Regina Doman's Blog: Regina Doman's Updates, page 3

Why Catholic Fiction? (2014)

AFTER OVER FIFTEEN YEARS in the business of creating and publishing Catholic fiction, I've found there are generally three questions I get asked when people find out what I do.1) Catholic Fiction? What's that? [image error] As an editor who's worked for three different Catholic publishers, here's how I define it. Catholic fiction is that fiction which is generally about Catholic characters, dealing with themes or issues that Catholic audiences want to hear about, generally written by Catholic authors for a Catholic audience.  It's fiction that Catholics can call their own, fiction that they feel resonates with them.  Yes, it's a specific audience, but one that I think has been under-served, especially Catholic teens.Here are a few things I've learned about this Catholic audience:They are very diverse, are at different places in their faith, but in general, they tend to read the best of what the secular culture puts out.  They don't have brand loyalty to Catholicism per se -- they like good stories, and they will enjoy them wherever they find them, whether they are from Protestant sources, secular sources, or Catholic sources. So a poorly-written book with Catholic labels all over it won't generally succeed with them. But something that's just really well-told that morally resonates with them will be embraced.What that means for us as publishers is that we can't cut any corners when it comes to storytelling quality. That's not how you reach a Catholic audience. That's not how you serve a Catholic audience.2) Why are you bothering to write Catholic fiction? Why not just write plain fiction, like Flannery O'Connor or J.R.R. Tolkien did?I have no problem with those Catholics who want to write for a secular audience. Our inspiration, G.K. Chesterton, did just that. I hope to do it myself someday. It's just not what I happen to be doing at Chesterton Press yet, that's all. Basically, I believe passionately in the need to build up a Catholic culture. The question of Catholic culture is one that has fascinated me all my life, and continues to do so, particularly as modern culture continues to break down into pockets of isolation. This is a question that is beyond this short blog post, but I will merely state here that I believe an intentional and overtly Catholic culture is necessary. Why? Because there is a difference between a hothouse and a greenhouse, even though both look like glass houses full of plants.A hothouse is an environment meant to shelter plants from the outside ecosystem for their entire lives. A plant in a hothouse can't survive outside the artificial environment. A hothouse isolates and transforms the natural into the artificial. It is also unnecessary, something for the wealthy or the eccentric. That is not what a Catholic culture is meant to look like.A greenhouse, on the other hand, is a necessary part of any agricultural environment. It's for baby plants, for young plants, for damaged plants to grow and be nurtured and recover so that they can survive in the outside world. I believe that's what Catholic culture is meant to be, and what it does best. That's why Catholics have built schools and hospitals and retreat centers and rehab centers. That's why they operate nurseries, orphanages, and old-age homes. That's why current Catholic leaders like Pope Francis continually stress the importance of the Catholic family.That's what Catholic fiction can do. It can support and nurture the imagination of young and growing Catholics. It can help older Catholics reorient themselves and find rest in leisure. And it can do this while being entertaining and FUN.We seek to support the mission of Catholic families, Catholic schools, Catholic parishes, and Catholic ministries with the books we sell and the stories we tell.It's not everyone's mission, but it's the mission of Chesterton Press. And if we do our job right, non-Catholics will find our books just as enjoyable as Catholics do.  In fact, we know some who do already. 3) Catholic Fiction???  That is so cool!  That is JUST what I've been looking for!!!For every three people who question why we do what we do, we find seven people who are absolutely thrilled and excited to discover Chesterton Press' books.  If you are one of those people, I have to tell you that YOU are the main reason we are able to keep going. Every time you love and buy our books and tell your friends about them, you enable us to keep on writing and developing more good stories.  So thank you, and please keep on doing what you're doing.  We are just as happy to have found you as you are to have found us!

Why I Was Disappointed in FROZEN (2014)

