Check out my post, “A Room of One’s Own for Ruth Kolpack, and Me” concerning the firing of Pastoral Associate Ruth Kolpack at CTA’s Young Adult Catholic Blog.
Tag Archives: Writing
No Day But Today
I’m blogging for another site, Young Adult Catholics. It is a blog hosted by the NextGen group at Call to Action, a Catholic lay movement with origins in Vatican II. The blog’s contributers are some of my favorite young writers on the web, so I am really quite honored to join their team.
Check out my first entry, “No Day But Today.”
Because it is a lot easier to write about (not) writing than it is to write
Okay. Some of you loyal readers out there have heard about the book project that I have been working on for a little over a year now. It started as a solitary venture, with encouragement from my pal Mags who was working on her own project. It morphed into a collaborative project, shifted approaches, and now Mags and I are back at it again.
I have writer’s block, though. And it’s not that I don’t have anything to say. (I always have something to say.) The truth is–I am overwhelmed by how much there is to say, and how desperately it all needs to be said.
We want to write about the population of young adult Catholics who are often missing from the headlines, the studies, the young adult ministry programs–those who feel marginalized and forgotten by the Church. Many of us get so fed up with being invisible in the Church’s public image, in the Vatican decrees, that we leave Catholicism all together. Many of us are trying very hard to speak up about our positive experiences in the Church and our vision for its future, but we are tired, disheartened, and so often quieted by louder, more official voices.
My last few blog entries have indicated that I am a bit overwhelmed by the simultaneous inspiration and disenchantment that surrounds me in my ministry work and in the news. I work with the most amazing young people and the most incredible ministers, and for them, I want to writing meaningful stuff about being a hopeful young person in the Church. Yet I continue to read about the silencing of creative, thoughtful theologians and other frightening, reactionary moves of the Catholic hierarchy and I think to myself time and time again, “What can I possibly write? Where do I even start?”
Amid an overwhelming moment with these desperate questions, I decided to ask you: What can I possibly write? Where do I even start?
Cafe Lulu II
Twenty feet behind Beaudoin and Freitas, Maggi and I walked out of Cafe Lulu onto the busy Gas Lamp street. We had decided on Indian food for dinner, so we walked down the busy street in that direction, weaving in and out of the crowds.
“So let’s make a pact” I told Maggi. It was the first thing that came out of my mouth. “We’ll have a first draft by next year. We’ve just gotta do this.” I knew it was best to make ambitious pacts and daring goals in the moment, before the voice in the back of one’s head begins to speak up.
Maggi and I have been writing buddies for some time now. We shared our first religious studies class in college, and have served as one another’s chief term paper editor ever since. We make a great team because we share a similar passion for theology and spiritual writing, yet we have distinctive approaches and styles: I am more anecdotal, more straightforward and direct, while Maggi has a profound gift for metaphors, imagination and poetic language. Last summer we had an online writing group with one of her girlfriends from home so we could nurture our love of writing in community.
Freitas was unaware of our love of writing and the role it has played in our friendship, which made her message to us all the more compelling. So then and there we agreed: By Thanksgiving next year, we would have a draft. Even if they remained shoved in the back of a desk drawer the rest of our lives, only graced by our eyes, we would do it. We needed to do it for ourselves.
Cafe Lulu
If I had to pinpoint a single moment, the book thing started in a coffee shop (not surprising, right?).
Cafe Lulu is one of the hippest spots I have visited–it’s a hooka bar/coffee shop/interesting wine and beer retailer with European fashion shows paying on screens behind the counter. Despite its high ceilings and large windowed storefront, Lulu is dark all the time, which totally completes the artsy vibe of the place. It is located in the heart of San Diego’s Gas Lamp District, but once you’re inside you’d think you were in some…I dunno…disgruntled French quarter. It’s basically a dream come true.
I am there with Maggi, a dear friend and classmate of mine, and we sit at one of the wooden tables by the door, waiting for our beloved professor, Tom Beaudoin, and his special guest. All of us are in town for AAR (the American Academy of Religion), an annual gathering of religion scholars from across the country, and we try to guess people’s fields of expertise as they pass by the windows near us. Religion nerds have pretty much taken over the town. Again, a dream come true.
Professor Beaudoin has arranged for Maggi and I to meet with a few of his friends throughout the weekend, all young, successful, female Catholic theologians. The first is Donna Freitas (http://www.donnafreitas.blogspot.com). We’ve been looking forward to meeting her for quite sometime. Beaudoin has told us about her work, a fascinating mix of feminist theology, pop culture and fiction, and I’ve read her dating book, Save the Date, a refreshing and honest alternative the Christian dating books I’ve picked up in the past.
When the professors arrive we order drinks–wine and lattes–and begin to chat. Maggi and I have written out questions to ask Freitas, inquiries regarding her work with young Catholic women and sexuality (one of my academic passions) and her recent pursuit of young adult fiction writing (one of Maggi’s gifts and ambitions). We want to pick her brain so that, somehow, we might figure out how to become someone as remotely cool as she is.
But before we have a chance to cross a question off our notepads, Donna begins to ask about us: “Are you girls writing?” she asks. ”Are you doing NaNoWriMo?”
“NaNoWriMo?”
“Yes, NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. It’s this month! I’ve been encouraging my students to do it. I think its so important for young women your age to write…” Freitas goes on, explaining that, in her mind, the biggest, hungriest untaped market in publishing is young, Catholic women. ”You see, you think you don’t have any power as an author because you are young, right?” We nod. ”Because you’re a woman, and you’re Catholic, and you don’t have a PhD?” We nod again. ”That’s precisely why you do have power. People your age are starving for relevant spiritual material–and you are the ones who can give it to them.”
When Maggi and I catch one another’s glance, we know we are thinking the same thing: “How does she know our fears? And what if she is right…?” I sip my latte, lick the white foam from my upper lip, and continue to listen to this inspiring prophetess before us.
Welcome to my blog!
So I’ve been telling myself for quite sometime that I want to start writing more. Over Christmas vacation I began to actualize this goal by starting, what I like to call, a “cohesive writing project” (aka: a book–but that sounds a little intimidating still). Simply having a big-picture framework for my writing discipline helped tremendously. What I found even more inspiring, however, were the conversations, questions, and insights my friends provided in response to the issues I addressed in my writing. Thus, in an attempt to keep up the regular writing while continuing to encourage feedback from all of you, I’ve started this blog! Please feel free to share your ideas with me.
More to come tomorrow regarding the issues I’ve been writing and thinking about lately…
