Padovano remarks early in this book that "biography is spirituality," and uses Merton's life to guide us back to what is sacred in our own normal lives. Indeed, for Padovano and Merton, the search for spirituality is nothing less than the pursuit of being perfectly normal--or as Padovano might say, being normal, perfectly.

This small book has much to offer. Padovano's insight into Merton's "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander" is especially compelling, as it should be, coming from a writer who has himself chosen not to be a bystander but instead to aspire to being perfectly normal, or rather--as Padovano might say--being normal, perfectly.

Also, Padovano's writing, here and elsewhere, offers a much needed antidote to all the goofiness that parades itself as "spiritual" or "metaphysical" in contemp culture. As Padovano says of Merton's own writing, "spirituality is biography."