This is a review I did for my Facebook friends. Apparently, many people agreed with me so I repost it here.Silly me, I was expecting a Pixar-level plot or at least something as good as TANGLED. I also kind of felt the bitter disappointment I felt when watching The Little Mermaid as a teen, seeing that the Hans Christian Andersen plot was barely homaged, more kind of exploited. But the Disney Mermaid has far more in common with Andersen than Frozen does.Here’s what I was most disappointed in (spoiler alert):1) Because the climax wasn't adequately set up, it felt more like a bait-and-switch: it wasn't clear that ELSA had a frozen heart for Anna to sacrifice herself to melt, and that in this world, one can sacrifice oneself in order to bring ONESELF back to life. It would have worked better if Elsa had sacrificed herself for Anna, but the current climax just felt too much like rule-breaking. Better setup would have fixed that. Basically, it's a plot patched together and greenlighted because it was considered good enough for a marketing vehicle for kids (hey! Now Disney gets to sell TWO MORE Disney Princesses! Double profits!), but not for intelligent adults. Since the Pixar/Disney merger, it's been a while since I've had my children's intelligence insulted by a Disney film, but then again, I haven't been paying complete attention.2) The song "Let it Go" (with beautiful lyrics and presentation) hogged the emotional weight of the plot, and nothing else came close to matching it in power and artistry. This is a problem, because even by the plot's own rules, the song is a negative song sung by the antagonist, and "letting it go" is NOT a good thing, but the thing that triggers the destruction of her home world. If Anna had matched that song with an equally powerful one of her own, it would have worked, but the same kind of half-done story work that botched the climax was at work lyrically, making this movie the equivalent of a Phantom of the Opera that included "Music of the Night" but not "All I Ask of You." In Phantom, it's the second song that responds to and completes the first, making the play a masterpiece, but Frozen (all too typically) got the bad guy spot on, and left the perky heroine floundering metaphyiscally and plotwise. Writers, be aware that a powerful song is a force unto itself that can unbalance your plot.3) The much-lauded plot twist regarding Prince Hans: What? A rich heterosexual white male turns out to be the villain of the piece? Now THAT's a trope we've NEVER seen before in a Disney movie! If that's what constitutes a daring and original plot twist, I'm more depressed about the future of Disney than I have been since Beauty and the Beast came out.4) The Greek-tragedy-like speedy time frame of the actual story action (everything happens in what? three days?) reduces the connection to the original Snow Queen so much that trying to connect it to Andersen's original is a hopeless exercise, even as a theoretical "true story of what became a myth." So, basically, the legend of the Snow Queen boils down to a girl with a misunderstood talent who for roughly 24 hours "lets it go" and made herself an ice palace in the frozen north, but fortunately her heroic sister convinced her to come home and take her rightful place as a queen with a talent for snow entertainment (as opposed to administration, leadership, etc. says the sarcastic feminist in me). Heroic Gerda and lost Kay have no place in this new mythology.The original fairy tale featured a strong girl saving a boy, and not just a nice sensitive worthy boy, but a cold-hearted, exploitative, cruel boy: a story that genuinely would have been revolutionary and welcomed by the shortcomings and sorrows of our culture.It would have been amazing to see a potentially strong character like Disney’s Anna take on Gerda's role saving a boy with the frozen heart of Hans (or even a reworked Kristoff), but that's now a story that we're never going to see on the silver screen with anything like the money and artistry of Frozen. It's sad to think of the possibilities in the original story that are now going to be lost to a generation of children (probably several generations, if the marketing muscle longevity of Disney’s Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast is any indication). We're going to be surrounded by Made-In-China dollies, Broadway renditions, deep-sounding prattle about the importance of sisterhood, and theme-park Snowmen in Summer for a long, long, long time.And that's about as depressing a Snow Queen Winter as I can imagine.

Chesterton Press undergoing a change

In 2020, I closed the retail site of ChestertonPress.com. We had a long and rather awesome run as a retailer of fun Catholic fiction, sold a ton of books and met a lot of amazing readers. But one of my mentors had always cautioned me about getting involved in retail and publishing, pointing out that my real gifts lay in storytelling, and it was probably best not to spread myself too thin. I listened, but it didn't really register until I aged and tired (why does it always happen that way?). But about five years ago, it became clear that I really should start redirecting my energies to becoming an author again, instead of trying to remain a publisher / store owner / marketer / author / editor / project manager. I can't really get away from project managment: I enjoy collaborations too much!  And even as an author, you can't escape editing and marketing. But publishing was the one thing I could drop, and do I did. Retail marketing was the next thing to go. However, publishing has changed so much that my books are available wholesale through Ingrams/Spring Arbor, so bookstores can still order them (and they are available on Amazon). And I am exploring partnerships with Catholic retailers and publishers so that I can continue to create and manage projects for them. I do feel very blessed to have worked in publishing and retail, and I'm sure I'm not done for good. For now, ChestertonPress.com will point here, until the next chapter begins.

Store owners & librarians, you can find my books on Ingrams. Email me if you need a set of the ISBNs. Thanks for reading! 

Acknowledging a Debt to the Fisher King (2014)

