Author and Inspired Writer

Hey everyone! Walkerville Publishing and Black Moss Press are having an open house Sunday, Dec. 19, at Big Tony’s Restaurant, 911 Walker Rd., Windsor, from 2 to 4 pm. Come on out and meet the writers, including yours ever faithfully, and finish off your Christmas shopping. After all, who doesn’t like getting books for Christmas?

Well saints be praised!  I have just completed my most challenging holy card to date – St. Therese of Lisieux.  Now I know what you’re saying – “The Little Flower gave you trouble?”  Yup.  Big time.  To the point where it kept her out of Volume 1 and I seriously thought I was never going to be able to write anything about her at all.

The problem was her, well, perfection.  She never seemed to get angry or doubt or have one single unkind thought her whole life.  And man, is that annoying!  For instance, there’s a famous story in her autobiography where she recounts how one of the other nuns would always (inadvertently) splash water in her face whenever they did the laundry together.  Her solution?  “I acquired a taste for dirty water.”  Uh-huh.  That’s just lovely.  Too much to ask that she should haul off and punch Sister Splashy in the arm, I know, but you see the problem.  There’s nothing in her story for this born-again feminist to latch onto.

Or so I thought until I read some fascinating passages from her autobiography and the court testimony of her sister Celine at the beatification proceeding in which Therese’s strong desire for priesthood became startling evident.  OK, now you’re talkin’!  This submissive little nun wanted to be a priest!  Therese even went so far as to say when she knew that she would not live out the year, that God was taking her because that would have been the year she would have been ordained (had the Church allowed women in the priesthood) and God didn’t want her to suffer by living with such a great disappointment.  Wow!

To top it off, there is a photograph of Therese standing behind a table, preparing the chalice and ciborium for Mass.  It’s easy to find on the internet.  Take a look and you’ll see Therese is staring directly at the camera, and in her right hand she’s holding a host.  “Doesn’t mean anything,” you say?  Maybe not.  But in my holy card, it does!  Does it ever!

Yesterday, I had the delight and privilege of speaking with a woman of a certain age, who had decided after a lifetime of writing stories for children, she was finally going to publish one of them as a book.  Although we were talking on the phone, I’m pretty sure I heard her levitate a time or two.  She could scarce contain her excitement and determination.  This was her moment!  This was her time!  And woe betide anyone who would dare try to discourage her!

I hear you sister!  And to anyone else who has ever felt that quiet but insistent voice urging them to write or send out a manuscript that’s been languishing in a desk drawer, do it.  Just do it.  No more excuses.  Do it.

Now.

At my writers’ salon on Monday evening I presented my latest holy card, St. Attracta, a sixth century Irish saint, who parted the waters of a nearby lake to let escaped hostages pass in safety to her convent.  A very compelling image and story, and I felt my interpretation of the story was strong.  But once I was done, I felt my energy change, like when a sail slumps on the mast in a sudden becalming, and I knew  holy cards, volume 2 is coming to an end.  I have a few more stories I need to tell, most notably St. Terese the Little Flower, but I’m being haunted now by another project, finding myself in that dreamlike state in which I see scenes played out and hear the characters’ voices.  Whether this next work will be another book of poetry or, God save me, a novel, I’m not sure, but it’s pulling me in relentlessly, and I know that’s where I need to go – and soon.

I have no plans to seek publication for holy cards, volume 2, certainly not at this time anyway.  Volume one hasn’t been out a year yet, and the time and the energy isn’t right for the second volume.  So I’ll just close the cover with a prayer of thanks to the she-saints for sharing their stories with me, and then let it be.  All things in their time.

I’m excited and nervous about the new project, and unsure as I always am at the beginning of something new whether I’m up to the task.  But whether I am or not, I must try.  For the attempt is the most important thing.