Debra Pickett

"I've been doing this for a long time," says Norris, who was raised in a Protestant church but has also lived as part of a monastic community, "moving back and forth between different worlds, like Catholic and Protestant, just because of the way my life has gone."

When she was in Abilene, she says, her audience was extremely welcoming "because they're happy that someone is writing books that talk about faith, that these books are trying to explore the Christian faith, not just put it down reflexively."

And, Norris, 58, says, as she scans the diverse lunchtime crowd at Winberie's in Oak Park, there is plenty of common ground between her red state readers and her fans here in granola-crunchy Oak Park.

"We share common enemies," she says, "like the consumer culture and the celebrity culture that says your life isn't worth anything unless you're on television."

Norris, an accomplished poet and memoirist as well as a scholar of religion, seems to have a knack for finding unexpected common ground. She sees, for example, many similarities between her hometown in northwest South Dakota and the Honolulu neighborhood where she now lives.

"There are some parts of the [Hawaiian] islands where the demographics are similar to those on Indian reservations," she says, describing the living conditions of many native Hawaiians.

And, even more, she adds, there is something uniquely insular about each place, where a cluster of people lives far away from the bulk of the population.

'More convenient for marketers'

A certain weariness seems evident in Norris' manner. She has been traveling, of course, and she has experienced jet lag so pronounced that it has caused her, quite uncharacteristically, to skip morning prayers with her hosts at Dominican.

But Norris, who lost her father in 2002 and her husband in 2003 and is now the primary caregiver for her 88-year-old mother, makes an almost-visible effort to convey energy and enthusiasm.

"Sounds sinful," she remarks, with a hint of mischief, as she reads over the description of a pasta dish on the lunch menu. When the waitress arrives, Norris orders the penne and shrimp dish without hesitation.

Our conversation wanders back to Norris' idea that religious communities, of every denomination, have more commonalities than differences.

This, I point out, seems to run counter to the conventional "two Americas" wisdom that seems to govern modern sociological thought.

"Two Americas," she muses. "I don't think that's true. I really don't. Things just don't translate that neatly. But it's more convenient for marketers to think about it that way."

Her work, she says, especially her poetry, attempts to transcend those reductive demographics.

"When you hear a poem," she says, "you're not being sold anything. And that's so rare these days because everything is for sale."

'Faith has dry patches'

Even in the realm of spirituality, she says, a certain marketplace mentality governs people's behavior.

"Americans like to have choices," she says. "We like options, and to be in control. ... This can be good, but it can also be a dead end, this seeking, just for its own sake, like shopping. Sometimes, you have to stop seeking. Sometimes, it's a matter of sitting still and letting yourself be found."

Still, she says, there is the tricky matter of knowing when to sit and when you must move on.

"Faith has dry patches," she says, "especially when you're grieving. So I remember how exciting it was when I first rediscovered my faith, and I feel, sometimes, that I've lost that.

"I would never say that God is dead, but there have been times I'd have said that I'm half dead, or at least that I'm out of touch. . . . There is that danger that because you're old and tired, everything is old and tired."

Visiting college campuses -- and Norris will speak at both Dominican and North Park University in Chicago -- is one way to stave off the old, tired feeling, Norris says.

Her periodic returns to monastic life are another.

"I have a sort of mental map of the United States, where the monasteries are," she says, explaining that she tries to structure her travel schedule so that she can spend occasional weeks revisiting the quiet, simple world she chronicled in The Cloister Walk.

Between retreats, she says, "You do the best you can to make faith work in the real world where you have to live."

She takes an exuberant, luxuriating bite of her rich lunch and savors the taste of it.