Author: JenniferFitz

7 Takes: Late to the Game

1.

Nancy Ward at JoyAlive.net is running part 1 of my reversion story today.  You of course have already read it, because you’re a NewEvangelizers.com junkie.

But what you don’t know is . . . Dorian Speed e-mailed me to tell me my author photo looks “classy”.  Heehee.  Every time I see it, it reminds me of Joe Wetterling.  Scroll down to the bottom of his column to see his profile pic. See the resemblance?

So I guess it is classy.  I’d be pretty happy if people accidentally confused me and Joe Mr. Wetterling.  He’s so top notch I can’t decide if he belongs in the “first name” group because he’s such a nice guy and I e-mailed him once, or last-name group, because, you know, he’s Mr. Wetterling.

2.

If you’ve written a good Catholic book, I’d like you to submit it for the Catholic Writers Guild’s Seal of Approval.  I am asking you to do this because I’m one of the SOA readers, and I like getting free books in the mail.

But you could also do it because Catholic bookstores use it as their signal that the book is genuinely Catholic, and that they shouldn’t be afraid to put it on their shelves.

[If your book has an imprimatur, you’re set.  But you can still give me a free copy, I don’t mind.]

FYI the standard for the SOA is just plain-old-Catholic, which I love.  You don’t have to be dripping with piety, or campaigning for a return of the Three Hour Fast, or anything uber-Catholic (though you can be — any legitimate Catholic opinion is fair game).  I’m pretty sure that Not Specifically Catholic books are acceptable as well, but e-mail the committee person at soa[at] catholicwritersguild.com to double-check on the criteria.  I’m not the Queen of the SOA, I just read my pile and fill out my little survey.

3.

My refrigerator is 70% less disgusting than it was just this morning.  I do not say it is clean.  But less scary.  Yes.  70% less.

4.

You are wondering right now, “How can she clean her refrigerator and homeschool at the same time?”  Well I can’t.  The big kids did their course plans (so they tell me), but the littles had Home Ec today.  And while I know that Finding Out That Refrigerators Need To Be Cleaned is not on any state-mandated curricula, 99.5% of college and workplace janitorial staff surveyed agreed that it should be.

–> If one day you live or work with my offspring, and the refrigerator is 70% less disgusting than the average shared appliance, you can thank me.  If it’s not, put them in time-out.

5.

My 3rd-grader who has special handwriting-needs likes the LetterSchool app. She also likes it when I make her pink stuffed bunny do a little dance, or when I give household items nicknames — “cute” is her genre.  [Yes, the app is for much younger children.  But she likes it.  Which means I like it.]  For remedial handwriting I like the BFHandwriting products — their handwriting app is a little slow-going for an older kid, but it’s good, I just wish they made an iPod version.

6.

Pinatas are expensive.  Tinkerbell Birthday Parties in general are expensive, but pinatas? Sheesh.

But as my six-year-old observed in the car yesterday, “I don’t want one of those homemade pinatas, because you think you’re making a pinata, but it just turns out looking like a pile of paper.”

After pricing the store-bought version, and determining that today was not my day to suddenly grow a new craft skill, I stalled. Then I negotiated a compromise. Our Tinker sifted through her vast collection of previously-colored, large-format Tinkerbell coloring sheets, and picked two that were less-than-perfect.

We taped one poster to each side of a paper bag, and filled it with candy.  I have a feeling once all the Halloween candy drops on the ground, no one will really mind the minor imperfections in the artwork.

7.

Yes, her birthday was in July.

 

 

Thanks to our hostess, the very real Jen Fulwiler.  Pray for Allie Hathaway, then visit Jen’s site, Scorpions Are Us ConversionDiary.com Camp Patton to see more quick takes.

How’s the parish doing? Depends on who you ask.

OSV reported the other week on CARA’s most recent survey of parish leaders.  The money quote:

The latest survey shows that parish ministry leaders, for the most part, are satisfied with their work, which they see as a calling, and believe that their individual parishes are meeting their communities’ spiritual needs.

