You may recall my recent raving review of The Legacy of the Stone Harp books. You may also remember that I interviewed one of the authors, Mark Sebanc, a while back.

Today I present to you the other half of the duo that is the authorship of those books, James Anderson.

A deep and abiding sense that there is hope in the circumstances of their own life. My hope is that the work inspires hope.

Creative writing requires time to ponder and explore the ideas upon which the work is built. Time is an increasingly rare commodity in life.

Movies and music, especially Chopin, I find a good tonic from the business of life. They allow my mind to still and move into the creative.

When someone shares that he has been touched by the work, pierced by the beauty of it in some way, that is the best part of writing.

When can we expect the next book? (No pressure. Well, not much, anyway, though I’m eager to read it!)

Mark and I are well underway with the third book, and the whole series is framed out. I anticipate the next book to be finished in a year.

If the name Kevin Lowry isn’t familiar to you, allow me to change that.

Kevin’s the author of a great new book, Faith at Work: Finding Purpose Beyond the Paycheck. (I’ll be reviewing it in depth next week.) Kevin also blogs at Grateful Convert, where you can find his conversion story, his recent reading recommendations, and his thoughts on how we should treat others.

Kevin was a guest here on Thursday, where he reflected on the word “womb” as part of the ongoing Looking Closer at the Hail Mary series.

Today, he’s going to be answering a few questions that I sent him, with strict instructions that he had 140 characters or less to use for answering.

What do you hope people take away from your book?

Hopefully a new perspective on the power of integrating faith and work, and encouragement to do so in practical, simple ways each day.

What was the best part of writing this book?

Working with the OSV team, meeting other Catholic writers, and discovering that even my mistakes could serve as blessings to other people.

Who was your biggest inspiration while you were writing it?

My dad, for our countless discussions about faith and work over the years. I also prayed constantly to the Holy Spirit for guidance.

When did you write this book? Is there a certain time of day or setting that works best for you?

I sat in an old recliner in our family room, right in the midst of all our family chaos. It was my attempt to integrate writing and family.

When you think of the book, what about it makes you smile?

Recalling some of the stories, such as getting chewed out by the ref in chapter 13. I still give my friend Tom a hard time about that one!

Be sure to check out more of Kevin’s work at Grateful Convert.

Hallie Lord is no stranger to Twitter. She’s active there as @BettyBeguiles and in a number of other places, which you can find all linky-organized in her sidebar at her blog, Betty Beguiles.

If you’ve been under a rock for the last few months, you might have missed the news about Hallie’s book, Style, Sex, and Substance, which I loved (and reviewed in no less than glowing fashion).

Hallie was kind enough to join the “Twitter-view” fun…five questions, answered in 140 characters or less.

What inspired you to tackle this set of topics?

A desire to create a Catholic woman’s handbook, of sorts–something that would explore all of the most important areas of our crazy lives.

What do you hope people take away from your book?

A sense that we are all in this together, and that together we will prevail! Rock on, girls!

What was the biggest challenge in pulling this project together?

Finding harmony between OSV’s vision, my vision, and the vision of all the contributors.

What’s been the biggest surprise of being a published author?

The outpouring of support. It’s been truly overwhelming. Don’t make me talk about too much or I’ll start crying. Thanks a lot, Sarah.

And, because you are my favorite fashionista, what’s your favorite writing outfit?

I couldn’t possibly choose just one, silly! A cozy cardigan is a must, though.

I sent five questions to each of them, and they answered in 140 characters or less, Twitter-style.

Greg, what inspired you to write this book?

We procrastinated for months after Servant approached us, debating on possible topics. We wanted to continue the discussions from our show.

Jennifer, what was the biggest challenge in writing this book?

Having a toddler wrapped around my ankles while walking barefoot over Lego bricks made writing this book a breeze. No challenges here.

Greg, what was the best part of writing a book with Jennifer?

