“Have one of my books reviewed in America Magazine” was something I didn’t even know was on the professional bucket list until it became a possibility.
Several months ago, a friend who occasionally writes for America asked them if she could contribute a review of Finding God Along the Way, only to learn that it had been assigned already—to a stranger! (By which I mean, one of their regular contributors, with whom I happen to be unfamiliar.)
Cue the nail-biting. What would someone who didn’t already know me—who didn’t already like me—have to say about my writing? I’ve seen even bestselling books by well-known authors get taken down a notch by America reviewers. Would this one feel compelled to toss in a few critical observations just to prove her own writerly bona fides?
And when would it appear? I eagerly checked January’s issue (publication month) and February’s (which included IVC’s impressive annual Impact Report—a logical connection). Perhaps it would appear in March, when I was giving so many pilgrimage-themed Lent retreats? When April and May slid by as well, I stopped thinking about it. Maybe the fact that my book was assigned a reviewer was no guarantee said review would appear in print.
Then out of the blue on Friday morning, a text from Lexa Hall, my wonderful marketing contact at Paraclete Press: Did you see the review? Check your email!
Was I thrilled or crushed? Click the image below to read for yourself!
This week, I was thrilled to read Catherine Anne Sullivan’s take on Finding God Along the Way in the Englewood Review of Books. Besides being positive promo, it’s going to bring my book to the attention of people well beyond the reach of my usual target-audience circles.
Catherine’s writing is gorgeous, so enjoy that for its own sake! Click on her name to explore more of her work.
Here’s the review, entitled Reflections Centering on Presence:
Based in St. Louis, the Bridges Foundation provides ongoing formation in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I’m grateful to Steve Givens for this quick, fun chat about Finding God Along the Way.
And here’s Steve’s Lenten blog post, picking up where we left off!
Ben was the publicist for my first two books, so we’ve been chatting about writing, passion projects, evolving career paths, and life/work balance for more than seven years now. I’m delighted to call him a friend.
Every time one of my books enters the world, Ben celebrates by hosting me on “This Podcast Will Change Your Life.” In 2018 he titled our conversation The Power of Stories; in 2022, it was A Whole Life.
Dip into our latest delightfully meandering conversation—aptly titled I Wanted to Write the Book—and see if the third time really is the charm.
Ben Tanzer: Teacher | Storyteller | Coach | Podcaster | Principal, HEFT Creative Strategies | Lover of All Things Book, Run, Gin & Street Art
This is my second time as a guest on Finding Favorites (here’s the first), and I must say that Leah Jones is a fabulous interviewer, for two reasons you’ll discover when you listen:
1) She walks me through the whole pilgrimage (no pun intended), asking great questions about the logistical and emotional aspects of our month-long adventure. I did not have any of those questions in advance, but quickly realized I could count on Leah to take the lead, allowing me to be fully present. (A very pilgrim-y experience!)
2) She brings her whole self to the conversation, from her Jewish faith to her cancer diagnosis. Even though I’ve only spoken with Leah twice in my life, recording the podcast felt like sliding into a diner booth with an old friend, skipping the superficial chit-chat and diving right into what really matters.
My gosh, did I have fun with this one. Fr. Brendan McManus’ The Way to Manresa helped prepare my heart for pilgrimage, and his newest gem, Living the Camino Back Home, is a filled with good advice for how to sustain one’s pilgrim heart. (Also, he kindly blurbed my book; what a guy!)
We shared stories and insights in a rich hour’s conversation with talented interviewer Eric Clayton. (That hour was preceded by almost half an hour of tech troubles, which may be why we sound so comfortable with one another!)
You can play straight from the image below, or visit the AMDG show notes for more information about the podcast and Fr. McManus’ books. (And while you’re there, you can check out the many other awesome AMDG episodes.) Enjoy!
My book is in the wild, so you know what that means . . . It’s podcast season! I’m grateful to my friend Mary Fran Bontempo for being first out of the gate with this fun conversation. Click the image below to listen.
Note: Mary Fran’s latest book, From Broken to Brilliant, made my 2024 list of Books I Love by People I Love. Check it out!
I have been enjoying your weekly emails since my friend Rob McChesney brought them to my attention last summer. You have such a deft touch, using small, potent images—a pile of Legos, a burnt pot, a smoke detector—to lead the reader to a moment of spiritual insight. They are like the best kind of daily Mass homilies!