And this is what you’d hope. I’ve never met someone in ministry who was going at it indifferently.  Church staff work hard and give it their best.  Volunteers pour out their time and energy, a free gift, given in love. They can see that what they do matters.

When I teach religious ed, I’m encouraged by the number of students who think my classes are fantabulous.  But then there’s the other ones.  The kid who quietly disappears mid-year.  The mom that told me this summer, “My daughter dreaded your class.”  (It was an easily fixable problem — nervousness about the test — but one I could not know about, until someone told me.  I’m glad Mom told me, however belatedly.)

The parish leadership survey unwittingly uncovers a terrible problem, though: Most parish leaders think they’re doing just fine.

Well, we aren’t.

It’s easy to dismiss the person who pew who “won’t get involved”.  Those types must not care about their faith, we say.  They just want to complain. They don’t want to be part of the solution.  Hmmn.  Maybe.

But really?  Do people come to Mass each week, hoping to avoid the community of the faithful the other six days?  “Lord, I got up early on my day off to come to this place,  please don’t get me interested in learning about You, or serving You, the other hours of the week.”  Is someone kneeling in the pew before Mass, praying, “Dear Jesus,  I sit every week next to these other Christians . . . please keep me from becoming friends with any of them.  I already have all the friends I can stand.”

No.

Lapsed Catholics are a thornier situation yet.  A vast and complicated problem, with no single answer.  But I know Catholics — earnest, lifelong, pious Catholics — who leave the Church.  Because it stinks.  Because they were in a crisis and nobody noticed, let alone cared.  Because the Church-ocracy demon is out of control, creating a thousand bureaucratic hurdles in the name of “efficiency” or “thoroughness”.  Because the liturgy makes them want to hide under the pew until it’s over — or as happened once years ago when Jon and I were on vacation, my then-protestant husband turned to me and asked, “Are you sure this is a Catholic church?”

Are these good reasons to leave the Church?  They are understandable reasons.

We have the Eucharist, that’s reason to stay.  Have that, all the rest is details.   But goodness, the details.  We kid ourselves if we count only the satisfied customers.

Book Review: Anna Mei, Blessing in Disguise

I knew I had to pick Anna Mei, Blessing in Disguise for my latest Catholic Company review title, because otherwise my daughter would disown me.  I’d picked up the first Anna Mei title last winter, shopping at the Pauline Media table between breaks at a catechist training session.  My 10-year-old enjoyed the book, and I’d meant to read it, but never gotten around to it.  I’ve now fixed that problem, and of course created a new one: I need to buy Escape Artist to round out our collection.

About the series: Anna Mei, the title character, is the adopted Chinese daughter, and only child, of the Anderson family.  In the first book, Cartoon Girl, the family has just moved from Boston to a small town in Michigan. It’s Anna Mei’s first time being the new kid; she has to figure out how to make new friends and fit in, as well as come to terms with questions about her identity that had never been a problem before.  In Blessing in Disguise, Anna Mei is in 7th grade, and plagued by the visiting Chinese ex-pats her parents think should be her new best friends, but with whom Anna Mei feels she has nothing in common.

Who’s it for:  Older elementary and middle school girls. (Though I enjoyed reading them — I think they’re good mom books, too.)  The action is largely emotional — loads of inner turmoil, self-examination, and the occasional eye roll or shouting match; zero crime scenes, zombies, or ninjas.  It’s about the quintessential junior-high girl topics, identity and relationships.  Reading level is similar to the American Girl History Mystery Series.

Catholic Reality Index: High.  The setting is a good-but-normal public school.  The Andersons are practicing Catholics; they say grace before meals, they go to Mass on Sunday, and two or three times during the book we catch Anna Mei saying a quick prayer of desperation. But the action is set in everyday, universally-experienced life. Problems aren’t solved by rosary marathons or visions of saints, but through normal problem-solving techniques like talking-it-out, or working-really-hard.  For Catholic kids, the faith aspect will be an affirmation of their religious identity, but for non-Catholic readers, it’s just a normal story about a kid who happens to be Catholic.  Basic model, average-American 21st century suburban Catholic, no rad-trad crazes, no apologetics ax to grind, just normal everyday Catholics.