Figuring out the rhythm of two separate voices was tough. Once that clicked, the feeling that the Holy Spirit was leading us was awesome.

Jennifer, what was your favorite part about writing the book?

It’s a tie between writing it with Greg and finishing the book on time.

Greg, did you learn anything about yourself while writing? If so, what?

I was reminded of my need to heed my own advice, especially in terms of being a dad. The kids are my number one way of growing in virtue.

Jennifer, who was your biggest inspiration while you were writing it?

My source of inspiration would be another tie between Greg and the Holy Spirit.

Greg, what’s your favorite part of the book?

Sharing how understanding the Eucharist changed everything for us and the fact we had so much to say about NFP it ended up as two chapters.

Jennifer, when you think of the book, what about it makes you smile?

Page 97 makes me smile.

Greg, what’s been the greatest blessing, in all of this, for you?

Reviews from people comparing it to the Hahn’s “Rome Sweet Home,” along with folks recommending it to newlyweds is humbling and gratifying.

Jennifer, what do you hope people take away from your book?

A gentle reminder that it’s not too late to be Catholic in every thing you do no matter how flawed you think you are.

Want more? Listen to their show, download the podcast, or read the book. The Catholics Next Door is a book you won’t be sorry you read, and one you might just find to be more amusing that the evening news or the antics of your children. (Then again, maybe not on that last one.)

Mark Sebanc is one of the authors of the Legacy of the Stone Harp books (which I reviewed at Integrated Catholic Life recently). Mark was kind enough to answer a few questions I sent his way recently.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I live on backwoods bush farm in the depths of rural Ontario, about two hours west of Canada’s capital in a region known as the Ottawa Valley. I moved here with my wife and family back in the late 1980s from Toronto, where I was born and raised, a baby boomer child of post-war immigrants to Canada.

I was educated in Catholic schools pretty well all the way through elementary school, high school and even college, where I studied Latin and Greek at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, graduating with an MA.

The move to the country was prompted by the conviction—the strong visceral sense, really—that modern urban life was deeply flawed, disconnected from life’s natural rhythms. I had read a lot of Chesterton and the great American man of letters, Wendell Berry, and had always been moved, I suppose, by a desperately nostalgic longing for the rhythms of pre-industrial civilization, a feeling that modern urban life was a kind of exile. Maybe I come by this naturally. It’s probably in my bones, a part of my genetic inheritance. My parents both grew up in rural Slovenia during the interlude between the two world wars. It was a world probably closer in sensibility and infrastructure to the cultural and physical landscape of medieval Europe than it is to the world of today.

What inspired you to start writing?

My primary stimulus was simply an instinctive love of words, a sense of their beauty and texture and the power of language. Wordsmithing has always been something that’s come naturally to me. It’s a deep-seated part of who I am, although I’ve learned through life’s trials that my being a writer is not an essential aspect of who I really am as a human being or as a Christian. The danger is that our gifts can easily become an occasion of idolatry. Nonetheless, there’s a primordial, spiritual aspect to words and language. After all, Christ is the Logos, the Eternal Word of John’s Gospel.

I think a sense of my vocation as a writer was quickened early in my undergraduate career at the University of Toronto. I remember reading C.S. Lewis’ space trilogy and being bowled over by it. As I read, I felt myself being utterly transformed by the experience. For the first time in my life, as a result of Lewis’ artful re-creation of the Fall, angels became immediate, vivid realities, not just notions derived from the catechetical instruction I had received. These novels demonstrated for me in the most extraordinarily forceful way just what a work of beauty and imagination could achieve, how it could touch millions of people—something an academic disquisition could never do.

What’s the greatest challenge you face as a Catholic writer?

I’d prefer to say that we’re writers who are Catholic. There’s a big difference. What we’re doing, Jim and I, is not openly confessional any more than, let’s say, the Lord of the Rings is or any other work of enduring value that happens to be written by a Catholic. Our spiritual and metaphysical values are woven into the work itself, into the fabric of what we’re trying to accomplish artistically. And that gives us a huge potential audience. I think it’s the aspect of cultural disintegration that goes hand in hand with the spiritual disintegration in our society that’s the biggest challenge for writers like ourselves. People lead such hurried, frenetic lives. They’re so caught up in the thousand different distractions of modern life.