Stories are made of so many bits and pieces from a person's consciousness, some of them conscious and some of them so unconscious that their influence leeches subtly and powerfully through your mind. Upon the regrettable passing of the comic actor Robin Williams, I find myself reflecting on the movie he starred in which most impacted my life, The Fisher King, and discovering links between Terry Gilliam's masterpiece and my own first novel The Shadow of the Bear. It might make an interesting study to compare the film with my book, because I'm sure the debt is evident in many ways that even I am not aware of. (Side note to parents: this film contains strong language, crass language, adult situations, adult humor, and distressing scenes of violence. It is a good representative of what I would call a film for adults (as opposed to that hated euphenism "adult film," which really means a film for immature adults). The Fisher King is definitely not for children or young teens. But it is a good film for angst-filled young adults.)The year was 1991. That year, I was a college student, a senior majoring in television production, and battling the most serious depression of my life. My survival tactic was to throw myself into my classwork, which as an upperclassman consisted of hours in the artificial light of the university's basement television studio, immersed in rearranging frames of video. I pressed out endless assignment papers, attended production meetings, and theatrical rehearasals, and did whatever else I could distract myself with, to hide the abyss gnawing at my psyche. The worst hour of the day was when the alarm clock went off, and I had to will myself to get out of the dorm bunkbed and face another empty day. It wasn't surprising that my thoughts were bleak, subsumed in a morass of misery. Grunge was in, and it fit my mood. I was drawn to topics that dealt with despair, because I desperately needed a reason to keep on living. Into the midst of this, I went to see The Fisher King with my fellow TV majors, and was completely transfixed. So much so, that I went back to see it again the same week, significant for this broke college student. The inciting incident in the story used two cross-currents in American culture. Howard Stern was making his fame as a shock jock, and American crime had entered that blurry period where mass murders by unhappy individuals had become a phenomenon but before Columbine took it to the level of psychopathic fame. What could be causing this senseless violence? Was American culture itself responsible, perhaps even the makers of that culture? The Fisher King tapped that raw nerve of guilt as Jack Lucas, a shock jock played by Jeff Bridges, makes a glib comment to a mentally-unstable regular caller, and the man goes on a shooting spree in a New York City restaurant.A despairing Jack attempts to commit suicide under a NYC bridge by tying cement blocks to his feet. But in a dark Chestertonian twist, he discovers a sudden desire to live when two young thugs take him for a homeless person and decide to set him on fire. But before they can murder him, Jack is saved by another madman, a Quixotic homeless man named Parry (Robin Williams) and his band of crazy knights. Parry sees himself as a modern-day knight on a crusade to find the Holy Grail, which he believes is hidden in the hi-rise apartment of a New York millionaire. "The Fisher King" of the title recalls a medieval legend bound up with the knights of King Arthur and the Holy Grail they sought.According to IMDB,The legend varies, but all iterations possess three elements: the Fisher King was charged by God with guarding the Holy Grail, but later incurred some form of incapacitating physical punishment for his sin of pride, and had to wait for someone to deliver him from his suffering. A simpleminded knight named Percival, referred to in the movie as "The Fool", healed the wounds with kindness to the king, asking him why he suffers and giving him a cup of water to drink. The king realizes the cup is the grail and is baffled that the boy found it, as demonstrated in the closing exchange: "I've sent my brightest and bravest men to search for this. How did you find it?" The Fool laughed and said "I don't know. I only knew that you were thirsty." Echoes of the legend recur throughout the film, but in a continually shifting manner, so that it sometimes appears that Lucas is Percival to Parry's Fisher King, sometimes vice versa, and sometimes that one or the other is re-enacting part of the story with another character (most obviously in Parry's self-assigned quest to obtain the Grail from the man he believes is its guardian). (from the movie's  spoiler synopsis)I was fascinated by this dark film with its cast of misbegotten characters, ranging from Jack's city Italian girlfriend who runs a trashy video store to an emaciated transvestite singer, from the wheelchair-bound veteran Jack befriends to Parry's maiden love, a gawky lonely spinster named Lydia. But under the influence of Parry's mad and joyful vision, they become transfigured into something greater than themselves, enacting a story that brings healing and the restoration of sanity, albeit with a typical 90s tinge.Beneath the grit and William's characteristic potty-mouthed humor, I remember the movie as a series of haunting vingnettes. The famous scene in Grand Central Station where the bustling crowd of commuters transforms into a ballroom of waltzing couples, as Parry's lonesome love, Lydia walks home from work. Jeff Bridges scaling the skyscraper in homemade armor. The chorus of madmen in the asylum celebrating Jack's triumphant quest. And I love the first date scene, where Parry walks Lydia home, and she expresses her fears to him: that his infatuation is just leading to a one-night stand. Parry, clad in a white suit reminiscent of a white knight's, responds to her with a pledge of steadfast purity that is remarkable in William's career. Terry Gilliam is best known for his cynical Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but for a character in his film to give such a defense of chaste love is remarkable, and to me, unforgettable.“Have you ever felt that there was something going on in life that not everyone was aware of? ...As though there's a story going on that everyone is a part of, but not everybody knows about? Maybe 'story' isn't the right word- a sort of drama, a battle between what's peripheral and whats really important. As though the people you meet aren't just their plain, prosaic selves but are actually princes and princesses, gods and goddesses, fairies, shepherds, all sorts of fantastic creatures who've chosen to hide their real shapes for some reason or another. Have you ever thought that?” my heroine, Rose, asks another homeless man, Bear, in The Shadow of the Bear . Like Parry, she envisions a life where people's actions mean something, where people's identity reflects a deeper reality. She doesn't know that (like Parry), Bear has taken up the gauntlet in a modern-day quest which some people would consider mad.And I find this other quote also reflects themes found in the Fisher King, when Bear tells Blanche, “Every once in a while you just have to decide to do something very crazy and very right--just to dare yourself to live. I don't mean doing something stupid and destructive--just something fun and good and beautiful.” I even find echos of Bear and Blanche's dance to "Paper Moon" in Fisher King's emblematic refrain: "I like New York in June: How about you?" Somehow I felt my New York teen heroes just had to dance to big band somewhere in my story.Madness and sanity is a large theme in The Fisher King. Most of the conversations about madness don't appear in my book, but they are touched on in the audio drama we later made, which features more conversations between the brothers Bear and Fish, who wonder at times if they are mad to keep on living in poverty in order to continue to track a murderer the police have long ago given up on finding. The transformation of Jack from a cynical angry man to a laughing knight on a mad mission probably impacted me the most. I am sure that the character of Fish owes something to Jeff's Bridges' Jack, but it takes two more books for Fish to set out on his own mad quest and win a sword.In conquering depression, victory is won not by a few large victories, but through many small ones. Small acts of getting out of bed, choosing to smile instead of to zone, starting a chat with a stranger in need instead of sitting alone. Jack's road out of depression back to sanity is also filled with many little choices: steps forward and steps back. But since this is Hollywood, we do get to see a few of the grand moments caught on film too. So during my own dark night of the soul, The Fisher King came like a spark of hope that even in a grim, profane, and savagely violent world, medieval-style quests and even triumps were still possible. Love and sanity are precious things, frightfully assailed on all sides, but able to conquer. We need miracles, even the miracle of a good story. Two years later, I was living in New York, putting the finishing touches on the manuscript that would be my first published book, and about to meet the man who would become the love of my life, my own knight in fading blue denim.
Rest in peace, Robin Williams, wounded knight. I pray you find your Holy Grail.

