Month: October 2024

NYC Skyline
Retreats, Spirituality, Writing

Jennifer Sawyer

Christine Eberle

Part of the Thankful Thursday Series

Jennifer Sawyer is my road not taken.  

When I was a sophomore in high school, I attended forensics nationals in NYC and fell in love with the place. I began dreaming of going to Fordham, whose Lincoln Center campus had hosted some of the events. After four years as a communications major in the Big Apple, I figured, I’d snag a job as an editor and pursue my own writing after hours.

NYC Skyline

All it took to derail that dream was my mother’s discovery that the Fordham campus where I’d be living and studying was in the Bronx. (Cue scary music.) Whatever she was picturing there did not include her only daughter. Mom put her foot down, and I followed a different path.

Jen Sawyer headshot

Two decades later, a Massachusetts gal had a similar dream—and a more accommodating mother. Jen Sawyer is a Fordham alum holding a degree in communication with a concentration in American Catholic studies. After graduation, she deployed her storytelling talents in some fascinating venues, working for “The Martha Stewart Show,” and “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” as well as the Cooking Channel and Yahoo. As a freelance writer, she has contributed to “Good Morning America,” Metro, the NY Post, Fordham Magazine, America, and more. She and her husband lived the dream in a tiny apartment in New York before finding a home in New Jersey, where they now live with their 2-year-old daughter, Nora.

Thanks to Jen’s Jesuit education, one question pursued her through the whirlwind of writing, editing, and producing: “Am I doing the most good that I can in my job?” That question led her to combine her skills and passions at Busted Halo, an online platform that presents “a more joyful and meaningful experience of Catholicism” through articles, videos, podcasts, radio, and more. She began as Digital Content Producer; by the time we met in Jonathan Malesic’s spiritual nonfiction class, she was Editor-in-Chief.

One question pursued her through the whirlwind of writing, editing, and producing: “Am I doing the most good that I can in my job?” 

As the culminating exercise of the class, we had to pitch an article. I crafted a pitch for Busted Halo, then actually pitched it. Jen and I bounced some ideas around. I wrote the piece. She made it better. In December, BH published “This Advent, Let’s Pray with Our Foremothers in the Faith.” Throughout the process, Jen was a delight to work with. Half a year later, she and I had the joy of participating in the Ignatian Creators Summit together, along with Jon Malesic and several other members of the class.

I so enjoyed getting to know Jen personally in the “temporary alternative space” that the good folks at the Jesuit Media Lab created for us. From taking risks in small-group sharing to swapping stories on the bus ride home from Camden Yards (Let’s go, O’s!), we were at ease in one another’s company. Jen has a great smile. She’s funny, friendly, and fully engaged in the work of helping others connect life and faith in meaningful ways. The world is lucky to have her.

Here’s what she had to say about Finding God Along the Way: Readers don’t have to trek 300 miles across Spain to appreciate the wisdom gleaned from Christine Eberle’s time walking in the footsteps of St. Ignatius of Loyola. With profound insight, vulnerability, and humor, Eberle invites readers to journey alongside her as she reflects on the modern-day relevance of Ignatius’ life and teachings. “Finding God Along the Way” is a must-read for those curious about Ignatian Spirituality and its capability—like pilgrimage—to transform our hearts, our minds, and our perspectives.

For the opportunity to cross paths with the road not taken—and to admire it wholeheartedly yet without regret—I am truly grateful.

Picture of a Goat
Book Tour, Retreats, Spirituality, Travel, Writing

Sneak Peek: So Many Goats!

Christine Eberle

As I’ve been playing “what-were-we-doing-two-years-ago” all month, so many profound and silly memories have surfaced. Here’s one of the latter, told as part of Chapter Forty, “La Cova.” It takes place on the evening of October 30—the day after what we thought had been our final hike, from Montserrat to Manresa. Enjoy!

At three-thirty that afternoon, Fr. José told us, we were to meet in the garden to walk to Mass at Our Lady of Good Health. We should be sure to wear our boots, he added, and bring our hiking poles. Oh, good grief, I thought. How are we not done with those? And why are we hiking to Mass when there are more chapels than I can count right here in our residence?

The hour’s walk took us through the old town and surrounding commercial district, then onto a rocky path through the fields beyond. I will confess, I was grumpy.