What have you found to be the most challenging aspect of writing and publishing?

By far the most challenging aspect of the whole enterprise has been the marketing of ourselves and our work, getting word out about our novels, especially as we’re relatively unknown as writers. Jim and I learned quickly that the old adage about building the better mousetrap and having the world beat a path to your door simply doesn’t hold true when it comes to writing and publishing. In itself, marketing is an enterprise that begs full-time commitment. Both of us have been so exceptionally consumed by the business of living and making a living in our respective day jobs that we haven’t had the chance to get out and beat the bushes nearly as much as we should have. For example, neither of us has done any signings, and our website has been somewhat neglected in recent months. I might add too as a further illustration of the constraints of time and energy that we’ve been woefully late in getting this interview done. Still, we expect to pull up our socks in the days to come, as some of the burdens we’ve been carrying are alleviated and our lives assume a calmer aspect.

What was the greatest challenge you faced as you worked on your book, especially since there are two of you as authors?

Our co-authorial arrangement, the very fact that we’re a team, has mitigated the challenges inherent in writing something as large and complex as a novel, let alone a series of novels. This is no doubt a testimony to our artistic and temperamental compatibility, as well as the respect we have for each other’s intellectual strengths. Probably—and this is really an amplification of my answer to the last question–the biggest and most challenging frustration has been finding the time and space within which to indulge our creativity. The responsibilities of family and work pull us in a thousand different directions, and we find ourselves hard pressed to find solid blocks of time that would allow us to build up a head of creative steam.

Your Legacy of the Stone Harp books are fabulous. What inspired your ideas?

I’ve always felt profoundly drawn to the Christian neo-Romanticism of The Inklings, that stellar group of writers at Oxford, who were so radically and sympathetically anti-modern. In one of his strikingly epigrammatic moments, the English poet Coleridge once said that every man was born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. I’m most definitely a Platonist.

In the late 1980s, I began to sketch out the ideas and do the research for this fantasy series, which is inspired not only by the transcendently relevant work of Tolkien, but by the narrative tradition established and consummated by the great English exponents of the novel of adventure, writers like Scott, Stevenson, Morris, Haggard, and Buchan. Among their modern heirs I would include writers like the superbly gifted Bernard Cornwell, as well as historical novelist Conn Iggulden, for example, and Paul Doherty, the English author of hauntingly atmospheric historical mysteries. I find most “literary” fiction boring and introspective, even gnostic, and tend to avoid it like the plague. In the eyes of many, I suppose, that makes me a philistine.

We’ve lost, I think, the notion of narrative or story as an essential medium by which the cultural values of civilization are conveyed. Modern Catholic philosopher Alasdair Macintyre’s classic work, After Virtue, is a brilliant and fascinating exposition of this hypothesis. Ironically enough, contemporary fantasists are not among my primary influences, and I don’t read as much fantasy as I do other genres. Actually Jim and I have decided to eschew a sense of the gratuitously magical and have tilted our work in the direction of legend. We feel that this aids in the suspension of disbelief and serves to attract a wider audience of readers. We’ve already seen how this has in fact happened with our first two novels.

What books are you reading these days? What novels inspire you?

Recently I polished off Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, a deeply moving, indeed captivating, tale set in the English Middle Ages at the time of the building of the great cathedrals. I finished C.J. Sansom’s Sovereign as well, third in a series of brilliantly evocative novels set in the England of Henry VIII and featuring hunchbacked sleuth Matthew Shardlake.

