The Monastic Cloister of My Heart: Poetic Reflections and Prayers from the Edge of Life

“In Gerry Straub’s prose poems, we are gifted with a lifetime of change and transformation to help us all on our own journeys. The Monastic Cloister of My Heart will delight you with love—unconditional love, nonviolent love, and preexistent love. . . .”—Fr. Paul MilanowskiAfter spending fifteen years making documentary films on global poverty in eleven of the poorest nations, Gerry Straub chose to live with the poor in Haiti, founding the Santa Chiara Children’s Center in 2015. He lives in a slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which became increasingly dangerous due to gang violence, resulting in 15,000 deaths in 2023–2024. Despite his harsh living conditions, between 2022 and 2024, Straub managed to write three books, including Reading Thomas Merton and Longing for God in Haiti. In October 2024, Gerry was forced into exile. Unexpectedly, he had time to write more deeply from his heart. In the early months of his exile, Gerry finished and published an epic spiritual memoir, The Cross of Love, The Pain of Poverty, which chronicled his combined quarter-century of documenting global poverty and living with the poor in Port-au-Prince. As the months of solitude rolled by, Straub began writing short poetic, spiritual reflections he shared in his Haiti Journal sent to donors. In the prelude, he writes:I was surprised how well they were received. They were simple, clear, and sparse. They invited the reader to read more slowly. As the collection of reflections grew, I began seeing a book of them emerge. I liked seeing all the white space on each page, which was more conducive to prompting meditative space for the reader. And so, The Monastic Cloister of My Heart slowly emerged. Straub hopes the book fosters stillness and silence and awakens the reader’s contemplative heart, leading to more peace within our fast-paced, fragmented, and often divisive modern culture. Read more