Of Sound Mind and Spirit

Making connections with others is one of the blessings that emerges from participating in social media networking and conferences. One of those blessings is Elizabeth Reardon, a lay minister, wife, and mother, who writes at Theology is a Verb . Her beautiful online written voice is only superseded by her gentle online radio presence, one that we experienced Tuesday when Lisa and I appeared on Elizabeth's radio show " An Engaging Faith" produced and broadcast by Real Life Radio. Sitting in Lisa's closet Sitting together in Lisa's "cloffice," sharing a microphone, we took turns speaking our faith and family experience as sisters, sharing not only our childhood, but also our adulthood and motherhood years as relative neighbors. Elizabeth expertly led us through questions about our Catechist development and experience (Lisa in 3rd grade and mine in middle/high school). We spoke about finding and building community within our parish and Lisa's r

Does God speak to us?  Do you hear Him? I can’t speak for any of you, but every day I yearn to hear God.  To be always in that calm peace that I know comes from Him. We get caught up in the rush of life, in the stuff that makes up our lives. There is just so much to DO all the time. Like so many others who struggle between work and family, my work threatens to become my life. There are so many things I want to do… and not enough time. And every day, every night, there is the question, the conflict between what I must do, what I want to do, and what I think God wants me to do. Most often my talking to God comes in spurts, sometimes a surrendering moment of frustration, sometimes a thankful moment of peace. When my family was in Colorado earlier this month for the softball tournament, we stopped too briefly at the Mother Cabrini Shrine where I found myself asking, what should I be doing? It’s been almost a year since I truly heard and felt God speak to me and give m

- 1 - Last week my family spent nine days together traveling to Fort Collins, CO for our daughter’s softball tournament. I plan to work up a longer post about the trip overall, but wanted to mention that we had a really great time together. As our daughters are now teens, they're growing more and more independent, and it's rare to have so much "together" time and get along so well. Since our return earlier this week, it’s been difficult to return to work and not be with them all day. - 2 - For the 17 hour drive that we broke into two days of driving (with a 3 yr old!) I packed a bag full of books and didn’t look at a single one! Does anyone else do that? Instead of isolating myself in the front seat with a book or earbuds, my husband and I talked about small stuff. My kids groaned aloud every time I used the  Handbook of Texas  to discover and read aloud historical information about every small town on 287 between Fort Worth and Amarillo. (Hint: most