Glimpses of Mary

In Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris narrates her struggle to claim for herself the faith of her grandmothers. Frustrated with the institutional church, she nevertheless could not bring herself to leave it behind. She writes that the “strong old women” of the church kept drawing her in: “Their wellworn Bibles said to me, ‘there is more here than you know.’” I suspect that line reflects the experience of many of us who find ourselves compelled to study biblical texts and their times. Whether our interests are theological, historical, literary or some combination thereof, the Bible and its world […]