In 1955, a small band of Trappist monks is sent from their mother house in Kentucky to Missouri to establish a new monastery. They arrive at a time in history when Jim Crow still flourished in the American South and where, in the Bible Belt, Roman Catholicism was viewed with deep distrust. The decade also predated the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In the fictional abbey of Our Lady of Saint Bernard, the monks still chant in Latin. The community consists of four groups: the choir monk priests, choir monk novices, scholastics on the path to priesthood, and lay brothers. The daily...

Leaving My Broken House is a tribute to the Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. This beautifully illustrated book is a haibun, a blend of prose and haiku verse, in the tradition of Basho's travel sketches from the late 1600s. It records the first year of a similar pilgrimage 300 years later by Saku-Jin (Evolving Man) across southern Oregon, a region nostalgically similar in its seasons and rugged topography to his beloved Japan. Like Basho, Saku-Jin describes not only the landscape and people he meets along the way, but also the spiritual journey advancing simultaneously within.