Awesome Guy: Remembering Rich Mullins (1997)

Memorial for Rich Mullins, died Sept. 19, 1997published in Our Sunday Visitor, October 26, 1997This text is the author's copy and may vary slightly from the publisher's copy.I saw Rich Mullins in concert on a Saturday night at Franciscan University's chapel back in 1993. My girlfriends and I literally sat at his feet in the crowded chapel as he played at a grand piano, barefoot. His beat-up docksiders, sporting a large hole in the toe, lay next to him.In the days way before grunge, Rich wore long black, graying hair and beat-up clothes. He mixed his be-bop songs with the melodies of the dulcimer and other primitive instruments, and passed out Compassion International brochures after his concerts. Though his Quaker-based theology certainly wasn't Catholic, his sensibilities were. He sang in his songs about meeting God in the material world, "in the Bread and in the Wine." Well, consubstantiation isn't the same as transubstantiation, but it was closer than most Christian singers got.Even though Rich had written hit songs for artist like Amy Grant and Debbie Boone, he wasn't a top star, although he certainly had a cult following. At Steubenville, we loved his song "Awesome God" with its lyrics that challenged the "Jesus is My Pal" mentality head on: "Well, the Lord wasn't joking when He kicked 'em out of Egypt, it wasn't for no reason that He shed His Blood … I hope that we have not too quickly forgotten that our God is an Awesome God."So we had already taken Rich Mullins to our collective heart when he came to Steubenville for the first time. When he and his best friend Beaker played and worshipped with us, we sang his songs louder than he did. I remember that he appeared bewildered during our concert, and that at times he would stop singing almost in amazement and listen to Catholics singing his songs. I'd never seen a performer so affected by his audience.In response to a fan letter I sent him a few years later, he actually sent me a hand-written card, explaining "Tho I am often asked if I am Catholic, I am not." He detailed his reasons for remaining out of the Church, mainly that it would be "divisive."But the pull of the Truth was apparently harder for him to resist than he let on. He founded a group, "The Kid Brothers of St. Frank," described on the Internet as "an 'order' for people, including themselves, who are too chicken to be real Catholics." His 1993 album was titled, A Liturgy, a Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band, and his last album, Songs, had pictures of our Lady and Therese of Lisieux on the inside cover. In the Liturgy album, he sang about the Faith, "I did not make It, but It is making me." The more he grew as a songwriter and a Christian, the more Catholic he seemed to become.There were always rumors that he was going to come to Steubenville to study under Scott Hahn. We heard that he had enrolled in RCIA classes in 1994 but pulled out the day before Easter, saying that he was afraid conversion would affect his ministry. Instead, he went out to the Southwest to work with his Franciscan and Native American brothers and teach music to kids on reservations. We fans of his, now graduated from college and starting families, continued to say among ourselves that it was just a matter of time before Rich was a "big-C Catholic." Every Easter my husband and I would remember him in our intentions and wonder if this year would be the year.But it was to be this year. This past Sunday, he was to receive his first confession, and this Monday, his First Communion. While preparing for the opening of his first musical, The Canticle of the Prairies, based on the life of St. Francis, he had apparently decided he couldn't hold back any longer. On Friday morning of Sept. 26, Mullins called his friend Fr. Matthew McGinness, and said, "I have to receive the Body and Blood of Jesus." So Fr. McGinness told his congregation on Sunday after Mass at St. Paul Parish/Newman Center at Wichita State University Campus.But Friday afternoon, September 19, 1997, Rich Mullins was thrown from a jeep in Chicago traffic and run over by an eighteen-wheeler.It's hard to understand. Certainly the devil would probably have preferred to have such a strong Christian leader dead than Catholic. Maybe, as my husband the theology major says, Rich's death was the permissive, rather than the perfect will of God.So it is with a double sadness that I will hear of Rich Mullins being buried in a Quaker grave this Thursday. Even if he had never considered becoming Catholic, I would feel his loss. But to know he was so close to full communion with us is another ache.Fr. McGinness noted when I spoke with him that Rich desired the Eucharist. Eucharist means "thanksgiving." "We certainly need to give thanks to God for the gift of Rich Mullins," he said.Amen to that.copyright Regina Doman, 1999. This document is available for republishing only after the author's permission has been obtained. Click the top button for an email link to the author.

