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In Desert Pilgrim, lapsed Catholic, award winning author, and NPR commentator Mary Swander takes us on a journey of physical and spiritual healing. Having been in a car accident that injured her nech and subsequently caused an infection in her spinal fluid, Swander faced the possibility that she might never walk again. After months of painstaking recovery at home in Iowa, she is able to walk although she remains in constant pain. Offered a visiting professorship at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, it is here that Swander's healing journey begins in earnest. She meets two significant figures: Father Sergei, a Russian Orthodox priest whose church is in the slums along the once proud route 66; and Lulu, a curandera (Spanish for "healer") who runs an herbal pharmacy of sorts. Together, they will lead Mary on a path that will force her to confront her own deep, dark night of the soul, her lack of faith, and her growing distrust of authority--medical and spiritual. This journey leads her to explore sacred sites in New Mexico--the ancient healing waters of Jemez Springs, and the miraculous soil of El Santuario de Chimayo--as well as to revisit the teachings of Catholic thinkers and mystics such as Theresa of Avila, St. Francis of Assisi, and Hildegard of Bingen. The result is not only a beautifully written chronicle of physical healing, but a meditation on what it means to have faith in the modern world.