Travel writing has always been an important part of my reading regime. John Man’s Xanadu, a recent title on my agenda, is an engaging account of the author’s re-tracing of Marco Polo’s historic journey to the East. I’m also revisiting the work of Patrick Leigh Fermor, whom some consider the finest travel writer of the 20th century in the English language. In his masterpiece, A Time of Gifts, he describes his journey on foot to Constantinople as an 18-year-old schoolboy in 1933, evoking with consummate brilliance the sights and sounds of a Europe now long-gone, a richly textured landscape that seems as distant to us now as classical Greece or Rome.

Want more Quick Takes? Be sure to visit Conversion Diary!

I first noticed Emily Stimpson when she wrote an article for OSV about Catholic media. And then, lo and behold, I met her later that week at the Behold Conference!

The reality of Emily Stimpson is delightful, let me tell you.

Emily’s book, The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years: The Nuts and Bolts of Staying Sane and Happy While Waiting for Mr. Right, is just as delightful as she is. (If you want a copy, you should get on over to CatholicMom.com, read my review, and enter to win.)

Emily recently humored me by answering five questions I sent her in 140-characters or less, styling it after a conversation on Twitter.

What inspired you to write your book?

Mommy blog envy. A desire to give single women what mommy blogs give married women: Church teaching and practical wisdom to help navigate the challenges we face.

What’s your greatest hope for people as they read your book?

That they’ll see they’re not alone, discover that joy and freedom come in becoming the women God calls them to be, and learn how to answer that call now, as single women.

What was the best part of writing this book?

Seeing how much the Church really does have to say to single women, even if she hasn’t collected it all in one encyclical. There’s lots of help for us. We just have to look.

What was the biggest challenge in writing this book?

Sharing enough about myself so women knew I could relate to them, but not so much that the book became about me. Plus, keeping it light and fun, not dull or despairing.

And, because I can always use a tip, what’s your favorite writing drink?

Nothing fancy. Coffee to start. A nice Bordeaux or Malbec at the end. And a Pumpkin Spice Latte or hot chocolate to cure writer’s block.

You can learn more about Emily at her website. She blogs at Catholic Vote and writes for OSV Newsweekly and Lay Witness magazine.

If you haven’t heard of Christina Ries, you’ve surely heard of a website that she’s highly involved with: Catholic Match.

If you’re like me, you follow her Twenty Something columns in your diocesan newspaper (which still have her maiden name, Capecchi, on them).

The official scoop: Christina’s an award-winning writer and editor from St. Paul, Minnesota. She earned her master’s in journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She has a love for the Twins and grilled cheese, from what I understand.

I got my hands on Christina Ries’s new book, The Catholic Playbook: Lenten Reflections for Singles, but didn’t have time during Lent to do anything with it.

It’s a great book, though, and Christina was kind enough to entertain a few of my questions.

What inspired you to start writing?

I’ve been compelled to tell stories since I was a young girl, even before I could write. It’s a way to make sense of my world, to figure out how I feel and why and to share my most dearly held hopes and ideals.

What advice would you give other Catholic writers?

Let creativity flow! Read great stuff, study it, pass it on. Dwell in that place of inspiration.

And don’t save your best stuff for later. Use it today. It could open doors and spark new ideas.

If you were to share one piece of wisdom, what would it be?

Never underestimate the power of gratitude. It opens our eyes and our hearts to life’s blessings, which can then multiply.

Mary Oliver described gratitude as a way of living: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” That is the charge of a writer and of a Catholic.

I’m proud to come from a long line of women who send handwritten thank-you notes. They’ve taught me that gratitude isn’t a state, it’s an action. In our age of texting and tweeting, I find it therapeutic to pick up a pen, seal an envelope, press a stamp and drop my thoughts into the mailbox.

And don’t rule out the people closest to you. This past December was the first time I’ve ever sent my parents a thank-you note for my Christmas gifts. I guess they were just never on the list. They were the ones I could skip, you know?

To prepare I jotted all the presents they’d given me on a scrap of paper so I wouldn’t leave anything out – they’re very generous – and the day the card arrived my dad made a special trip to give me a hug and tell me it was the best thank-you note he’d ever received.