My mood lightened when I discovered that we’d be sharing the road with goats. In the field beside us strode an actual goatherd—wearing sandals, carrying a crook, and accompanied by a frisky dog. (A twenty-first-century goatherd, he was also wearing jeans and a camo baseball cap, but still, it was pretty cool.) Close on his heels were at least fifty goats of varying colors and sizes, each sporting a noisy bell. As we hustled forward, the goats followed, kicking up a cloud of dust behind us until our ways diverged.

The surreal goat encounter banished what was left of my petulance. And, of course, the walk was worth it. Santa Maria de la Salut is a tenth-century hermitage. Preserved in the entryway is a rectangular slab identified (in Catalan, English, and French) as “the stone where Saint Ignatius knelt down on his visits to this sanctuary.”

How is it that a hunk of rock touched by Ignatius’ knees has been preserved for five hundred years? Fr. José explained that the ordinary people of Manresa kept Ignatius’s memory alive, realizing that they had been in the presence of a holy man. According to Tellechea Idígoras’s biography, when the saint’s canonization process was opened in 1594—seventy-two years after his sojourn in Manresa—many testified to the lasting impression Ignatius had made on them or on their parents and grandparents. Perhaps that’s why he continues to feel so present in this place.

As daylight was no longer being saved, the sun had dipped below the horizon already by the time we finished Mass. We started back at a good pace, hoping to reach the paved roads before dark; nevertheless, we had to navigate the treacherous end of the rocky path by flashlight. At last, we reached the bright Burger King and KFC signs on the outskirts of the city—a sharp contrast to the millennium-old hermitage and timeless goatherd. Like many of the towns we visited, Manresa is a place where the past and present coexist.

After dinner, we gathered for our final reflection . . .

Coming January 14, 2025 from Paraclete Press
Spirituality, Writing

Jonathan Malesic

Christine Eberle

Part of the Thankful Thursday Series

In the spring of 2023, the Jesuit Media Lab advertised an eight-week online class for writers of spiritual nonfiction. (Did you even know that was a genre? I didn’t . . . and it’s my genre!) The class would be held in June and July, right smack up against my personally imposed August 1st manuscript deadline. How could I resist?

The teacher was Jonathan Malesic, an award-winning author with a PhD in religious studies; he was the perfect person to lead this (arguably niche) class. Jon is a prolific essayist, writing about the ethical and spiritual challenge of living a good life in America today. He is the author of The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives. In addition to his workshops, he teaches first-year writing at Southern Methodist University.

Jonathan Malesic
Photo by Sarah Wall

Each week, he gave us solid content, interesting readings, and short but challenging writing assignments. He critiqued our work but also structured the class so we could shape and encourage one another’s writing. The first chapter of my new book is much tighter and more colorful than it might have been, thanks the workshopping it received there.

At one point, Jon gave me the nicest compliment—and I’ll bet he doesn’t even remember it.  We were talking about influences, and I mentioned that I’ve learned to be careful about what I’m reading when writing intensively, because I tend to absorb the tone of whatever I’m taking in.  Jon responded, “Well then, you must be reading a lot of poetry.” (Aww. I was reading a lot of Ann Patchett, but I do love rising to the challenge of a word limit!)

One of the unexpected benefits of the spiritual nonfiction class is that it connected me to other writers with similar passions—connections that have continued out in the real world. (You’ll meet one of those people next week.) Several classmates participated in this year’s Ignatian Creators Summit—including Jon himself.  What a joy to meet in person!

One of the unexpected benefits of the spiritual nonfiction class is that it connected me to other writers with similar passions—connections that have continued out in the real world. 

After learning so much in his class, I was moved by Jon’s endorsement of Finding God Along the Way: Christine Eberle is not only an experienced, funny, and wise spiritual guide. She’s also a great storyteller. In the vivid episodes of this book, she takes readers through stunning Spanish landscapes, hostels, communal meals, and masses and invites us to reflect on our own pilgrimages, including the ones we undertake in our ordinary lives. The rhythm of this book — action, reflection, action, reflection — is the heart of pilgrimage and of Ignatian spirituality itself. Eberle may be sometimes slow of step along the journey she narrates here, but her quick mind and generous heart make her an ideal companion on the Ignatian Camino and the spiritual life it represents.

For the gift of lifelong learning, I am truly grateful.

Cover image by M. from Pixabay

Spirituality, Travel, Writing

Sneak Peek: The Power of the Pause

Christine Eberle

This morning, I received a WhatsApp message from one of my pilgrim friends, who has returned to Spain with her husband and is spending a few days in Zaragoza. On Bette’s vacation, the city is a beautiful place to explore for a few days between San Sebastian and Barcelona. On my pilgrimage, it was the blessed oasis where Porter and I ground to a halt, nursing our blistered feet and his sudden fever.

