It had been twenty-five years and another lifetime ago since I’d last seen my Bethany friends (Bethany College of Missions was where I got my start in Christian publishing back in 1980s).
We had all been through a lot in those intervening years. But it was so wonderful to catch up!
I was so grateful for the warm welcome we received at St. Thomas More Parish in Pottstown, PA . More is the patron of adopted children, and Pennsylvania will always be for us the place where went through the most trying time of our lives together, when Chris was placed in therapeutic care for over a year. I’ve never talked about that time publicly before … but afterwards a mother came up to me with tears in her eyes, “That happened to us, too, our foster child. Unless you have been through it, it’s hard to understand. Thanks for sharing your story.”
We were unable to see Sarah Christmyer, who was sick… but we reconnected with several other PA/Ascension friends. So grateful!
Next day Craig and I continued to “Pray Across America” at the National Padre Pio Center in Barto, PA.
Driving across the state yesterday, it felt like we were welcomed into an Ansel Adams painting, snow frosting the trees as far as the eye can see.
Thought I’d take a few minutes to recap first week. The first week of our tour took us from the Church of the Little Flower and the Ukrainian National Shrine of the Holy Family…
It’s official. We have moved. Had a buyer for our house in two days, creating a logistical nightmare of epic proportions as Craig and Chris labored to find a place — ANYplace— to put boxes and boxes of a lifetime of family.
Then the snow started.
Then the septic tank started leaking in the basement.
Long story short, it had been an adventure of a lifetime. It reminded me to be thankful for things like flushing toilets and hot showers and, well, if I ever find my crockpot I will be thankful for that, too.
But most of all, I am thankful for … this.
Outside my office window today. The steady rainfall is soothing, coaxing me to return to the soft, warm nest where my husband is dozing. But a manuscript is calling, and I need to finish it up. So … onwards and upwards.
I’ve been told (by those who have experienced both life-changing events) that there are some surprising similarities between writing a book and giving birth to a child: The process can often be painful, messy, and even a little embarrassing. But there is great joy in the end. Because of this, I like to offer a Rosary on Fridays for my authors.
In his book Forgiveness Makes You Free, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga (RIP) writes about the “rosary of my life,” identifying five painful moments from his own life that he continually offered back to God (see pages 10-15). His early memories of his parents, both of whom were killed at different stages of the genocide, were recollected in these mysteries.
As writers, we can take a cue from Fr. Ubald and use the Rosary as a tool to identify the moments of our lives that have shaped us, and to see even the painful moments of our lives as therapeutic and spiritually enriching.
So let me begin by asking you: If you were to write your own mysteries, what five events would they include?
Until you get to know them, editors can be scary people. But with some concentrated effort, and a little knowhow about the care and feeding of these elusive creatures, you too can become a published author!
For Catholic non-fiction authors writing their first book, the key to your success will be how close your proposed book “fits” with your existing ministry. And one of the best ways to show that is by having a strong online presence. (It’s not the only way, but it’s the first thing I look for as an acquisitions editor.) Here are three things you can do to make your proposal irresistible!
Investing some time and effort into these preliminary steps can make a HUGE difference in how well your proposal is received by a publishing team. If you are already a published author … what other advice would YOU give?
If you have made it this far in the 20th anniversary edition of the “40 Day Challenge,” you discovered that I made it only a little over half-way before a previous edition kicked in.
There’s a reason for that. Though I didn’t originally intend to drop the ball, at a certain point I realized that I had to choose between getting the series done by Easter … or take one for the team and admit that I didn’t have the bandwidth to do both this and everything else.
While perseverance is an important part of marital success, I’ve also found that finishing something just to say that you’ve finished it is not always a good thing. Whether it’s a trashy novel or a frost-bitten half-pint of Ben and Jerry’s, there are times when it’s really, truly okay NOT to persevere. (While that doesn’t apply to marriage in general, it does provide food for thought about the millions of little decisions we make within that holy huddle.)
In twenty years of marriage, I’ve discovered that our capacities — physical, mental, and financial — change, and often shrink. Now my husband’s energy stores quickly become depleted when he attempts to work several twenty-hour days in succession. I’ve found my sense of humor grows equally in short supply when attempting to be everywhere and do everything at once.