Parent Approval Index:  High.  Anna Mei’s a good kid.  When she does something wrong, her conscience bugs her.  She knows she shouldn’t lie, and usually doesn’t; when she does, she immediately regrets it. The Anderson parents are good-but-normal parents.  Not the enemy, not the idiot, not the clueless bumbler who has no idea what’s going on in the child’s life.  We see them consciously trying to make good parenting decisions; when Anna Mei’s at odds with her parents, it bothers her.

Hokiness Index: None.  With adoptive-child-turmoil as one of the themes, there was a real risk of handling the situation in a superficial, contrived, or melodramatic way.  You know all the stupid things bystanders say to adoptive parents.  None of that.  This is a well-adjusted, happy family, and Anna Mei’s problems fit into normal tweenage questions about friendship and family.  Very nicely done.

Verdict:  These are great books.  If you’re looking for clean, enjoyable fiction for your girls, these are fun, readable, and possibly even helpful as discussion-starters. Blessing in Disguise also has an extensive set of discussion questions at the end of the book, for use in book clubs or for school.

***

10-year-old reviewer says:

This book is a really great book.  It’s well-written.  And it’s just an awesome book.  I like how they’re set in modern times, but they’re not weirdly written and strange and boring.

On who would like the book:

I’d say people who like to read books about problems and finding out if there’s something behind the problem that they just didn’t expect, and the problem gets worked out at the end.  And everything turns out well.

***

As always, thanks to The Catholic Company for their spoiling-Catholic-bloggers program, in which people like me (and perhaps you, too) get free books in exchange for goofing off on the internet telling the world what we honestly think.  They remind me to tell you they are also a great online store for all your Catholic gift needs, such as baby baptism and christening gifts. You can also find a wide selection of Catholic Bible Studies for both parish groups and individuals, as well as a variety of other Catholic Bible study resources.

3.5 Time Outs: The Sitcom Life

As I’m writing this on Monday and getting it scheduled for Tuesday, it’s occurred to me that Sept. 11th is a serious day.  Also my niece’s birthday. Please feel free to commemorate more solemn matters, and come back here to my trivial  comedy of a life some other day.

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who has never made me laugh during Mass, but often at other times.

Click and be amazed.

1.

You know those movies where the lead characters acquire the run-down house/school/shop/bus/crematorium, and with the help of a fast-forward film sequence and a peppy soundtrack, they all pitch in and get the place cleaned up in about 2.5 minutes?  Complete with a spunky sign to announce their new venture?

I walked through my yard Sunday afternoon, and confirmed I am living in the “before” scene.

So now I just need some colorfully-dressed teenagers and a singing nun to descend on the place and fix it up.  Preferably before the Tinkerbell-themed birthday party this weekend.

2.

I’m not winning the holiness award.  Because if your group stands up at the start of Mass and warms-up by chanting “Yellow Leather Red Leather”? Yes.  I’m going to bust out laughing.  In church.

3.

But I’ll try do it quietly.  At least until I get to the parking lot.  Then I’m going to laugh very loudly.  And probably use the Lord’s name in vain, but then quickly convert it into a prayer of some nature, to do a kind of retroactive-save on that decidedly un-holy verbal reflex.

My son is 98%  holier than me, or at least 1 chromosome better suited for the priesthood (we knew that), because he kept a straight face the whole mass, and afterwards.  I was amazed.

3.5

. . . the Spanish Mass. [Where they do not do tongue-twister warm-ups — we’ve changed scenes completely.]  We have a new Spanish priest now, and he does not use the words “Jesus-Christo” and “Salvacion” as often as the previous one.  Which means I can no longer understand 5% of the homily, like I used to do under the old regime.  I do still like the mariachi mass, though.   So perky.

 

***

Still accepting suggestions for additions to the sidebar, so tell me who to add.  But do just one link per comment, because otherwise the robotic spam-dragon will consume the whole lot of them.  Thanks!

The Kolbe Reviews: Religion

Freedom’s just another word for “knowing what to do.” And then doing it.

