This course explores the imperatives, challenges, and revelations of the spiritual life through a three-fold, reflexive, intertextual process: 1) close reading and discussion of contemporary, first-person narratives by diverse authors (essays and books; memoir and autobiography); 2) personal, written reflections; and 3) the creation of your own florilegium: a compendium of the fragments and passages in our readings that you have highlighted, along with your commentary and annotations. This process, of intentional sacred reading, writing, and compilation/anthologizing, will result, by term’s end, in your own spiritual “scrapbook”: a repository of insights and, hopefully, some measure of wisdom, that you can consult and add to, long after term concludes. We will eschew conventional tropes in this genre (religious conversion, loss of faith, etc.) and practices (prayer, etc.) and instead focus on themes such as: the body, eros, desire; suffering, loss, exile, homecoming; navigating multiple identities/commitments/cultures; heritage, family, ancestors, cell memory, tradition; secrets and longing; surrender and oblivion; borderlands, belonging, and outsider-ness; despair, sorrow, forgiveness, and reconciliation. NOTE: This course is not open to students who have taken FYS/LNGC 1400 or LREL 2000 The Spiritual Autobiography.