For both of us, when we try to be and do too much, one of the first things that suffers is our relationship. He becomes loquacious, I become irritable. We retreat to opposite ends of the house, instead of meeting in the middle (after the kids and my mother turn in) for a cuddle. And don’t even get me started on what this does to the sex life.
Middle age is a time of transition, a time to dig deep in the storehouse of wisdom that we’ve acquired over time and with experience. So, in closing, I’d like to offer this one last “Prayer of Abandonment: Twenty-Year Edition.”
My darling,
Let us continue to abandon ourselves, come what may,
not knowing what the future holds, but confident in the One who does.
Let us be ready for inevitable change, and lingering struggles.
Let us say “I do” to each other, over and over and over again.
I offer you all that I am, and all that I have,
to claim or ignore or appropriate, as needed.
Let the love that we have continue to grow,
and to reflect in some small way the Perfection
to which we try to surrender ourselves, body and soul,
until at last we see the Glory.
St. Charles de Foucauld, pray for us.
I recently hired someone to redesign my website in preparation for the launch of my new book with Ave, The Ave Prayer Book for Catholic Mothers (October 2021). It’s all very exciting and believe me, you will be hearing more about it … but today I want to tell you about a different book. (More of a booklet, really.)
The 40 Day Marriage Adventure will be made available in the next few weeks — I created the booklet from a series of Lenten posts from 2012 — as a daily prayer exercise you can do on your own or with your spouse to give your marriage a “faith lift”. Each day begins with the “Prayer of Abandonment” by Bl. Charles de Foucauld, which was gifted to me by one of my seminary professors who told me, “If you want to transform yourself, pray this every day. If you want to transform your marriage, say it to your HUSBAND.”
He was right about the first part. This prayer has been a tremendous blessing to me, especially during those times when life became overly stressful and I caught myself resorting to the kind of controlling behavior that tends to backfire in a big way. So … if you’re interested in getting the download, hang in there. It should be available soon.
In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Blessed Charles (who I understand is on the fast track to being declared a saint, fingers crossed), you can also check out a beautiful website on this desert saint by Fr. Lenny Tighe, a retired priest from Boston who has been promoting the life and message of Brother Charles in the U.S. for many years. He has prayer cards in English and Spanish available. He writes,
“I have been promoting the life and message of Charles de Foucauld in the US for many years. I am humbly called ‘all things Charles de Foucauld,’ and I have given out thousands of prayer cards of the Abandonment Prayer.” He also has a Facebook group on this saint.
This morning I cracked open my brand-new Ave Catholic Note-Taking Bible, wondering what God might have to say to me as I begin a new work day. Craig is in Portland on a business trip with his brother, and though he called me last night to tell me they had arrived safely, I couldn’t shake the sense of dread I felt about them flying in his brother’s jet. Small planes terrify me, and the thought of two sixty-something brothers cavorting in the clouds does not ease my mind one iota. I am not prepared to let my husband fly away to glory. Not yet.
Before he left, Craig and I talked about someone who would be going on that same trip, that same plane, someone whose destructive life choices had fractured his family. I had reminded Craig of the great lengths God will go to at times to get our attention, to get us to turn back to him. “We need to just keep praying,” I said to Craig. “That God will get his attention somehow.”
So … imagine my horror to open the Bible this morning and read…
Truly no man can ransom himself, or give to God the price of his life,
for the ransom of his life is costly, and can never suffice,
that he should continue to live on for ever, and never see the Pit.
Yes, he shall see that even the wise die,
the fool and the stupid alike must perish
and leave their wealth to others…. .
Psalm 49:7-10
The thought came to me: What would I be willing to sacrifice for this person to turn back to God? Would I be willing to trust God to do whatever it takes … no matter what?
The answer is “I don’t know.” I hope and pray God doesn’t require that of me, and that Craig will fly back and return to me unharmed. But at that moment all I could think of were my self-righteous words yesterday, and how God must have heard them and decided I needed a lesson in compassion. How quick I was to wish folly on another human being (in the guise of “spiritual awakening”) so long as it didn’t cost me anything, and all I had to do was sit back and wait for the fireworks.
But this morning I was reminded: redemption always comes at a cost. And very often, that cost may be the one thing we hold most dear. Am I willing — as Abram was willing — to trust him by putting my all on the altar?
So help me, God.
Life on the Road Less Traveled 