The Catholic Fiction Problem is a Marketing Problem (2005)

I wrote this post on Jim Manney's blog in 2005, and later presented this article as a talk at the Catholic Marketing Network's Catholic Writer's Conference Live. It's a little dated by now, but I believe it still has some good insights regarding the general problems with marketing fiction to Catholics.This past semester I taught a short course in fiction writing at Christendom College, and this past week's class I gave them an overview of the secular and the Catholic publishing industry, particularly looking at the reasons why more Catholic fiction isn't being published by the more well-known Catholic publishers. I drew on my own experience as a freelance writer who occasionally reviewed Catholic fiction (I no longer write reviews on any regular basis) and my work as a Catholic author dealing with two different publishing houses. But also enlightening has been attending the annual Catholic Marketing Network Trade Shows with my husband, who owns a web design company, where I had a chance to see how Catholic marketing works in practice, as well as talking with bookstore owners and publishers whose daily work involves selling Catholic books.My surmisal of why Catholic authors can't get Catholic publishers to publish their novels comes down, in the end, to the problem of the buying habits of Catholics.First of all, many Catholics do not go to Catholic bookstores or websites at all, nor do they read Catholic papers or magazines. Thus they are "unreachable" by advertising in Catholic publications or in stores. Let's set aside these Catholics (and the enormous problem they represent) for now and talk about the Catholics who do actually go to Catholic bookstores, websites, and read Catholic publications -- both those who visit a Catholic bookstore twice in their lives and those who subscribe to several magazines and papers and regularly order from Catholic catalogs.These Catholics go to specifically Catholic outlets such as bookstores, and now, to a smaller degree, websites, for two main reasons: gifts and catechetical materials. The bulk of what you see at the CMN trade shows reflects this: rows of statues, knicknacks, gifts for First Communions and Baptisms, and books on theology, the saints, catechetics, apologetics - books that enable the buyers to either educate themselves or others (ie: their children or relatives' children) about the faith. Catholics simply do not go to Catholic outlets to find entertainment. If they want to be entertained, they turn on the TV, go to Blockbuster or Barnes and Noble or Amazon.This is one reason why Catholic writers of quality and ambition invariably end up publishing with secular companies, not Catholic ones. However, I will note that in general, the Catholic authors who do publish successfully in the secular world do not necessarily succeed because they are reaching a Catholic audience. Their works may be faith-filled witnesses to the Catholic faith in subtle or bold ways, but these authors are successful because their works strike a chord in Protestants, Jews, the unchurched, and people of other faiths - NOT because they are reaching a Catholic audience who is eagerly identifying themselves with the Catholic author's faith. Thus Catholics can be surprised to learn that authors like J.R.R. Tolkien in the past and Patrick O'Brien today (author of Master and Commander) are Catholics.So, thus far, the marketing connection of Catholic authors with a Catholic readership has still not been made to the extent where it has significantly impacted the buying patterns of Catholics. This is the hurdle that every Catholic publisher faces who considers publishing a Catholic fiction book. The majority of their audience is not looking for this product, is not aware that they need this product, and is not even aware that this product exists. Until something happens to significantly change the buying habits of the average Catholic-book-buying Catholic, Catholic fiction will remain a nonentity in the publishing world.But there are signs that this is changing. The main engine of change is what I call the need for a subculture.While there are other forces that drive Catholics to search for a subculture, we can't ignore the influences of the Protestant evangelical subculture on your average Catholic. The influences here range from the impact of homeschooling (formerly a Protestant phenomenon but now a strong Catholic movement) to the influx of Protestant converts into the Church to the friendly relations between Catholics and evangelical Protestants since Vatican II. Many of these influences result in Catholics borrowing or buying Christian products such as fiction novels or music CDs, but the main result of this influence is that many Catholics are starting to desire a Catholic or Christian subculture, analogous to the Christian evangelical subculture that already exists, a subculture with its own educational materials, music, tv channels, fiction novels, video games, and even movies.There is also the growing perception among Catholics that mainstream values and culture are becoming increasingly amoral and sometimes anti-Catholic, which in many cases causes them to try to create or search for alternative forms of culture. Enough has been written on this phenomenon that I think I don't need to explain it further.Whether Catholics desire a subculture because they are traditionalist Catholics longing for a 1950's style Catholicism or simply parents concerned about the debasement and obscenity in their children's entertainment, the fact remains that a steadily growing number of Catholics, especially Catholic parents, are searching for alternative culture and are putting their money towards creating one. And this subculture that is being created through their buying choices does include (or will include) entertainment.At the Catholic Marketing Network, you can already identify products that are take-offs of similar