I’ve been using the Faith and Life textbook series for homeschool religion since the boy was in first grade.  I loved it then, and still love it now.

 

What you get: Each book in the series has approximately 30 chapters, designed to be read one a week throughout the school year.  (Some years there are more chapters, some years less).  The reading is on grade-level, but the first grade book is designed to be a read-aloud, and the second grade book will be a read-aloud for some students.  Each chapter might be ten minutes worth of reading?  One day’s assignment. At the end of the chapter there are usually some vocabulary words, a scripture or prayer, and some catechism questions and answers.

All except the 2nd grade book feature gorgeous traditional artwork for the illustrations.  The second grade book uses contemporary-school-book genre stuff, but you’ll get over that insult when you get back to 3rd grade and the serious art resumes for the remainder of the series.

Each book has a theme — first grade covers Salvation 101, 2nd grade prepares students for the sacraments of reconciliation and communion, fourth grade is a survey of the Bible, sixth grade is heavy on the moral life.  Along the way you spiral through the essentials of the faith at an age-appropriate level, so it’s possible to jump right in at grade-level even if you haven’t used the texts before, or even ever studied the faith before.

The accompanying Activity Book is a consumable workbook with a combination of study questions and fun activities like coloring pages and crossword puzzles.  Together the two make a complete package for home use — the student does the reading, completes the study questions, and does any of the extra workbook pages as desired.  I let my kids write in the book, but if you did only the study questions on a separate paper, and no fun-and-games, you could pass the book down.

I have looked through the expansive (and expensive) teacher’s manuals, and they do contain a lot of helpful information for the catechist.  But for home use, I think these are not needed.  My advice for a parent who is not very knowledgeable of the faith would be to do the student reading along with the child, and then to learn more about the faith in general by picking out other good Catholic books on topics of interest.

UPDATED: Tara in the combox observes, and I would take her advice over mine:

I find them really really useful because I am not a catechist and I cannot make this stuff up. They have the answers for the activity book pages and have a test / quiz for each chapter and each section (again, answers supplied too). Unless you’re very confident and very experienced, I think they’re well worth the money.

FYI the teachers manuals are huge.  So priced comparably (even favorably) to other works offering similar amounts of info.

I’ve never used Faith and Life in the classroom.  My parish has always used some-other-brand.  I have talked to several catechists from other parishes who didn’t care for F&L, because of the strongly academic focus (a selling point for me — I love it), and because the style of the lessons didn’t call for crafts and activities and so forth.  We did do one test section of F&L for 8th grade last year, and the feedback I received at mid-year from the catechist teaching that class was very good.  Feedback from a 2nd-grade catechist at another parish was that course material was good, but the lessons worked best if the teacher had free reign to present the topics the way she thought the students would learn them best.   I think a lot depends on whether the parish in fact wants students to learn the faith with the rigor expected in other academic subjects, and whether the teacher has the experience and confidence to teach the material effectively.

What you don’t get in F&L:  There’s very little in the way of multicultural imagery, church geography, or even much for lives of saints.  This is a theology course, and you need to plan to fill out your students’ religious education with all the other stuff that makes up our faith and heritage.  If you are going to Mass, observing the feast days, living out in the wider world, praying as a family, and reading lives of saints as part of your literature curriculum, you’re in good shape.  Otherwise, plan to pick up some supplemental materials that will fill in your gaps.

About the Three Editions:  There’s original, revised, and 3rd edition to match the new mass translation.  Don’t worry about it.  If someone gives you an older edition, it’ll work fine. Every now and then one of the assignments won’t line up, but it’s not a big deal.  On the other hand, the books are fairly affordable new.  My personal approach is if I’m going to buy, I buy new, but I’m not upgrading my older stock.

Kolbe also uses the St. Jospeh Baltimore Catechism series.  These are retro-style catechisms, complete with an English translation of the mass that sounds almost like our new mass translation, because, get this: it’s translated straight from the Latin.  Because the books are that old.  The language is frank, the drawings are 1950’s-chic, and yes, I love this one too.  Great discovery.  If you want to justify mowing the lawn on Sundays, don’t let your kids read this book.  No toe left un-stomped.

