I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity. Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!
Women on the Way to Healing
I prepared this talk for the Heart of a Woman group, in Kansas City, shortly after the suicide of a Catholic mother of ten. It was a shock to me, but not entirely unexpected, as I had known her during the years she struggled with depression and disintegration, despite her devotion to the Church, Christ, and the Blessed Mother.
I blogged about it, and that post was shared more widely than anything I’ve ever written. Women in the area needed to talk – I needed to talk – about how this could happen, what might have helped, and how friends sometimes make things worse for women in this situation.
The entire text is available as a pdf pamphlet on my Resources page, but I would say the plain text doesn’t quite do justice to the talk in person! When I’m this passionate about something, I’m talking with my hands, with my whole body, with the chalk, and with the help of everyone who talks back!
What I find most amazing, most hopeful in this sad situation is the message to women that their very weakness and pain can be what God uses to help heal them and others. As with all my talks, I get so much out of the intense preparation. By the time I arrived that night, I dearly loved every woman in that room, as I had prayed so for them. I felt the profound love of the Holy Spirit and of the Mother of God just enveloping and gifting me. This was a beautiful experience for me, despite the awful instigation for it.
Here’s a book recommendation for those trying to connect to not-necessarily-Christian women about such things as gender differences, women’s friendships, feminine genius, motherhood, and spirituality.
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