products in the evangelical market. For example, vacation bible school curriculums for Catholics are being produced based on Christian models. The "K4J" (Kids for Jesus) clubs for middle-school children produced by Regnum Christi also remind one of similar Protestant clubs. As the main thrust of most Catholic publishing is education (I'm here including the behemoth companies that produce Catholic religious texts for schools, now mostly secular/Catholic conglamorates as well as smaller but still large companies like Our Sunday Visitor whose mission is to publish materials to inform Catholics about their faith), it's natural that the first alternative "subculture" products that have found publishers and marketing outlets are educational in nature.But just as the Protestant presses that started out publishing Bibles and Bible studies in the 60's and 70's are now publishing several diverse branches of Christian fiction, it's possible, maybe even probable that as the Catholic subculture grows, it will expand to include entertainment. In fact, this is happening already, as the number of self-published Catholic fiction books and small publishing houses of Catholic fiction continues to grow, and as Catholic bookstores start to carry evangelical products such as video games and movies in their stores (you can find sellers of both at the CMN shows).Still, the fact remains that as of yet, the desire for a purely Catholic entertainment on the part of the Catholic consumer has not yet emerged as a significant marketing force.For the Catholic novelist, the first step is, I think, to correctly identify the problem. The problem is not with Puritanical or backward-thinking Catholic publishers or even with badly-written novels -- the problem is at its core an audience problem. The problem is a marketing problem, and in order to solve it, Catholic writers need to think like marketers, not having the leisure to merely think exclusively like artists. (Of course, there is the chance that too much thinking about marketing will make them lose sight of their art, but that's a balance the Catholic writer who wants to succeed in this market will have to negotiate.)I also point out to my students that if the goal of creating an artistic Catholic subculture is to succeed, we don't merely need good writers, but good fiction editors, good agents, good marketers - people who are working at every level to create quality Catholic fiction with compelling storylines and literary quality. I have told my students in my fiction writing classes that if they are fascinated with fiction but can't write it themselves, God might want them to learn about fiction in order to work with others who can write it. A joint cooperation between publishers, editors, and writers - and marketers! -- is desperately needed.The marketing realities of the problem include the fact I mentioned at the beginnning, that too many Catholics are unreachable with conventional Catholic advertising. I have a hunch that the only way to reach them is through the parishes and through the Catholic school system, but that of course, involves its own problems, which are beyond the scope of this article. But brainstorming in this area might be wise.I would say that since Catholics currently buy books as gifts and to educate themselves and others, a fruitful approach might be to write a Catholic fiction series aimed at Catholic teens. As a young adult fiction writer myself, I know that Catholic parents are always looking for good books to give to their teens and pre-teens, and they recognize that fiction is an ideal way to do this, since teens resent 'preachiness.' A novel that can present the faith with subtlety, ingrained in the storyline without subverting the story for merely catechetical purposes might succeed with them. This was my rationale for creating the John Paul 2 High series.Editing the series, which means that I need to work with the artists (the writers) as well as the marketers (the publishers) means that I've had to strike a balance between the two. On the one hand, I have to focus on getting the writers to simply tell a good story and tell it well and consistently, crossing out parts that are too preachy and trying to embed the messages in the actions of the characters. On the other hand, I have to keep giving the publishers ideas on how they can market this series to parents and educators as a way of helping to keep their kids Catholic. It can make a person feel schizophrenic at the worst of times, but, at the best of times, can give the pleasure of satisfying people at both ends of the spectrum, of making a unity out of the solitary artist and the Catholic community.There's plenty of room for more good Catholic young adult fiction, and I wouldn't discourage any publisher or writer from looking at our strategy as a solution that might work for them. Of course, we don't know if the John Paul 2 High series will succeed. It can fail to keep teens interested. It can fail to sell with Catholic parents. Failure to weigh in on either end will send it plummeting off the seesaw into the black hole of marketing failures. But for right now, reading the drafts of the books that are being written, I have confidence that it will succeed. And I'm working, and praying, for it to succeed.And if it doesn't, well, there's always the chance that better, smarter people who love Catholic fiction will learn from our mistakes. Ad gloriam Deo.Regina Doman is the author of the picture book Angel in the Waters as well as the novels The Shadow of the Bear and Black as Night. She edits the John Paul 2 High series. Information about all her books and projects can be found at www.reginadoman.com. She and her husband produced an audio drama show of The Shadow of the Bear, airing on Catholic radio.copyright Regina Doman, 2005. This document is available for republishing only after the author's permission has been obtained. Click the top button for an email link to the author.