The course plans.  For me as a catechist who happens to be a parent, the course plans primarily save me the work of writing up my own.  But I think they’d be one of the sets of plans worth purchasing if you aren’t registered with Kolbe, because each day’s and week’s assignments include a summary of the lesson topic, and points to clarify as you teach your student.  Lots of material in the plans.

The planned assignments do call for a lot of memorization and recitation.  Recall that as the teaching parent, you’re free to decide just how much of that memory work your student needs to do.

FYI: The Kolbe plans run on a four-day schedule, and are built around a tutoring-type environment, so they can’t be peeled off the page and inserted into a parish religious education program as-written.   That said, if I were Queen of Religious Ed (I’m not) and had the budget to match my imperial fantasy life, I’d want something like this to give to new and struggling catechists, because the plans to do a good job distilling the faith into the essentials.

***

Questions?  Comments?

7 Takes: Small Things with Great Drama

 

1.

Wanted, Neighbors: There are now two houses for sale across the street from me (one in foreclosure — bargain time!), one for rent on the other side, and another one that would be for sale except I think the owner decided there was no point in trying.  I know we’re a little goofy, and our lawn furniture is never straight, and the dog gets out sometimes . . . but I think it’s not us.  If anyone wants to colonize a neighborhood, it’s your big chance.  Low crime, convenient location, lawn-boy-in-residence, reasonable taxes — inferno living‘s never been this good.

2.

I left my rain jacket at the hotel last week.  Some other things that were with it, too, that I’d rather not be lost forever.  I’m usually very thorough about inspecting the room before I leave, but I was in a rush because we had to be out by noon, mid-conference, because the hotel was overbooked.  I called the hotel Sunday when I realized what had happened, but so far there’s no follow-up.  I’m hoping that’s because a saintly housekeeping lady (who I completely forgot to tip, which I hate, but like I said . . . rushed) saw to it that the whole package was put in the mail pronto, and it’ll all just show up at my door.

I’m glad I blogged about it, because yes, I had completely forgotten to involve St. Anthony up until this point.  Writing helps me remember things.

 

3.

I’ve come to divide the world into two kinds of places: Those with free, high-functioning WiFi, and those without.  I’m happy to be in either, as long as no one expects me to act like I’m in the one, when really I’m in the other.

4.

I’m the same age as my grandmother now.  She’s been “39 and holding” for as long as I can remember.

5.

My children don’t seem to believe me when I tell them that all I really want for my birthday is a clean house and no fighting.  My mom used to ask for the same thing.  Never got it.

6.

I did get a broken pencil sharpener, though, a gently-used colored pencil, and a piece of pink cellophane folded up to look like a “gem”.  And a piggy-bank.  I see my frugality-indoctrination program is starting to work.  Go kids!

7.

Also, my 5th grader made me a lovely card including money-words like “best mom in the world”.  She shares my penchant for exuberant overstatements.  Either that or the rest of you look out, because she can rattle off my faults the way school-kids can spit out a Pledge of Allegiance — practice yields speed.  So if I’m the best, I’m afraid that doesn’t say much about all you other moms.

Then again, I’m not sure she’s really surveyed the mom-population to verify her conclusions.  We’ll not tell her about sample-size just yet.  I’m enjoying my temporarily-elevated status.

 

Thanks to our hostess, Jen Fulwiler, keeping distracted bloggers 20% more organized since . . . a long time.  Pray for Allie Hathaway, then visit Jen’s site, Scorpions Are Us ConversionDiary.com to see more quick takes.

3.5 Time Outs: Back to Civilization

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who persuades me to write whether I ought to or not.

Click and be amazed.

1.

I’m enjoying being home again.  No more book-craziness for a while, kids are back to school and so far it’s going well, and I’m 10% less jet-lagged every day. If life stays normal, I might be a civilized person as soon as 2014.

2.

This past week, Julie Davis kept using the word “economics” in sentences directed at me.  I remembered vaguely something about having studied these topics in school, and maybe even having some marginal qualifications, and that I had initially started this blog to be about economics and history . . . sheesh.

