Feb 20, 6pm, Collected Works
Our own Deborah Douglas talks about her recent book, The Pilgrim Life: Finding God Along the Way, at Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse, Feb 20th at 6pm. Deborah invites readers to find God in places of surprise—in the dark, in the deep, in the silence. She introduces her readers to poems, saints, the lost and lonely, fearful and faithful pilgrims. Also on Zoom.
Collected Works Bookstore & Coffeehouse is located at 202 Galisteo St, Santa Fe, NM 87501. This will be an in-store event and live-streamed to Zoom, register for Zoom here. You can order The Pilgrim Life ($23) from CW by calling the store at (505) 988-4226.
From the Event Description on Collected Works:
“Deborah Douglas’ book on pilgrimage is a rich tapestry of invitation and insight. A modern mystic and spiritual guide, Douglas exquisitely weaves the wisdom of the mystics of yore with her own experience in a way that beckons us to explore the depth and breadth of our own encounters with God and one another.”—The Rev. Canon Jan Naylor Cope, Provost, Washington National Cathedral
Whether or not we ever “go on pilgrimage” like Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims—whether we ever leave the place we were born—our lives are journeys: as people of faith, we go where God sends us, and God goes with us everywhere (although sometimes hidden or disguised). As most true pilgrims discover, the journey is rarely an uncomplicated affair of “there and back again.” The course of our ordinary lives tends to follow a grittier, less predictable trajectory: we start out, we lose our way; we meet unexpected dangers, obstacles, opportunities, and blessings. But God in our lives of faith does not only set us on our way: God is with us always. The essays in this book invite the reader to see the ways God has sent, and saved, and guided us, all the days of our lives.
About the Author
Enthralled by the magic of words since early childhood, Deborah Smith Douglas has always found refuge and strength in reading and writing. She received degrees in literature and law, which strengthened her love of language and longing for order in human affairs. Raised in the Presbyterian Church in a Mennonite community in central Kansas, spending summers with Lutheran and Baptist grandparents, she began attending Episcopal services and reading Catholic and Jewish theology in college. She is at home in many faith contexts and ecumenical settings.
An Ignatian-trained spiritual director, Camaldolese Benedictine oblate, member of the Episcopal Church and the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, she has taught classes and led retreats across the United States and Britain. Her essays and poems have been published in Weavings, Commonweal, Spiritual Life, Desert Call, The American Benedictine Review, The Christian Century, and other periodicals. She is the author of The Praying Life: Seeking God in All Things (Morehouse 2003) and (with her husband David Douglas) the co-author of Pilgrims in the Kingdom: Travels in Christian Britain (Upper Room 2004). She has been writer-in-residence at the Episcopal Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, North Carolina; visiting scholar at the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas; faculty at a writers’ workshop at Corban University in Salem, Oregon; adjunct faculty in the Master’s in Spirituality program at Oblate Seminary in San Antonio, Texas; a keynote speaker at the millennial celebration of the Camaldolese Benedictines at Asilomar, California; and chaplain for The Glen, an artists’ and writers’ workshop sponsored by Seattle Pacific University in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She and her husband have lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico for more than forty years; they enjoy reading, traveling, hiking, and time with friends and family (including five young grandchildren).