It isn’t often that we get such a clear date stamp on the beginning of a friendship. But since emails are one of the few things I hoard (over 26K in the inbox and counting), I was able to find this gem. I’d been following Eric Clayton’s weekly emails on behalf of the Jesuit Conference (where he is Deputy Director of Communications) since the pandemic summer of 2020, but it wasn’t until the following May that I worked up the nerve to email him, complimenting his writing and sharing my own. Despite obvious demographic differences (he’s a father of young children, for starters), our mutual delight in mining the events of everyday life for spiritual truths led to the discovery of many other shared experiences and enthusiasms.
Eric A. Clayton
Eric is one of the most faithfully prolific writers I know. Those weekly columns keep coming, always using a simple image to unlock a spiritual insight. In 2022, they finally got a name: “Now Discern This.” (You can see them all and sign up here.) He also has a robust presence on Substack, where his “Story Scraps” cover all sorts of topics, including short fiction.
And then there are the books. In 2022, he published Cannonball Moments: Telling Your Story, Deepening Your Faith, about which I said (among other things), “Using the lens of storytelling, Clayton helps each reader mine the riches of their own story, connecting them with the one great story of God as experienced through saints and strangers, grandmothers and toddlers, ordinary life and extraordinary dreams.” This year saw My Life with the Jedi: The Spirituality of Star Wars, which I confess sits on my shelf unread because I feel a compulsion to watch all nine movies first—in order. (If he’d published a book on the spirituality of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, or LOTR, I’d have downed it by now.) This week, I preordered his latest, Finding Peace Here and Now: How Ignatian Spirituality Leads Us to Healing and Wholeness, coming in May 2025. Three books in four years; way to go, Eric!
Our mutual delight in mining the events of everyday life for spiritual truths led to the discovery of many other shared enthusiasms.
Eric has been so helpful in linking me to the wider Jesuit world: posting on the Conference website my article about the Ignatian Volunteer Corps; interviewing me on the AMDG Podcast, and inviting me to write for their Advent series for the last three years. (BONUS: click here to sign up for the new series, “Waiting and Wassailing: Daily Advent Meditations on Story and Song,” coming December 1 to an email near you.)
The most life-changing connection, however, was when Eric welcomed me to the Jesuit Media Lab’sIgnatian Creators Summit. During the last two summer gatherings, I’ve formed friendships with so many people who are using their manifold gifts—in writing, art, theater, film, photography, music, podcasting, and more—in the spirit of St. Ignatius, for the greater glory of God. (It was at the first of these Summits that I finally met Eric in person; at the second, I learned what a wicked-competitive card player he is!)
Here’s what Eric had to say about Finding God Along the Way: Filled with warmth, humor and a voracious eye for detail, Finding God Along the Way is Christine Eberle’s invitation to each of us to embark on our own inner pilgrimage. Along the way, Eberle promises to help us discover God in places both surprising and familiar. While we can’t all hop a flight to Spain, we can all journey deeper and deeper into our own selves, into those hidden recesses of our very souls, where God waits with delight. By inviting us into key scenes from her own Ignatian pilgrimage, Eberle masterfully weaves stories that both transport us to the land of St. Ignatius while also keeping us grounded in the spiritual reality of our own present lives. If you’re looking for an adventure into the soul, this is your book.
For a kindred spirit whose talent and productivity are equally matched by his kindness, generosity, and humor, I am truly grateful!
As I prepared to walk the Ignatian Camino—knowing I was planning on writing about it—I tried not to read many other Camino memoirs. I wanted to reach my own insights, free from the risk of parroting someone else’s. I made an exception, however, for Irish Jesuit Brendan McManus’ marvelous work, The Way to Manresa: Discoveries Along the Ignatian Camino.I’m so glad I did!
Brendan McManus, SJ
The book narrates the experience of a priest who had walked the Camino as a young man and set out to do it again after an exhausting stint of suicide-bereavement ministry. His hopes were thwarted when he fell and sustained a serious injury on the second morning of his solo journey. He pressed on (with the approval of a medical center) for several days until pain forced him to abandon the walk. He used public transportation to visit highlights of the Way before returning home, where the search for answers continued.
While it may be hard to imagine getting a whole book out of a pilgrimage cut off at the knees (no pun intended) on Day Two, McManus’ account of the spiritual wrestling match brought on by pain and disappointment makes this a worthwhile read for anyone dealing with an unexpected and unwelcome turn of events.
McManus’ account of the spiritual wrestling match brought on by pain and disappointment makes this a worthwhile read for anyone dealing with an unexpected and unwelcome turn of events.