A peek at the calendar revealed that I was in Zaragoza exactly two years ago this weekend. What more excuse do I need to share an excerpt of Finding God Along the Way with you? This is from Chapter 25, “Pausing.” It picks up in Tudela, after Fr. José doctored Porter’s and my disastrous feet, shook his head, and gave us directions to the train station.

Sunrise over the Basilica of Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Zaragoza

There’s an old tale in which Himalayan sherpas (or, in another version, African tribesmen) are hired by a group of American trekkers to transport their supplies. After a few days of walking fast and far, the locals sit down and refuse to move for several hours—waiting, it’s explained, for their souls to catch up with their bodies. Although I didn’t have the liberty of such on-the-spot refusal along the Camino, I did come to appreciate the power of the pause.

My longest was the three days I spent in the city of Zaragoza. On a Monday morning, Porter and I caught the train from Tudela, ensconced ourselves in a café so I could write for a while, then walked slowly to the Hotel Sauce. Doing our best to approach this wide-open day with wide-open spirits, we lingered wherever we saw something interesting. We stopped in a hardware store for a carabiner to secure the straps of Porter’s old suitcase and visited a department store—El Corte Inglés—to invest in new hiking socks. That brief stroll recalled us to ourselves, reminding us how much we enjoy exploring a new city. It also helped us see beyond our transitory struggles, anchoring us in the surpassing goodness of our life together.

Despite our having a free day on Tuesday, by Wednesday morning my feet were still awful, and Porter was feverish—felled by the slow-moving stomach virus that had been making its way through the group. We would have to linger in Zaragoza for one more day. Our hotel room had a bathtub with a broad ledge at one end, allowing me to indulge in two refreshing pastimes while Porter slept: soaking my feet and perusing the New Yorker magazine I’d optimistically chucked in my suitcase.

Late [the next] afternoon, I made a long, solo visit to the Basilica of Nuestra Señora del Pilar—Our Lady of the Pillar—whose origins were the stuff of legend. When St. James began evangelizing the Iberian peninsula in the first century, the story goes (preaching the Gospel “to the ends of the earth”), he almost despaired of bringing the Christian faith to that pagan land. One day, while he was deep in prayer along the banks of the Ebro River, the Blessed Mother appeared to him atop a rosy pillar, encouraging him not to forsake his mission.

Despite COVID restrictions, visitors still can touch a bit of the titular pillar.

Today, the cavernous interior of the Basilica houses an intimate chapel where a tiny Mary statue sits atop a pillar of pink jasper. Even though the Basilica felt cold and empty, the chapel was warm with the devotion of many visitors; I was lucky to witness a weekly ceremony where children receive a special blessing and get their picture taken with the statue. Pausing in prayer, I felt something shift in me; heading back to the hotel, I realized that I was walking much more easily. Like the apostle James in that same place almost two millennia ago, I felt a renewed hopefulness and a readiness to rejoin my friends on the road the next morning.

Though the three-day break in Zaragoza was a great blessing, pauses did not need to be long to be restorative. On our steepest climbs, when the grade was fierce, I allowed myself to stop for a few deep breaths every ten steps. Count to ten; stop and breathe. Count to ten; stop and breathe. In addition to getting much-needed oxygen to my lungs and leg muscles, this strategy kept hope in view. I knew that in seven . . . five . . . three more steps, I could take a brief, blissful pause, until the terrain grew merciful, and I could press on without stopping.

The most delightful pauses arrived unexpectedly. Occasionally, as we walked through the woods, a clearing would open and—voilà—a café where we could grab a quick cortado and use real restrooms. Fr. José never told us they were coming. This was consistent with his desire to keep us in the present moment, though I suspect he also relished being able offer us a pleasant surprise. Those periodic oases of rest lasted just long enough to refill my well of gratitude before starting out again.

Perhaps my insight here seems obvious. Take a break; do you really need me to tell you this? But maybe you do; maybe, like me, you tend to soldier on. Maybe you never take a sick day (or didn’t, until COVID made bringing your germs to work seem less heroic). Maybe you wouldn’t dream of closing your eyes for five minutes after lunch. Maybe you stare at the Sunday crossword puzzle long after your brain has stopped generating solutions, or routinely accept diminishing returns for your labor in exchange for the ego boost you get from thinking of yourself as a person who “never quits.”

