A Pilgrimage beyond belief: Spiritual journeys through christian and buddhist monasteries of the american west
Angelico Press, 2017
This text is a revised and expanded version of Grace in the Desert. When Jossey-Bass accepted the first version, they asked me to cut some 15,000 words from it, primarily for monetary reasons. I did as they requested but always felt a sense of incompleteness about my experience. When I received the copyright back from Jossey-Bass I contacted Angelico Press. They were extremely gracious in accepting the full version of the story, a process for me of about a year to tuck into the narrative what I had excised initially. The result is a beautiful book, published in paper back and cloth. I now feel that the full story has been given expression.
GRACE IN THE DESERT: AWAKENING TO THE GIFTS OF MONASTIC LIFE
JOSSEY-BASS PUBLISHING, 2004
Foreword by Thomas Moore
This book documents a three-and-a-half month pilgrimage to 12 monasteries, retreat centers and Zen Buddhist centers in the western United States. The experience was transformative. Every day in the morning and evening, I jotted down reflections of my experiences, the people I met, the spiritual insights I had and the love I came to feel for the natural order on long hikes every day. I had no plans to write a book about my experiences, but the experience had other plans. The result is this abbreviated narrative of my pilgrimage, which was then revised and expanded into the book cited above. It is one of the most profound experiences of self-reflection and confronting so many of my own shadow material I believe I will ever write.