Your answer can’t be the “birth of your child” or “getting married” or one of those other big life events that you better have been happy about or you are Eeyore Mc Scrooge.
Tell me about a moment in your life when you were truly happy---and realized it. It could be a moment as innocuous as stepping on a crunchy leaf or as epic as being in a sea of people on a holy pilgrimage.
I’ve been thinking about one of my moments this week as I have the delight of returning to it soon. Last year, at just about this time, I was the happiest I have ever been.
I was stuck in muck in the middle of a public path in the Surrey countryside, 2 miles from the monastery I was staying at and I was ridiculously happy. I could only laugh as I hopped on one foot as my shoe had gotten stuck in the mud below as I plodded forward. I looked ahead to a long path of mud and the sun was going to set soon, so I could not take another path. I could only go through.
But that week, I had prayed the hours of the liturgy in a Victorian Abbey with 12 Benedictine monks until the words of the Psalms, nay the WORD became my inner cadence. I whispered these words unknowingly, unconsciously, as I walked, slept and breathed. I was living in, what the Celtic people call a thin place, a place between heaven and earth.
In that thin place, I felt so close to God and His love that I didn’t worry about mud or being able to get back to the monastery before the countryside turned pitch black. Everything was grace.
Next month I get to return to that place.
I am wrapping up the last few essays for my manuscript for Undaunted Joy, the book and will turn it in to my publisher/editor, within the next few weeks. As a reward and to pray and dream about the next book, (will there be a next book? And what will it be!?) I am returning to England. I was able to get a plane ticket free with my points and am doing the trip as economically as possible—ok---cheap. I emailed my host monk at the Abbey and he said my room will be ready for me.
I will visit Cambridge, Oxford, Canterbury and London too. If you happen to live in those cities, I’d love to meet up for dinner. I’ll be staying with the Jesuits in London again as well. All the other cities are new to me.
So many essays for the book came out of my time with the Benedictines in Surrey (Joy of Wandering, of the Sabbath and of Compline) and the Jesuits in London (Confessions of a Kill Joy, Joyful Mary and Christ and Joy as an Act of Defiance). I can’t wait to see what surfaces on this trip beginning next month on St. Valentine’s Day. Until then, I’ll be plugging away at the tail end of this manuscript. Wish me luck. Take out your pom poms and give a cheer. Or better yet, pray for me.
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Save the Date: This month’s Paid Subscriber Zoom will be on Monday, January 22 at 2:30pm EST. We will share a bit of our joy for the day and then I will read a little something to reset us for the day. I hope you will join us for a short 20-minute pick me up.
I am so grateful for paid subscriptions which pay my student loan payment. This year, I hope to expand my readership to 150 new free subscribers and 12 paid. If you have any leads on places I can speak in person or online to share Undaunted Joy, please reach out to me.
This week I published My Most Anticipated Reads for 2024. Check out my list here.
Praying and shaking pompoms and ringing all the bells over here! I absolutely can't wait for this book. And I'm so delighted for your upcoming trip! I look forward to learning what joy you find--and spread around--in the UK this time. My thin place: I was just thinking about the last time I laughed so hard I couldn't stop. It was this summer on my European trip with my sister. We were lying in bed in Porto, Portugal, our last night before our trip home. Who knows what we were laughing about (or how much port we'd had), but I couldn't stop, and I didn't want any of it to end. We'd had an amazing vacation, visiting wonderful places, trying our meager foreign language skills. But every night we came back to our small, shared hotel rooms--sharing a bed just like we did for most of our childhood. The fact that I didn't think a thing of it: two middle-aged ladies, now, sharing a too-small bed, illustrates the fact that my sister and I are wonderfully close and really blessed to have each other. Any place we're together is my thin place!
Dear Shemaiah, tone, words, focus of your message sings of joy. What are your hopes/dreams for your upcoming trip? I am fond of the Ignatian resources in the U.K. for many reasons. PAYG as been a part of daily prayer life for many years. LJC!!!! Please say hello to Federica Fiore. I consider her friend as we communicate regularly. I attend the monthly Guided Prayer - Clare Bick, Athena Barrett, Father David - I have been blessed to Zoom with all. Wondering if your journey will include St. Buenos or ISC in Glasgow? May your time in special spaces renew special connections, replenish your needs, return you to a sacred thin place with the Divine. Blessings of harmony, healthy and the hopes your heart desires. Take care, Susan