Jews who become Catholic (1997)

Interview with the Association of Hebrew Catholics Published in  Our Sunday Visitor, April 6, 1997 (reprinted in Immaculata Magazine Sept/Oct 2000)This text is the author's copy and may vary slightly from the publisher's copy.The Association of Hebrew Catholics (AHC) is an apostolate whose time has come.So says David Moss, its president. Jews who have joined the Catholic Church would agree heartily. Moss frequently discovers them -- nuns, priests, and laity. "Some of them have said to me, 'You know, I thought that Jesus, our Lady, and myself were the only Jews in the Church!'"The fact that most of these converts are "hidden" from each betrays a "historical pastoral problem," Moss says. "Most Jews who enter the Church disappear into the woodwork. They become assimilated and their Jewish heritage eventually disappears. They remain Israelites, but they aren't able to pass their God-given identity on to their children."Fr. Elias Friedman, a South African Jew and Holocaust survivor who entered the Church in 1943, eventually becoming a Carmelite monk, was deeply troubled by this phenomenon. His reflections on the Church and the Jewish people, specifically Jewish converts, led him to found the AHC in 1979.Although the Catholic Church was founded by Jews -- Christ and the apostles and the first Christians were all Jewish -- the Church has become sociologically Gentile. Thus, since approximately the third century, when the last Jewish Catholic communities disappeared, the Jew who enters the Church has had no way to preserve his or her identity. This formidable barrier keeps most Jews from even considering becoming a Christian.Moss explains this problem, which Gentiles have difficulty comprehending. "The greatest fear of the Hebrew people has always been their own annihilation. The destruction of the Hebrew people could occur in one of two ways -- through violence, such as they experienced in the Holocaust -- or through assimilation." This explains the marked failure that Gentiles have had in evangelizing the Jewish people since the early centuries of the Church."Why aren't the Jewish people even able to examine the claims of the Church? Because they have had the experience of 1700 years watching Jews enter the Church, assimilate, and become Gentiles. Why? Because there's no way within the Church to preserve their identity." In other words, if all Jews became Catholics, the Jewish people would cease to exist, and this is their great fear. "That's against the will of God as the Jews see it. And I think that now the Church would agree," Moss says.Vatican II represents a landmark in Catholic theology regarding the Jews. In that Council, the leaders of the Church explicitly recognized the eternal election of the Jewish people. While the Jewish religion has been fulfilled in Christ and the Catholic faith, the special vocation of the Hebrews as the people first chosen by God has not disappeared. In Nostra Aetate, the Council Fathers stated, "God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues." (4)What often makes the Jewish issue confusing for Catholics is the problem of what constitutes Jewish identity. This is not surprising, since the Jews themselves continually argue over this question. "The question isn't an easy one," Moss admits.However, "I think that one of the great gifts that Fr. Elias has given all of us is his analysis of Jewish identity. A Jew has traditionally and historically meant a person who was 1. bound to the observance of the Torah under Mosaic Judaism, and 2. who was born of Jewish parents, and was accepted as a member of the people of Israel."When a child is born to Jewish parents, "the Jewish people through their ceremonies accept that child into their faith, and also into their People. They intercede between the individual and God to identify who's part of their faith and their people." The same is done with adult converts to Judaism. It's analogous to the Church, who intercedes between the individual and God to incorporate the individual into the Body of Christ."The second component -- being a part of the Jewish (Israelite) people -- is the everlasting part of Jewish identity. "It isn't Judaism as a religion that represents the election, it's the people -- the descendants of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, who were first chosen by God."So essentially, Moss says, a Jew is "an Israelite who practices the Jewish faith. Now what happens when the Jew becomes a Catholic? He is an Israelite who now practices the Catholic faith. But he's still a member of the People Israel. What has changed is his religious faith and practice. At one time, he was under the authority of the rabbis. Now he's under the authority of the Magisterium. But he's still an Israelite."That God-given historical identity ought to be preserved within the Catholic Church, just as the Church has allowed Greeks, Africans and other races to preserve their identity. The fact that the Israelite's identity was given to them by God gives it even greater significance.Just as the People Israel have the authority to identify who is a member of their people, so the Church, the New Israel, has that same anointing. "The Church now has the divine authority to say, 'You're a member of the People Israel. Therefore your children are, too,'" Moss points out.The AHC's first goal is to help Catholics, especially Hebrew Catholics, understand the election of the Hebrew people and its implications. Once that has been done, the AHC hopes that bishops worldwide will petition the Holy See for the establishments of an Israelite community in the Church. Already, the bishops of South Africa have twice petitioned the Holy See calling for the establishment of such a community.But there is a deeper, more prophetic aspect to the AHC's apostolate. They believe, as many of the Church Fathers taught, that sometime in the future, God will call all of Israel into the Church. St. Paul spoke about what might be a massive, communal conversion of the Jewish people when he said, "A hardening has come upon a part of Israel, until the full number of Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved." (Rom. 11:25-26)The Fathers thought that a sign preceding this conversion would be a massive loss of faith. St. Jerome wrote, "The incredulity of the Gentiles will occasion the conversion of Israel." St. John Chrysostom agreed. "Seeing the Gentiles abusing little by little their grace, God will recall a second time the Jews." The Lemann brothers, Jewish converts who became priests, coined the term "the apostasy of the Gentiles" to describe this occurrence. They saw its manifested in their own time, in the aftermath of the French Revolution.Moss asks, "Do we have an apostasy of the Gentiles now? I