American culture is seeing two apparently opposed trajectories: the science that religious belief improves quality of life, and the statistics that show Americans are increasingly rejecting organized religion. But that doesn't necessarily add up to a rejection of spirituality. The same people who've stopped going to the chapel or stopped tithing at the church are finding their own rituals and belief systems. Drawing on hodgepodge of traditional worship trappings - incense, candles, prayers - this "do it yourself" faction is finding meaning outside the four walls of mainstream religion.

Katherine Ozment's book "Grace Without God" grew out of a desire to answer her son's profound questions about life's meaning. In the book and in her many articles, she probes the common ground between the secular and religious, and the reach of these questions into politics and larger culture.
 

Award-winning journalist Katherine Ozment has worked in publishing for more than twenty-five years, including as a senior editor at National Geographic. Her personal essays and reportage have been widely published in the National Geographic, The New York Times, Boston, Salon, and Fitness.

Ozment graduated from Harvard College and received her Masters in Writing from DePaul University. She lives in Chicago with her husband, an environmental economist at The University of Chicago, and their three children.