When W. Paul Jones discovered a frozen baby bird on his windowsill one frosty morning, the scene struck an emotional chord. Haunted by feelings of abandonment and failure all his life, Jones's search for God had led him from social activist to contemplative, from marriage to singlehood, from the world of academia to a life of solitude among the poor. In the candid manner of Kathleen Norris's Cloister Walk, Jones recounts his "strange and wild" spiritual journey in Teaching the Dead Bird to Sing: Living the Hermit Life Without and Within.