In this highly personal account of an ex-nun's transition from a cloistered, disciplined life, to a life in the world, confronting her human feelings and making her own decisions, Karen Armstrong discusses frankly and with humor her process of coping with the shifting values and lifestyles of the secular world. It is a revealing account of her discovery that the spiritual vocation can be an ever-changing journey into life. She is author of Beginning...

"An astonishing memoir of twelve years as a contemplative nun in a silent monastery. Cloistered takes the reader deep into the hidden world of a traditional Carmelite monastery as it approaches the third Millennium and tells the story of an intense personal journey into and out of an enclosed life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Finding an apparently perfect world at Akenside Priory, in Northumberland, Catherine trusts herself to a group of twenty...

The son of a former priest and nun documents his life, describing his childhood in mid-twentieth-century Boston and a family life spent ministering to the inner-city poor.