Searching for Your Soul: Writers of Many Faiths Share Their Personal Stories of Spiritual Discovery

Editor Katherine Kurs understands that a spiritually illuminated existence often requires bouts of darkness and isolation, which is why every story in this exquisite collection speaks so eloquently to this paradox. "Attempting to live a spiritual life can indeed be a confusing and painful experience beset with obstacles and detours, rather than filled with the bliss we might have expected," Kurs writes in her introduction. "The autobiographies collected in this anthology offer companionship, helping us to understand our own frequently perplexing journeys."

Kurs is also a connoisseur of excellent spiritual writing, evidenced by her list of contributors, such as Sue Bender, Malcolm X, bell hooks, Kathleen Norris, Mary Gordon, and Barbara Grizutti Harrison. In one essay, Terry Tempest Williams claims a spiritual mother in the land and water of the Great Salt Lake as her physical mother dies from cancer (which she suspects is caused by exposure to government atomic weaponry tests in Utah). Each essay contains vibrant images and language that bring the ethereal realm of spiritual awakening into the grounded stories of life on earth. --Gail Hudson