I later learned that Fr. McManus is a prolific author, and that most of his books have to do with the “other” Camino—the famous one, the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James). He is currently based at the Manresa Spirituality Center in Dublin, but spends time each summer back in Spain, supporting other pilgrims through the Camino Companions program.
His latest book, co-written with Katherine O’Flynn, FCJ, is called Living the Camino Back Home: Ignatian Tips for Keeping the Camino Spirit Alive. Publication date is December 5, but if you’re free tomorrow afternoon (Friday, November 15, 2:00 Eastern) you can see McManus in conversation during a live book launch event. I just registered (at no cost) and hope you will too!
Brendan McManus could not have been kinder or more encouraging when I reached out to him about my book. Here’s what he said:
Christine has done a wonderful job of distilling the essence of pilgrimage and integrating Ignatian Spirituality into a wonderfully engaging narrative. With a lovely light touch she manages to capture the daily struggles and challenges (bags, beds and blisters!) that make for the essential inner journey that mirrors the outer journey in Ignatian Spain. This book beautifully illustrates Ignatian themes of trust, freedom and listening to the Spirit. A great Ignatian pilgrim read!
For this living witness that “everything has the potential to call forth a deepening of our life in God” (a la Ignatius), I am truly grateful.
The route that Ignatius took from Loyola to Manresa has existed for 502 years now, but the Ignatian Camino in its present form would not exist without the extraordinary commitment of Fr. José Luis Iriberri, Director of the Office of the Ignatian Camino. In addition to organizing and physically leading trips spring through fall each year, he has co-authored (with Chris Lowney) two Camino books: On the Ignatian Way and Guide to the Ignatian Camino. And now, you can see him for yourself—along with many of the places featured in my book—in a 90-minute YouTube documentary that premiered this summer!
Fr. José, on the Way!
A quick word search of my manuscript reveals that I mention him more than 150 times in 187 pages; clearly, he was an integral part of the experience! Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 43: “In Praise of Our Fearless Leader.”
Perhaps the shortest and most accurate thing I can say about José Luis Iriberri, SJ, is that he is a true son of Ignatius. (He even looks like the saint, being of Basque descent and cultivating a bit of an Ignatian beard!) He is intimately familiar with the path Iñigo traversed, pointing out churches where he worshipped, buildings where he conducted business, and hostels where he might have stayed.
It is one thing to know about Ignatius, however, and quite another to know Ignatius and to model one’s life after him. That is the experience of traveling with this man: the sense of being in the company of one of Ignatius’s close companions as he guided us through both the outer and inner landscape of the Camino. He was our spiritual guide, in every sense of the term.
Backpack on, walking stick in hand, he moved like a mountain goat, lightly, over any kind of terrain, knowing every twist and turn of those hundreds of miles—most of which he had marked by hand. But he also knew the contours of our hearts, watching us carefully, listening closely to what we said and didn’t say, reading our faces, and offering sage observations. He knew when to encourage a flagging pilgrim, when to offer a bit of respite, when to break the tension with a droll remark, and when to put his foot down if someone’s ambitions exceeded their abilities. Though he could grow exasperated with our ridiculousness, he was completely attentive and caring the moment someone manifested a genuine need.
José’s helpfulness has continued since our return. When the first draft of my manuscript was complete, I sent it to him for fact-checking. Just a few days later, I received the electronic document back, marked up in red ink in his own hand. He caught many errors—from place names I’d gotten wrong to bits of Spanish history I’d misunderstood—which I gratefully corrected. (He also inserted comments like “Oh I don’t think I said that” and “the walk didn’t really take that long,” which I took under advisement.) He’s even helped with the audiobook: when I discovered a bunch of words in Euskara and Catalan that I wasn’t sure how to pronounce, I sent him a list and he read it into a voice memo for me! The book is so much better for his attentive care, as I was better for his attentive care along the Way.
The book is so much better for his attentive care, as I was better for his attentive care along the Way.
He also shared these kind words: Christine catches the spirit of the pilgrimage, living the full experience in her own body and soul and bringing an open mind to both the obstacles and wonders that pilgrims may encounter along the Way. This book will help you to understand the gifts that you would find walking freely in Spain, following the steps of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a saint who lived five hundred years ago but experienced a transformation that is most needed in our twenty-first century.
For this walking example of loving God with one’s whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, I am truly grateful.
Christine Marie Eberle 