I realized suddenly that I'd been most fortunate in being given another chance to encounter worship, in middle age, in a context that restored to me the true religion of my childhood, which was song. For me, participating in monastic lectio has meant rediscovering a religion that consists not so much of ideas or doctrines but of song and breath. It's encountering the words of scripture in such a way that they become as alive as the people around me. As Emily Dickinson put it, words that "breathe."

— Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk