Grace in the Desert Awakening to the Gifts of Monastic Life

A gentle and reflective introduction to the monastic life for anyone considering a spiritual retreat "Dennis Patrick Slattery invites us to journey with him to experience the sacredness of everyday life at the monastic retreat centers he visits as well as on the paths and desert mountain ranges he walks. In this courageous journey of the heart, the author weaves his poetic reflections with the teachings of many writers. A stunning spiritual journey." –maureen murdock, author, The Heroine’s Journey, Unreliable Truth, and Monday Morning Memoirs "In his memoir, Dennis Patrick Slattery writes of a journey that is simultaneously inward and outward with an almost Augustinian appreciation of the ‘sweetness’ of things. With a writer’s relish and a mystic’s sensitivity, he describes . . . making his way from a stay at one monastic community after another." –christine downing, author, The Goddess and The Long Journey Home "Those who read Grace in the Desert have an opportunity to travel through the desert of the dark night of the soul to the mountain of the light of divine knowledge, to the cloud of unknowing which wraps us in the radiant darkness of divine love. It is one of the most reflective, richly poetic, and yes, spiritually uplifting ‘journals of the soul’ I have been privileged to read." –peter c. phan, The Ignacio Ellacuria Professor of Catholic Thought, Georgetown University; author, Journeys at Margins "This is a marvelous and inspiring book that serves not only as a practical and historical guide to contemporary monastic retreats in the American West but also as a reminder of how much we need to seek out periods of meditative solitude in our lives." –evans lansing smith, author, The Modernist Nekyia and Sacred Mysteries "Dennis reveals himself as a child of God at play in the fields of the Lord. His delight in the spiritual world is palpable, contagious. His decades–long habit of reflection has borne fruit in this compelling record of what continues to be a sacramental journey." –allen tate wood, author, Moonstruck