Totally worth 44 cents.

What do you hope people take away from your book? 

I’m pleased with the variety of reflections contained in The Catholic Playbook: Lenten Reflections for Singles. Bishop Kevin Rhoades said they express “the full range of human emotions,” and he’s right.

I hope the book reminds people that wherever they’re at, however they feel, whatever they’re struggling with, there’s a place for all those emotions in prayer and in the Christian life. We can fold all our trials and triumphs into Lent – or any liturgical season. As Catholic mothers across generations have been known to say, we can “offer it up.”

What’s your favorite part of the book?

The second reflection, which begins on page 15. It was written by a Wisconsin widow named Barb who lost her husband and son in a short period and is now welcoming her second grandchild, Grace Elizabeth, and trying to rediscover joy.

“God is good all the time,” Barb writes, “we just have to read between the lines.”

Barb contributes to the CatholicMatch blog, which I manage. We publish original material every day, and her essays are lovely. You can read them here.

In daily life it’s easy to forget about widows and widowers. That’s why they are so grateful for CatholicMatch’s supportive community, where they can heal and pray with others who have been through the loss of a spouse and are hoping for another great love.

I reviewed Dr. Michael Norman’s book, Unbridled Grace: A True Story about the Power of Choice, last week, and had the chance to ask him a few questions. Here’s what he shared with me and graciously agreed to let me share with you.

When evil felt the strongest, what was your comfort? 

Throughout our ordeal, there were times of incredible darkness, seemingly insurmountable obstacles and protracted periods with no human hope.  Despite this, especially when the pain was most severe, I received tremendous comfort praying my rosary.  It allowed me (and remains so today) to “pull away” to a place of peaceful solace and escape the pain.  This practice served to overpower the darkness of evil that attempted to envelop myself and my family.

During my rosary, I truly felt embraced by our Lord and His Blessed Mother despite what we were facing.  In addition, during some of the darkest days when the opportunity for rosary was unavailable to me, I remember another tremendous comfort that I held on to. In just a few short hours, I will be praying my rosary and I can escape all of this!

How did you remain strong or at least keep going? 

Remaining strong through our 6 year ordeal was certainly not easy. The emotional roller coaster of highs and lows was incredibly draining and exhausting and the temptation to quit sometimes became very overwhelming.  Some days you are only holding on by a mere thread.

It is certainly God who ultimately sustains all of us, but He does need our cooperation as well.  I remember my periods of greatest strength occurred when I kept my focus on eternity and not the world.  As I did, my choices began to reflect eternal standards and not worldly standards and God’s will became manifest in our lives.  Also, I tried to remain focused on living for and seeking to honor only 2 areas of my life: God and my family. (Nothing else mattered to me).

What in your Catholic faith gave you strength?

I was most strengthened by my Catholic faith upon my discovery of our beautiful theology of redemptive suffering.  Nobody else in all my searching had remotely come close to answering the question of suffering for me.  As I embraced and carried this cross, I began to receive the most incredible gift that is His grace.  As this grew stronger within me, I was then able to share it with my family who grew stronger as well and united all of us together through this storm.

These were the occasions I felt so close to God as to hear His voice and participate in His thoughts.  As we embraced the cross, this gift of grace enveloped us in peace through some of the lowest points of our ordeal.  The cross is how He truly chose to unite with us.  Looking back now, I realize I was never so close to God as during this time of suffering.

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Dr. Michael J. Norman is a chiropractor in private practice in Dallas, Texas.  His new book, Unbridled Grace: A True Story about the Power of Choice, is available on his website, through your local bookstore, or in a variety of online venues.

He’s also now officially an author, and his book is GREAT. He was gracious enough to answer some questions I tossed his way, and then patient enough to bear with me when I forgot to get my act together before my trip and post it. Enjoy!

Tell us a little about what inspired you to compile The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet.

