Monsignor Charles Murphy, PA, STD,is former rector of the North American College in Rome and, among other pastoral responsibilities in the Diocese of Portland, Maine, founded the permanent diaconate program . He is the author of several books, including At Home on Earth: Foundations for a Catholic Ethic of the Environment, Wallace Stevens: A Spiritual Poet in a Secular Age, and Belonging to God: A Personal Training Guide for the Deeper Catholic Spiritual Life. He holds a bachelor's degree in Latin and Greek from the College of the Holy Cross, a master's degree from Harvard, and the doctorate in sacred theology from the Gregorian University in Rome.

• CONTENTSINTRODUCTION: Reintroducing Emily Dickinson 9ONE PRAYING MYSTICALLY: “I dwell in Possibility” 19CONDITIONS FOR MYSTICAL PRAYERTWO SOLITUDE: “The Soul selects her own Society” 35THREE ASCETICISM: “The Banquet of Abstemiousness” 47FOUR PLACE: “I see - New Englandly” 57WHAT BRINGS US TO PRAYERFIVE THE DESIRE FOR LOVE: "I cannot live with You” 75SIX THE FEAR OF DEATH: “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” 89CONCLUSION: “My business is Circumference” 99NOTES 119

"Charles Murphy's examination of Emily Dickinson's poetry in the Christian mystical tradition adds another layer to the growing corpus of serious treatments of her work as so much more than simply private lyric verse. In brief compass and with great care, Murphy enlarges our sense of the possibilities that Dickinson's genius lays before us. No one who reads this book will ever think quite the same again about her poetry."Paul Lakeland, Fairfield University, author of The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination