Becoming Anchoress: The Gift of Sacred Solitude - Paperback

We're told we need to open the door to find answers. What if we need to close one?

Maybe you don't need to do more. You need a room of your own-an anchorhold.

During my father's final years, I drove a wheezing minivan across the Kansas prairie while trying to outrun the noise in my own mind and the sorrow of all that was changing. I didn't need more productivity. I needed a different kind of attention.

In a red barn, I built a small anchorhold inspired by medieval anchoresses like Julian of Norwich. I entered it to be still and discover what remained when everything unnecessary fell away.

Behind that closed door, I found that solitude is not avoidance. It is presence.

Through tumbleweeds, fossils, snow geese, and the slow return of carrion to soil, the prairie became a teacher, offering lessons in surrender, trust, and the quiet art of becoming.

This book is an invitation to sacred solitude-not as an escape from the world, but as a way of returning to it with deeper attention.

You only need a door.

The willingness to close it.

And the courage to return changed.