Well, as I looked around the world of online Catholicism, I noticed a few things.First, the institutional Church–including parishes, dioceses, and the Vatican–was barely using new media. Second, plenty of individual Catholics were doing great things through blogs, social networks, podcasting, and interactive websites. Third, a number of Catholics understand the potential of new media, but don’t know where to begin. And if they do know the basics, they don’t know how to use new media faithfully and effectively.

So the book was written in response to that landscape. It familiarizes Catholics with the “digital continent” and provides examples, tips, and advice on how to engage it.

This project must have been a huge undertaking. How did it evolve–and even surprise you–from start to finish?

Putting the book together was fairly challenging. A book with one author is difficult enough, but one with twelve contributors, a Foreword author, an Afterword author, and a couple dozen sidebars–each including quotes from experts or Church documents–was a real logistical challenge. I really should’ve thanked GMail in the Acknowledgement section for without it I would have been swamped by the hundreds of emails pertaining to the book.

I think the most surprising thing, though, was that everyone I asked to participate gave me an enthusiastic ”Yes!” The contributors are some of the best teachers, writers, and activists within the Church, and many of them are personal heroes of mine. So I was blown away by their willingness to take part.

It’s kind of like writing a letter to the Olympic Dream Team, inviting them to shoot hoops with you in your driveway, and then one day hearing them ring your doorbell asking if you’re ready.

What was your favorite part of the book?

Oh, this is a really difficult question–it’s like deciding which of your children is your favorite! I loved every chapter for different reasons and I think different audiences will each appreciate different chapters.

What part of your book do you think Mary and Jesus most enjoy or approve of?

Great question! Since Mary always points to the mission of her son–”do whatever he tells you”–and the mission of Jesus is the mission of the Church, I think the whole book would please both of them. For the whole book looks at how new media can serve this same mission: to evangelize, to form, to cultivate community, and to bring about justice.

Considering how surprising and startling both Jesus and Mary are, however, they would probably say their favorite part was the Acknowledgment section, for both are humble of heart.

What challenges do you see facing us as Catholics as New Media grows to be even more a part of how we communicate?

I think the two biggest challenges are actually opposites of each other. As in the rest of the spiritual life, the danger lies in embracing one of two extremes. For example, when it comes to sexuality, the two dangers are puritanism, a rejection of all things sexual or bodily, and indulgence, which is an overvaluing of sex and the body. Chastity is the healthy middle-ground.

With Catholics and new media, the two extremes are avoidance, which usually results from fear, and uncritical adoption, which considers new media to be God’s greatest gift to mankind. I think the wiser response is what I call “prudent engagement.” With caution and awareness of the new media’s danger, we can maximize its power while minimizing its problems.

In my Conclusion to the book I lay out twelve future trends in the Church and new media relationship–six positive and six negative– that help people approach new media with wisdom and prudence.

How do intend your book–and the accompanying website–to help readers as they use New Media?

The website, www.churchandnewmedia.com, will act as an organic extension of the book. It will enable individual Catholics, parishes, and dioceses to use new media effectively by providing extra content not found in the book. To that end we’ve got an active blog where we post relevant tips and articles, and a pretty robust Resources section that should help out a lot of people.

What projects are you working on next? Do you have anything coming as a result of this project?

In terms of new media, my big project is maintaining www.churchandnewmedia.com. The book is only the beginning of this Catholic new media conversation, one I hope we’ll see happening in more places and for many more years.

In terms of future book projects, I’m already working on another book dealing with one of the Church’s dirtiest topics:”social-justice”. Catholic social teaching was one of the most alluring things that drew me into the Church three years ago, yet I think the topic has been mostly ignored, misinterpreted, and hijacked. So I wanted to write a practical book that would illuminate Catholic social teaching through the lives of the saints. I want to show simple ways that we can live with justice and compassion by gazing on the blueprint laid out by the saints.

When, exactly did she find time to write a book?

