Get Thee To a Monastery

For most of her life, Pam Nolan, 45, found herself in a cold war with God. Her parents, disaffected Roman Catholics, left the church when she was 18, taking her with them. But more than a decade later, after the birth of her daughter, she made a slow creep back to religion, first as a Unitarian and then as a Methodist. But still her soul kept its distance. Then last year her church went on a retreat at the Abbey of the Genesee, a monastery in upstate New York. During a discussion, when a monk (and a recovering alcoholic), repeatedly said,...