So, in case you do need to hear it, I’ll say it again: There is power in the pause. Whether for a moment or an hour, a day or a week, a well-timed pause can reconnect us to ourselves, giving us fresh energy and perspective. More importantly, the pause can reconnect us to God—inventor of the Sabbath, after all—for whom accomplishment is never everything.

You know who knew this? Jesus. He routinely slipped away from a life of preaching and miracle-working to pause, pray, and recharge. “Come to me, all who labor and find life burdensome, and I will give you rest,” he said—not “and I’ll give you more to do!” Holy pausing is not about taking the easy way out or shirking our share of life’s burdens. It’s about acknowledging our utter dependence on God, who alone provides strength for the journey.

Cover image by Alexander Gresbek from Pixabay

A red cardinal in a tree in winter
Grief, Retreats, Spirituality, Writing

Paula D’Arcy

Christine Eberle

Part of the Thankful Thursday Series

“Wait, you know Paula D’Arcy?” I’ve loved Paula’s writing for decades; my Camino buddy Jane Lafave might as well have told me she’d been hanging out in Ann Patchett’s kitchen! Jane explained that she’d known the author for many years, since going on a pilgrimage she led to Notre Dame (Paris) as part of her grief ministry.

Paula D’Arcy

The ability to write or speak authentically about loss is hard earned, and Paula D’Arcy paid a terrible entrance price to the world of grief ministers. When she was a young mother, pregnant with her second child, her family was struck by a drunk driver. She awoke in the hospital, alone except for the child in her womb. Her beloved husband and twenty-one-month-old daughter were gone.

That she built a beautiful life in the wake of such tragedy is a testimony to the power of resurrection. I first encountered the story in her 2004 book Sacred Threshold: Crossing the Inner Barrier to a Deeper Love. When my mother died a few years later, I clung to D’Arcy’s next book, When People Grieve. It is full of sanity-saving wisdom and practical advice about the physical, mental, and emotional aftermath of a profound loss. I owe much of my patience with the slow course of grief to her gentle guidance.

D’Arcy’s devastating accident was almost fifty years ago. What defines her life now is not the tragedy, but her consequent commitment to helping others keep the doors of their hearts propped open, even in the midst of grief. She is the founder of the Red Bird Foundation, whose mission is to assist others in the transformation of pain and the restoration of hope.

What defines her life is not the tragedy, but her consequent commitment to helping others keep the doors of their hearts propped open . . .”

I am thrilled to announce that Paula soon will be offering a retreat via Zoom through the SSJ Center for Spirituality in Ocean Grove, NJ. Mark your calendars for Thursday, February 13 from 6-8 p.m. for “Beauty Beyond Loss: Finding Your Way Through the Mystery of Grief and Gratitude.” I just signed up; you can learn more and register here.

Knowing that pilgrimage has been a meaningful part of Paula D’Arcy’s life, I asked my friend Jane if she could reach out to her on my behalf. Paula read my manuscript, then swiftly responded with these lovely words: Finding God Along the Way is equal parts adventure and strong spiritual experience; I felt like I was being given a private retreat as I read along. In this beautifully written book, Eberle encourages readers to risk what it means to step into the unknown each day, putting the Camino experience within every person’s reach.

According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has an angel bending over it, whispering “Grow, grow, grow!” For every angel on earth who whispers hope into the hearts of grieving people, I am truly grateful.

Liturgy, Scripture, Spirituality, Writing

Imagining the Gospel: A Reflection on Mark 10

Christine Eberle

This is the longest lead-time I’ve ever had on an assignment.

At the August 2023 Ignatian Creators Summit, participants volunteered to write imaginative encounters with Gospel texts for the coming liturgical year; the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (October 13) fell to me. I began thinking about it immediately, and even posted a mid-point “work in progress” blog (including a homemade sonnet) when Mark 10:17-30 popped up as a daily Mass reading in May.

Here at last is the “final” product. (Scare quotes only because no wrestling with this challenging reading is ever the last word.)

Enjoy!

Imagining the Gospel: The Rich Man’s Question
Uncategorized

David W. Burns

Christine Eberle

Part of the Thankful Thursday Series

There’s an almost thirty-year gap in the story of my friendship with Dave Burns. I have clear (ish) memories of our time together as undergrads at Saint Joe’s: arguing in honors seminars, collaborating on SEARCH retreats, that sort of thing. When the Challenger exploded, Dave and his girlfriend (now wife) Kate and I watched the coverage together in Xavier Hall. There’s a fun cap-and-gown picture of us in front of the student center in 1987, and then . . . I was forty-nine, walking into church for my father’s funeral, trying to figure out who that vaguely familiar middle-aged man was, smiling at me kindly from a back pew.