How, exactly, does she keep smiling when she has all that, and a column deadline at Patheos, too?

Did I mention that she cooks? And that she reads a LOT? And that she is utterly nice and down-to-earth?

Today, she’s agreed to answer a few questions and share her lovely smile with us.

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I’ve been a fan of your blog, Happy Catholic, for many years, Julie, and in fact, I credit you with my own start in blogging. Tell us why you started blogging.

I went on a retreat that our parish offers, Christ Renews His Parish. I was so lit up and made so many new friends that I spent a good part of my day emailing about the things I’d read or seen that I found inspirational. About that time I began seeing this new thing called Catholic blogs mentioned.

Finally, I thought that if I put the things I found in one place that it would be simple for my friends to come there to see them. Ironically, few of those friends actually do read my blog. However, I was surprised to see that a lot of other people did. So that was fun in a new way.

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You’ve been blogging for a number of years. What keeps you going?

I have considered stopping several times. Thinking that either Happy Catholic was getting stale or that perhaps my time might be better spent in God’s service elsewhere (because, let’s face it, by now it is an actual ministry as well as my own self expression).

Every time I am really wondering if I should keep going, I get an email or comment telling about how God used the blog to touch someone. I take that as my answer and keep going. Also, it is just part of who I am by now. I think in blog posts much of the time, as you probably do also.

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Who is/are your special patron saint(s) and why?

I have several saints that I am close to. My actual patron is Martha (from the Mary and Martha story in the New Testament). I was looking over a list of saints before I was confirmed and saw that she was the patron saint of housewives. I love being at home and cooking (though not cleaning). That aside, I figured that was as good a reason as any.

Little did I know that, once again, God was being sneaky in pairing me up with the perfect “big sister” to help me get through some of my worst tendencies. I love Martha’s friendship with Jesus to the point where she’d complain about her sister to him. I love the fact that she took his correction to heart so that the next time we see both of them in a big party, Mary is center stage washing Jesus’ feet while Martha is serving in the background. I love that she had the boldness to go to Jesus asking for her brother Lazarus’s healing and then went to him and said that she knew he was the Messiah. Those are all things I would like people to be able to say about me someday.

Another close and early saint “friend” is St. Augustine. We converts have to stick together. And I really appreciate his, “Grant me chastity and continence God, but not yet.” How many times have we all have had similar requests? Maybe not about chastity, but about something.

Another is St. Teresa of Avila. I like her sassiness and straight forwardness when she steps in a mud puddle up to her knee and God tells her, “This is how I treat my friends, Teresa” and she responds, “That is why you have so few of them, Lord.” She can say that because they are such good friends and because she speaks to him person-to-person. Yet while she was traveling everywhere in frail health, founding convents, she also was one of the greatest contemplatives ever. I continually learn about prayer from her. I am not a good pray-er so I need lots of help.

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Recently, Servant Books released a book by you, Happy Catholic: Glimpses of God in Everyday Life. What’s your favorite section or quote from Happy Catholic?

That is kind of like saying which is your favorite child. They are all favorites but for different reasons (the children and the quotes!).  However, one that I come back to time and again is from Futurama. It just seemed so unlikely to me that a show like Futurama would have an entire episode about God and his way of doing things so that no one can put their finger on it. Naturally, they did it in a completely sassy way, but as we can see … I like sassy. Plus God is talking to Bender in the only language that Bender understands, that of crime. Just the way he does to us.

It also exemplifies what I think so many people miss when they dismiss pop culture entirely. God’s in that just like he’s in everything else. Anywhere someone values the truth of honest story, they’re telling us something about his nature.

Here’s the excerpt:

Jesus in the Rearview Mirror

God: Bender, being God isn’t easy. If you do too much, people get dependent on you. And if you do nothing, they lose hope. You have to use a light touch, like a safecracker or a pickpocket.

Bender: Or a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money.

God: Yes, if he makes it look like an electrical thing. If you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.

