Reluctant Pilgrim: A Moody, Somewhat Self-Indulgent Introvert's Search for Spiritual Community

Love God; Hate Church? That's the way many contemporary spiritual but not religious types might describe their feeling sabout faith. Such readers will find a trustworthy companion in Enuma Okoro, a purse-shopping, tea-drinking, colon-cleansing postmodern friend of Jesus who just wants to find a godly man with good hair. But after her father's unexpected death, her grief seems to morph into the panicky feeling that God wants something more from her, like maybe becoming a nun. As she seeks to unravel those feelings, Enuma Okoro takes us back to the places that formed her, from her first years in church at a parish in Queens, New York, to the years in West Africa where she collected crucifixes along with Richie Rich comic books, to her studies in Europe and the United States. Part Augustine, part Jane Austen with a side of Anne Lamott, Okoro attempts to reconcile her theological understanding of God's call to community with her painful and disappointing experiences of community in churches where she often felt unseen, pigeon-holed, or out of place. At times snarky and often luminous, laugh-out loud funny and vulnerably poignant, Reluctant Pilgrim is the no-holds-barred account of a woman who prays to savor God's goodness and never be satisfied; a daring, insightful and deeply moving field guide for the curious, the confused, and the convicted.

Enuma Okoro is the former director of the Center for Theological Writing at Duke University Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. Okoro is also a graduate of Duke University Divinity School. She is a freelance writer and a passionate retreat and workshop leader. Follow Okoro on her blog reluctantpilgrim.wordpress.com.