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Robert Henry Benson grew up in the shadow of a state mental asylum in South Texas, where the boundaries between the ordinary and the strange were never quite fixed. Raised in hardship, he left school in the ninth grade, not because he lacked ability, but because life in rural South Texas in the 1950s had its own relentless curriculum.
What followed was decades of improbable detours: construction scaffolding in San Marcos, a radio shop in Houston, a bull ride he probably shouldn't have survived, a chlorine gas incident that clarified certain priorities, and an unlikely passage through the corridors of academic physics.
A Small Tree in a Texas Hurricane is the story of a mind that wouldn't stay put, and a life that kept bending without breaking. It is funny, plainspoken, and quietly astonishing; a memoir rooted deep in Texas soil, reaching toward something larger than anyone around him thought possible.
Robert Benson
Robert Benson is an acclaimed author and retreat leader who writes and speaks on the art and the practicality of living a more contemplative and prayerful life in the modern world. He has published more than a dozen books about the search for and the discovery of the sacred in the midst of our everyday lives. His works include Between the Dreaming and the Coming True, Living Prayer and Digging In: Tending to Life in Your Own Backyard. His writing ranges from books on prayer and spirituality to travel and gardening to baseball and the Rule of St. Benedict. Benson's writing has been critically acclaimed in publications from the New York Times to USA Today toSpirituality & Health to the American Benedictine Review. He is an alumnus of The Academy for Spiritual Formation, a member of The Friends of Silence & of the Poor, and was recently named a Living Spiritual Teacher by Spirituality&Practice.com.
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