't any physical

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Approximate Word count = 1109
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)