Holy Rover

Description

From her childhood on an Iowa farm, Lori Erickson grew up to travel the world as a writer specializing in holy sites—journeys that led her on an ever-deepening spiritual quest. In Holy Rover, she weaves her personal narrative with descriptions of a dozen pilgrimages. Her trips give Erickson the chance to reflect on her Lutheran upbringing, her flirtation with Wicca, and her admiration for Tibetan Buddhism. A trip to the healing shrine of Lourdes is intertwined with the story of her son's serious illness as a baby, while visiting Thoreau's Walden Pond blends with ruminations on being a writer. Along the way, Erickson encounters spiritual leaders who include the chief priest of the Icelandic pagan religion of Asatru, a Trappist monk at Thomas Merton's Gethsemani Abbey, and a Lakota retreat director at South Dakota's Bear Butte. Both irreverent and devout, Holy Roverincludes images of holy sites around the world taken by several of the...