International writer and lecturer Joan Chittister offers here an insightful, passionate, and honest exploration of the religious life, a life lived entirely through the filter of the Gospel. Not just aimed at those who may be on the point of deciding whether they ought to think about entering religious life themselves, this book is for all people who care about the place and nature of religious life in the Christian community, since it has shaped generation after generation of the church. What is religious life?; what is it attempting to do?; what has it become in the last fifty years?; and what value is it to anybody, whether they want to be a part of it or not? These are some of the questions Chittister takes on in this book.