Cultivating the “Man of Mystery” look!

Since I reconnected with Dave ten years ago, our shared passion for writing has helped us make up for lost time.  He sent me an unpublished draft of a fun romp in which his protagonist was a fast-talking, wise-cracking, self-deprecating Gorgon (yup—snakes for hair, paralyzing death-gaze). Then he confessed to having also written a six volume post-apocalyptic series with some surprisingly Biblical turns. I asked for the manuscripts one at a time, and thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

Dave’s writing chops garnered some attention in 2019 when his excellent short story “Night Surf” won a Writer’s Digest grand prize. (You can read the story and an interview about it here.) And in 2022, he entered a Pitch Week competition at When Words Count—the writers’ retreat in Vermont that opened the door to my first published book—and swept all the categories, winning the top prize with that little Gorgon tale, now out in the world as Heart of Stone: Book One of The Medusa Chronicles. (Keep writing, Dave; we want to know what’s next for Kyra!)

Besides being a prolific writer, Dave is a New Jersey trial attorney. What do world-building in a fantasy novel and making a persuasive case to a jury have in common? They both rely on his gift for storytelling. In the Writer’s Digest interview, he says that’s the aspect of trial work he enjoys most: “having the opportunity to tell what I hope is a true story to a jury and then letting them weigh in on what they think of it.”

I haven’t seen Dave in the courtroom, but as a fan of his fiction, I believe that the truth at the core of each of his stories is what makes them so good. His characters wrestle with eternal, relatable themes of meaning and purpose, even when they’re battling mythological assassins or defending a citadel from vampire attacks.

His characters wrestle with eternal, relatable themes of meaning and purpose, even when they’re battling mythological assassins or defending a citadel from vampire attacks.”

Dave was one of the early readers for Finding God Along the Way, and I can picture exactly where I was when he called to tell me he had finished reading it.  I was giving a retreat in Hampton Bays NY, out for a long walk after dinner when my cell phone rang. “I remember finishing the last Lord of the Rings book as a kid,” Dave said, “and bursting into tears because I knew it was over and there wouldn’t be any more. Not since then have I been so sorry to reach the end of a book!”

Here’s what he had to say in writing: “Do you want to go for a walk with me?” With this deceptively simple question, author Christine M. Eberle launches us on a journey that is both physical and spiritual as she recounts her month-long, 300-mile trek through northern Spain with a group of fellow pilgrims to visit the key sites in the life of Ignatius of Loyola. In Finding God Along the Way: Wisdom from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home, Eberle shares the perils and pitfalls of each stage of her travels, as well as the moments of sublime grace and beauty she encountered, while recreating each wild and wide vista of the Ignatian Camino trail—from the formidable heights of its mountains to the fragrant vineyards and arid deserts of its lowlands.

With her trademark tongue-in-cheek wit and relentless honesty, Eberle crafts both an entertaining and accessible memoir and a guidebook for meditating life’s most important questions. At turns harrowing and joyous, this is a book that lets the reader inhabit each step of an uplifting and transformative odyssey few will get to experience firsthand. By the time the author reaches the pinnacle of her journey and arrives at the monastery at Montserrat, the reader will feel an undeniable sense of accomplishment and triumph.

For new iterations of old friendships, I am truly grateful.

Book Tour, Spirituality, Travel, Writing

Sneak Peek: How We Began

Christine Eberle

Today marks a big anniversary: On October 5, 2022, at a retreat house in Azpeitia, Spain, my band of pilgrims gathered for our first group meeting with Fr. José Iriberri, the Director of the Ignatian Camino. We had no idea what the next twenty-seven days (or three hundred miles) would hold. In honor of that anniversary, here’s a little excerpt from the beginning of Finding God Along the Way, coming in January from Paraclete Press. Enjoy!

On an October evening in 2022, fifteen pilgrims still trying to remember each other’s names shifted anxiously in a circle of hard plastic chairs, eyes trained on our fearless Jesuit guide. The fluorescent-lit conference room’s unadorned walls gave no hint that we were in the shadow of the tower house of Loyola—the long-envisioned starting point of our grand adventure.