Futurama

We are so often left like Moses, who asked to see God but only saw his hindquarters (see Exodus 33:23). We see evidence of God only in hindsight. Even then it can be very difficult to tell definitively that there was divine intervention unless you are the person for whom the miracle was done.

Anyone who has experienced a miracle will tell you that when God sends you a message you recognize it, even though others might not. Others are measuring by verifiable results. You are experiencing something that cannot be measured.

Miracles are love letters.

The Lover and the beloved understand. It is enough.

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What do you find is the most compelling part of your story as more people read your book and you share your story with them?

If this doesn’t sound too presumptuous, it is that I get to see a little of how the Holy Spirit works.  Honestly, I am very often humbled by what people say that God shows them when reading the book. Very little of what they have found is what I put in there, if that makes sense. They are getting messages that I didn’t specifically write. That is God at work.

In a sense, it helps make sense of the Bible for me. I look at all those different books written over the ages by so many different people and all pointing to Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit flowing under and within those words for each of us is what does the real lifting of pulling it all together for God’s work. To have a book (or blog) that is touched by even a hem of the Holy Spirit’s cloak (so to speak) is astounding and eye opening.

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You keep quite busy with your writing and podcasting. How do you balance your vocations–wife and mother–with your evangelization efforts in New Media?

First, I’d have to say that I never see anything I do as “evangelization in New Media” because that sounds so deliberate. I wind up stumbling into everything I do, simply because it is so much fun.

As I mentioned before, the blog was an outgrowth of what I was already enjoying telling friends. My podcast Forgotten Classics grew out of my desire to push people into trying books that I loved but that I couldn’t get them to read simply by writing about. Who knew that an atheist would ask me to read Genesis and comment on it as literature because it is so ingrained in Western culture?

Likewise, my participation in reviewing audiobooks for SFFaudio grew out of my desire to get free books. I became friends with Jesse and Scott at that blog and occasionally participate in their podcast, where sometimes we wind up talking about faith and Catholicism in the most unexpected ways.

Scott is also Catholic and our desire to talk together about the Truth that we saw in popular books and movies led to our podcast A Good Story is Hard to Find.

I am no saint. But when I look at the way that I’ve stumbled into these projects, yet knowing while stumbling that it is also part of God’s plan somehow, I wonder if when we look at saints like Mother Teresa and pity them for the hardships they bear … if we aren’t off base. We’re seeing it from the outside. If they are doing what their nature tells them to do, in cooperation with what God pushes them toward, then maybe it is easier to be a saint than we think.

Maybe, as Thomas Merton’s friend told him, all we have to do is to want to be a saint. Our willingness is all God needs. He will do the rest.

As for how I balance things, I have an amazingly tolerant and supportive husband. Every time I have brought up one of these projects, he practically shoves me into it. Sometimes, I have been waiting for him to say no and willy-nilly I find him buying a mixing board, converting a computer to home use, and setting me up to record.

Also, I have had to learn how to say no more often myself. I have some projects, such as our parish’s Beyond Cana marriage retreat, where I was very involved for several years and then had to back out so that I could write the book and also because they needed to grow beyond my involvement. I don’t think I could add anything else right now without giving something up. And … it must be said … I don’t love cleaning house. So I teeter at the edge between acceptable cleanliness and what would embarrass us if people dropped in. Did I mention that I have a very tolerant husband?

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What has been the greatest blessing in all of this, for you?  In all this work you do in the new evangelization, at the end of the day, what do you count as your greatest success?

God told me to start the blog when I was wondering if I should. I am positive he also wanted Happy Catholic (the book) written based on the astounding coincidences and timing that brought up the possibility of writing the book. Likewise, he has used my podcast in ways I never would have thought of.

So what is my blessing out of all this? To be his servant. I can never do it as well as I should. But to do what I love, in these communities in which he has placed me, for the one whom I love most … what could be better than that?

There are plenty more Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary, so don’t miss the fun!