But the weird thing:  All the whole time I was writing the catechist book, I was thinking, “I just need to knock this thing out so I can get back to my *real* project,” which is the homeschooling book.”

[Not on a topic that competes with Rebecca’s topic, by the way.  The two books should go together great, so buy hers first.]

And here’s what . . . I realized this weekend that now the homeschooling book has become the “gotta get this outta the way” project.  ‘Cause yes.  I wanna write about some Christian money issues.  So maybe I give myself a week or two to breathe, then do the homeschooling book and just get it done, and then maybe, maybe?, Julie can have an economics blog back?

I dunno. I don’t predict the future with any reliability.

3.

Over at AmazingCatechists.com, I posted about using Christian LeBlanc’s new book as teaching resource for catechists. (Some people were asking when I’d post the catechist-version of that review, so now you know.  I cover different topics than I did here.)

I came home with a pile of review materials from the Giant Catholic Conference Thing-y, so it’ll be review-city for a while here.  Or there.  Somewhere. Did I mention how much I love getting new books?  Love it.  Love it.

3.5

I was tooling around the Pauline Media booth, and found this book, which looks very handy to keep in stock at crisis pregnancy centers and the like.

And I was thinking, “Wow, my Spanish has gotten much better, because I can read the whole back cover pretty easily.”  Also, I considered the fact that I could read it to be a reliable signal that the reading level was very accessible, which is always a plus in my book.  But then my plane was very very late getting home Saturday night, so Sunday I went to

***

Oh, hey, about those links: It came to my attention that my sidebar is due for some updating.  If you read here, leave your link in the combox.  I’m going to set a goal of doing the update, let’s say . . . September 23rd?  Nope, that’s a Sunday, make it the 24th.

–> FYI I’d love to include not just your personal link, but any recommended sites you think fit with the multitude of themes here.  But do just one link per comment, because otherwise the robotic spam-dragon will consume the whole lot of them.  Thanks!

Labor Day, Slavery, and the Mercy Project

There’s a pile of us blogging today about The Mercy Project, a non-sectarian effort to free children from slavery in Ghana.  I have no affiliation with the project myself, so if you decide to support it financially, do your own due diligence.  But I think the project deserves attention as a model for serious anti-slavery efforts.

Why does slavery persist?  It is difficult to maintain the unbridled hatred that inspires forced labor camps, Nazi-style.  Over the longer run, the humanity of the slave is undeniable; to calmly take lifetime ownership of another person requires the unshakeable certainty that somehow, for some reason, we simply must have slaves.  To be convinced it’s an unavoidable fact of life, one of those regrettable difficulties we must chin-up and endure, hand in hand with long work days, mosquitoes, blisters — all that we suffer in this fallen world.

In Ghana, parents relinquish their children in desperation — the alternative is death. [My own former-slave-state’s motto seems to particularly apt.  Probably not what the founders had in mind.]  The fishermen on Lake Volta who use the children as slaves are in a similar situation: I need this free labor, or I can’t stay in business. The Mercy Project’s method is to think up a village-scaled sustainable new business project that eliminates the financial need for slaves, and then to partner with a particular village to coordinate an emancipation day in conjunction with the implementation of that new opportunity.

[There’s then a process for helping the newly-liberated former slaves to recover from their experience and to rebuild their lives back home with their family of origin, with family assistance to prevent re-trafficking.]

The reported success of the Mercy Project’s first initiative suggests that given any viable alternative, the local slave-owners really are willing to move on to some better business model.  You can read about their second project-in-progress here — same model, slightly different details.

So that’s the Mercy Project.  Take a look.

Thanks to Heather Hendricks for coordinating the giant blog-a-thon.

My vote for Most Important Book of 2012

I just spent 3 days in the largest Catholic bookstore in the world.  I bought one book.  This is it:

Then I was stuck in an airport for five hours.  Perfect timing.

