Karper describes a world where life is rich in being rather than having. Her hermit life in a West Virginia holler is told via deftly drawn vignettes which draw the reader into a spiritual world.
Karen Karper (Fredette) left a monastery in Ohio where she'd spent thirty years to migrate to rural West Virginia in 1989 to spend six years as a hermit in voluntary poverty and simplicity. In this inspiring, vividly composed and always faithful book, she describes a world where life is rich in being rather than in having. Selected as a Catholic Book of the Month, "Where God Begins to Be" fulfills Murray Bodo's observation that "...instead of myth fabricated from a few fragments, we have here the details -- the nitty-gritty, muddy details -- of a hermit's daily living." Karen is a "Seer who brings you along with her, joyfully." (Richard Rohr) "In deftly drawn vignettes, Karper's story, told with simplicity and gentle honesty, is one of faith deepening, beauty awakening, and love discovered." (Gerald May)
Excerpt
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood ... and I, I took the one less traveled by ...
In actual fact, the woods weren't yellow - they were May green and drooping in a downpour. The "less traveled road" wasn't leaf-covered but deeply rutted, steep and muddy. And I traveled it not on foot but clinging to the dashboard of a bouncing pickup...and I had doubts that even if I arrived at the end, it would make any difference. I only intended to make a courtesy call on some friends and then escape this alien and appalling terrain.
With the help of a sister-friend, I had just packed up my Bronco and said farewell to the little place on the edge of a mountain in West Virginia where I had spent the past three months testing my call to solitude. I was on my way back to the monastery in Ohio but had decided to accept an invitation from two Franciscan sisters to visit their isolated dwelling place in an Appalachian valley called Colt Run holler. Although I was looking for a place to live more permanently as a hermit, I highly doubted that it would be in this poverty stricken holler. How wrong can one be!
This exceptional book, Celebrating the Gift of Being Alive, has the perfect thoughts and words for birthdays, graduations, engagements, marriages, and any life celebration or family tradition.
In "A Touch of Your Presence" are words that would inspire, encourage and strengthen one's soul when faced with challenges and difficulties and to know the awesomeness of God's power.
