ifestyle for diversion or the sake of a book. She takes the religious life seriously, but she maintains a sense of light-heartedness about herself that keeps the reader from feeling that she is trying in any way to indoctrinate or proselytize. As a lay Christian, Norris presents a portrait of the monastic life from the perspective of one with her feet planted sturdily in the ground of everyday reality. What attracts her most to the monastic life is not the dogma of the Church (she is, after all, a Protestant) and not the ritualistic life of the monks, although she certainly values the role of the latter role in building spiritual habits in the monastery.
What attracts her most to the monastery life is the opportunity it offers her to deepen her own spiritual journey to God. Her moving into the monastery is her offering of herself to God, although she does so with utmost humility. She tells the "oblate director": "I can't imagine why God would want me, of all people, as an offering. But if God is foolish enough to take me as I am, I guess I'd better do it" (Norris xviii). Still, she sees herself not as a monk who will leave the world behind, but as a simple individual from the everyday world who honors the spiritual component of both the monastery life and her life as a woman and a wife:
One pleasant surprise for me in writing this book is the way that my marriage came to weav
...