Light in the Shoe Shop offers readers a unique and intimate glance into the day-to-day experience of living the cloistered life in feminine mode. In her cobbler s contemplations no metaphor here: the author did indeed make and mend her sisters shoes for many yearsMother Agnes reveals the very simple secret of monastic life, a secret she shows to be an inseparable combination of mindfulness and fidelity. It is continual mindfulness of God s transformative presence and action and, in response, equally continual fidelity to each of the minutely detailed ways in which that loving divine presence woos the contemplative s heart. Even those who strive for a more contemplative life outside of literal cloisters will find her reflections to be a great gift and inspiration. This book is decidedly not just one more item in the picturesque genre of the nun s story. Rather, for all its slenderness, the volume bears a strong witness to the fact that a human life that stakes its all on loving will gradually become transfused with light. From the foreword by Simeon Leiva, OCSO"