Book excerpt: In Brenda Miller's second collection of award-winning essays, the reader is drawn into a conversation on topics ranging from new dogs to old stained glass, from a walk in Portland's Japanese Garden to a sojourn in Jerusalem, from model airplanes to Magic 8 Balls. As in her acclaimed first collection, Season of the Body, Miller leads us on a pilgrimage through her life as a woman driven by spiritual yearning. Together, these essays prompt us to consider how our hard-won abilities to bless others become ways of blessing ourselves.