How many lives can one person live? Shane Phelan has stopped counting. Big Queer Nun is a powerful narrative of trauma, addiction, and recovery, of the search for a God who loves us as we are and invites us into more than we can imagine. From her childhood in an alcoholic home, through jails and hospitals, universities and convents and churches, coming out and living in closets, this memoir traces the winding path of integration. Refusing to settle for less than abundant life, she has been drawn by hope to a place of healing. As we read, she inspires us to keep creating our lives. "Shane Phelan's memoir is a love story. She seeks. She perceives hints of the Beloved in unlikely places. She finds, loses, finds again. The reader will not only enjoy a good tale, but recognize in it, the mysterious truth of love." -The Rev. Suzanne Guthrie, author, retreat leader, host of The Edge of Enclosure