Memoirs of a Spiritual Outsider

This is the story of the author's pilgrimage across America to find a spirituality that she, a faithless and spiritually bereft babyboomer, might be able to adpot. Along the way, she encounters young women who have embraced "outsider traditions", including Buddhism, Wicca, Yoga, Sufism, Shamanism and Voodoo. Temporarily, she joins each of them, a spiritual nomad, seeking that faith which, in one way or another is the backdrop to life.

Suzanne Clores gives voice to all the Christian expatriates who find themselves hungering for God and yet cannot find a satisfying meal no matter what religion or spiritual community they break bread with. We first meet Clores when she's an adolescent Catholic girl turned rebel and deserter. By the time she reaches her 20s, though, Clores is beginning to feel the hole in her life where God usually dwells. And so she takes on a familiar quest of the '90s, that of sifting through different beliefs in order to find spirit. At first she explores Wicca, then it's shamanism, then Voodoo, Yoga, Sufism, and Buddhism.

This may sound like a flighty journey, with the narrator drifting from one fad to another. Yet, Clores's honesty makes this read like a respectable quest. In every encounter she finds a souvenir of wisdom. Wicca teaches her to hold up a mirror when searching for God. In yoga Clores learns about the deeper implications of pushing limits. From Buddhism she discovers that mediation is "like love without the grief." In the end, there is no tidy package tied up with strings, no tear-wrenching return to Christianity. Rather, this is a mature memoir that speaks to a common dilemma--how to claim and develop one's spirituality outside of a religious container. --Gail Hudson