The youngest of us was fifty-five, the oldest seventy-nine. We were ten women and five men, hailing from across the United States as well as Canada, Australia, and Malaysia. The group included couples, widows, singles, and married folks traveling solo. Some were old friends; others knew no one. Although many were part of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, the rest were drawn simply by their love of Ignatian spirituality. Seventeen days and some two hundred miles later, ten more people would be joining us for the final hundred miles of our journey.

“Introduce yourself briefly and tell us why you’re here,” Fr. José began, “then name your biggest fear about the Camino.” The man knew how to get to a point. A less skilled facilitator might have started with an easier icebreaker, but Fr. José didn’t want us to skim the surface. He wanted us to practice going deep.

Our fears were surprisingly similar. Most of us were worried that we’d packed the wrong things, that our bodies were going to fail us, or that somehow we would fail ourselves by not engaging the experience properly. Betsy—a petite woman with an endearing Southern accent and perfect comic timing—put it best when she confessed to fearing “pilgrim envy.” Her husband, Charlie, was the Ignatian volunteer; what if she turned out to be a remedial pilgrim, not “holy” enough for the Camino to be effective? When more than one head nodded in recognition, Fr. José encouraged us to resist the temptation to compare ourselves to one another, assuring us that, while each person’s experience would be different, God would not be stingy with the divine gifts.

While each person’s experience would be different, God would not be stingy with the divine gifts.

As the meeting drew to a close, Fr. José paused and looked around the circle slowly, letting the anticipation grow, then leaned in and offered one more bit of inspiration. “Pilgrimage can change the world,” he said. “I really believe this. Now, let’s get ready for tomorrow.”

Spirituality, Writing

Jeff Crosby

Christine Eberle

Part of the Thankful Thursday Series

Beginnings are fascinating. Without Jeff Crosby’s introduction, I would not have found Paraclete Press. But the early threads of our connection could have been dropped without either of us noticing.

After Finding God in Ordinary Time came out in 2018, it was selected as a finalist for the Foreword Indies book awards. Jeff—who at the time was Publisher/CEO of InterVarsity Press—bought my book on the strength of its description in the magazine. Then he did two rare and wonderful things: he 1) wrote beautiful reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and 2) dropped me a note to let me know. (Book lovers: embrace this practice!)

Jeff Crosby and the cover is his book

By the time Finding God Abiding entered the world in 2022, Jeff was serving as president and CEO of ECPA, a trade association of Christian publishers, and working on his own book, The Language of the Soul: Meeting God in the Longings of Our Hearts. I was honored to serve as one of his early readers, and included the book in my 2023 “Books I Love by People I Love.”

In that post, I wrote, “In this cozy book, Jeff explores the concept of saudade—a ‘vague and constant desire for something that does not and possibly cannot exist.’ He muses through ten longings, adding resources for further reading as well as a musical playlist to accompany each one. Gift this to any spiritually minded person who likes to read with pencil in hand.” (As a bonus: now you can download a beautiful, 32-page conversation guide and journal for Jeff’s book on the Broadleaf website.)

Jeff explores the concept of saudade—a ‘vague and constant desire for something that does not and possibly cannot exist.’

When I finished the first draft of Finding God Along the Way last year, Jeff was one of the first people I sent it to for thoughtful feedback, which he provided—then offered to help me find a publisher, should I need assistance. (Here’s where I should point out that Jeff and I have never met in person or even spoken on the phone.  Ours is an entirely epistolary friendship—so old fashioned!)

After several months of fruitless attempts to connect with publishers or agents, I turned to Jeff for advice. He sent me three ideas, of which Paraclete was clearly the strongest, but their website said they weren’t accepting unsolicited manuscripts. Jeff kindly shared my pitch with an editor friend on a Friday afternoon; by Monday morning, she’d asked to see the whole manuscript. Many editorial and marketing team meetings and a lot of discernment ensued, and now I’m part of the Paraclete Press family.  (As is Jeff, by the way; next year they are publishing his new book, World of Wonders: Reading as a Spiritual Discipline. I can’t wait to read it!)

Here’s Jeff’s kind endorsement: A three-cord strand of wonder awaits you in Finding God Along the Way, an inviting book that artfully weaves together Christine Marie Eberle’s pilgrimage along the Ignatian Camino in Spain with history of Ignatius of Loyola and the author’s own deep reflection on what she experienced and learned about herself—and her God—as she made her way. The scriptures she shares and the prompts for our own reflection as readers are icing on the cake. Whether or not you have shared the experience of pilgrimage, you will find much to savor in this book from one who has.

For our mutual delight in seeking just-the-right words to express the ineffable, I am truly grateful.