What it is:  Tiến Dương is a real guy about your age (born 1963) who is now a priest in the diocese of Charlotte, NC.  Deanna Klingel persuaded him to let her tell his story, and she worked with him over I-don’t-know-how-long to get it right.  Fr. Tien is a bit embarrassed to be singled out this way, because his story is no different from that of thousands upon thousands of his countryman.  But as Deanna pointed out, if you write, “X,000 people endured blah blah blah . . .” it’s boring.  Tell one story well, and you see by extension the story of 10,000 others.

The book is told like historical fiction, except that it’s non-fiction verified by the subject — unlike posthumous saints’ biographies, there’s no conjecture here.  It’s what happened.  The reading level is middle-grades and up, though some of the topics may be too mature for your middle-schooler.  (Among others, there is a passing reference to a rape/suicide.)  The drama is riveting, but the violence is told with just enough distance that you won’t have nightmares, but you will understand what happened — Deanna has a real talent for telling a bigger story by honing in on powerful but less-disturbing details.  Like, say, nearly drowning, twice; or crawling out of a refugee camp, and up the hill to the medical clinic.

–>  I’m going to talk about the writing style once, right now: There are about seven to ten paragraphs interspersed through the book that I think are not the strongest style the author could have chosen.  If I were the editor, I would have used a different expository method for those few.  Otherwise, the writing gets my 100% stamp of approval — clear, solid prose, page-turning action sequences, deft handling of a zillion difficult or personal topics.

Why “Most Important Book?”

This is a story that needs to be known.  It is the story of people in your town and in your parish, living with you, today.  And of course I’m an easy sell, because the books touches on some of my favorite topics, including but not limited to:

  • Economics
  • Politics
  • Diplomacy
  • Poverty
  • Immigration
  • Freedom of Religion
  • Freedom, Period
  • Refugee Camps
  • Cultural Clashes
  • Corruption
  • Goodness and Virtue
  • Faith
  • Priestly Vocations
  • Religious Vocations
  • Marriage and Family Life as a Vocation
  • Lying
  • Rape
  • Suicide
  • Generosity
  • Orphans
  • Welfare
  • Stinky Mud
  • Used Cars
  • Huggy vs. Not-Huggy

You get the idea.  There’s more.  Without a single moment of preaching.  Just an action-packed, readable story, well told.

Buy Bread Upon the Water by Deanna K. Klingel, published by St. Rafka press.

3.5 Takes: More Things to Read

Thanks once again to our host Larry D. at Acts of the Apostasy, who kept me entertained for many happy minutes on my flight to Texas, with a snippet of his NaNoWriMo work. It’s gonna be good, when he has the whole thing ready for public consumption.

***

1.  I forgot to tell you last week, I think: Part 1 of my reversion story is up at NewEvangelizers.com.  Part 2 coming next month.

2. Also I think I forgot to tell you: Last week at AmazingCatechists.com, I told everyone that they really need to know about Ela Milewska.  If you don’t already know, maybe you should go look.  But probably only if you care about evangelizing young people.

3. I’m live-blogging the conference over at CWG.  You do want to know where I ate lunch, don’t you?  Isn’t that what the internet’s for? So you can know these things?

3.5 LIGUORI!  I told you I’d shout.  Contract is signed, manuscript submitted, even got the SuperHusband to borrow some flashes from work and make me an official Author Photo.  (He doesn’t do soft-focus — hazard of marrying a guy whose job is to make the machinery look all crisp and bright – no one puts soft-focus fiber-optic cable in their brochures.  So, yeah. I’m not sixteen, and we’re not using Adobe to change that.)

I’m pretty stoked about going with Liguori, because everything I’ve seen from them is a lot of value for the reader’s dollar.  Which appeals to my inner accountant, parish-finance-version.  And my local Catholic bookstore speaks well of their relationship, and that was a must-have on my list.  So yeah.  Exciting.

Double exciting part: Did I mention my manuscript is no longer in my hands, and now my editor gets to work on it for a change? Because after a year or so of living with this thing, I’m really ready for someone else’s brain to hurt, and not mine for a few weeks.

***

It’s link day.  Surely people don’t come here on a Tuesday to read about me.  Post your links in the combox.  And have a great week!