don't think anybody denies that any more. I mean, in a country that was supposedly founded on Christian principals, we kill a million and a half babies a year. In Europe, what was once called 'Christendom' no longer exists."While not all Christians have abandoned the faith, "the Christian understanding no longer permeates the juridical system, the economic system, the political system, the culture itself. I think that constitutes a sign of apostasy."There are other "signs of the times" that indicate to the AHC that the time that the time when the Jews will enter the Church is coming -- for example, the return of the Jews to Israel after almost 2000 years of exile. Christ Himself prophesied, "Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is over." (Luke 21:24) The Jews recaptured Jerusalem in 1967, regaining control of their capital city for the first time since 70 AD. Moss says, logically, "Well, if Jerusalem is no longer in the hands of the Gentiles, then the time of the Gentiles is over!"When the time of the Gentiles is over, God will begin to call the Jewish people to Christ once again, stimulating in turn a rebirth of faith among even the most hardened apostasized Gentiles. As St. Paul says of the Jews, "If their rejection of Christ means the salvation of the world, what will their acceptance mean? No less than a resurrection from the dead!"(Rom. 11:15) Moss speculates, "If corporate Israel were to enter the Church, what an effect that would have on so many unbelievers! Because that could be nothing less than an act of God."He cautions, "Now, remember, when we talk about the 'time,' we're not talking about an exact day or hour. We could be talking about a period of history that could take fifty, a hundred, or a thousand years to transpire. We have no idea. But we believe we have passed into a new era, a new phase of salvation history, one marked by the fulfillment of that prophecy in Luke along with many other signs."Because, contrary to what some Christians have believed, the vocation of the People Israel to be a "blessing to the Gentiles" (Gen. 12:3) did not end with the birth of Christ of a Jewish mother, or even with the establishment of His Church.Even now, individual Hebrew Catholics continue to bless the Gentiles in their service to the Church. Moss says, "That is the vocation of Israel, and it's not a vocation that ended with Christ. It continues, partly through the Church and partly through the restoration of Israel through Christ."The AHC is a partnership of Gentile and Hebrew Catholics working together to preserving the identity of Catholic Israelites. Although the Association exists for Hebrew Catholics, Moss says that much of their support come from their Gentile members.One unexpected aspect of the AHC's presence has been questions directed at them from priests counseling Catholics who are married or engaged to Jews. Moss has received calls from these couples or from their counselors regarding Jewish faith and practices. For him, this is "just one more example of why the Association is needed, from a purely pastoral point of view." He points out that diocese have helped establish associations for Italian Catholics, Polish Catholics, Chinese Catholics, and other races, while the whole pastoral question of Hebrew Catholics has been overlooked, until this juncture."The time has only recently arrived for the problem to be solved. It's not our place to say that the Church was wrong for 2000 years. It's God's timing. Everything is God's timing. This is the time."While the AHC believes that the Jewish people will ultimately find a home in the Catholic Church, Moss insists that their apostalate is not for proselytizing Jews. "We don't evangelize. Our mission is to the Church. We're trying to correct a problem that needs to be corrected, out of justice."I don't think we need to evangelize. I think that if we succeed in our mission, one cosequence will be that the Jews will come into the Church, as St. Paul said." Many Jews who are searching for truth have entered the Catholic Church as a result of finding out about the AHC. Moss admits, "We haven't reached out to anyone, but our flag is up, and they see it. And they come to us saying, 'Hey, why did you Jews become Catholic?'"He tells the story of a Jewish woman who had become a Messianic Jew through the Protestant Church. When she attended her first Mass ever with a Catholic friend, she immediately recognized its Jewish origins. She demanded that her friend explain what was going on, and when her friend explained about the Eucharist, "this woman immediately believed in the Real Presence, and she wanted to enter the Catholic Church. But she didn't want to throw away her Jewish heritage." When she came across the AHC, that obstacle was surmounted. A year ago she entered the Church.He mentions another Jewish woman who had long been an evangelical Christian. But when she became Catholic, her Orthodox Jewish family held a funeral service for her. She also faced rejection by her church, and ended up losing her job at a Christian publishing house. The AHC has been "an unbelievable comfort to her," Moss says, "because she and many others who have entered the Church have made tremendous sacrifices. They feel very alone. Most of the Gentiles in the Church don't understand what she's going through. For her to find people who've been through similar things has been a consolation. It's a very normal, human, psychological thing."The woman is now entering a cloistered community, "and she is just ecstatic. With all the losses, suffering, and pain she's been through, when you talk to her, she sounds like an angel -- so full of love for Jesus, so happy to be in the Church and so grateful that she's found us to be her prayerful support. There's lots of stories I could tell you about people like her."For more information on the Association of Hebrew Catholics, click here.copyright Regina Doman, 1999. This document is available for republishing only after the author's permission has been obtained. Click the top button for an email link to the author.

Book Review: Father Elijah (1996)

Father Elijah: An ApocalypseBook Review: Father Elijah by Michael O'BrienPublished in Our Sunday Visitor, November 1996
This text is the author's copy and may vary slightly from the publisher's copy.I remember the first time I encountered the Book of Revelations. I was about ten years old and had just been given a Good News Bible, which I was in the process of devouring, chapter by chapter and book by book. I read a lot of very violent and complex stories that never found their way into a children's book of Bible stories -- tales of incest, mass mutilations, assasinations. Pretty heavy stuff for a pre-teenager. I couldn't believe a lot of the things in there were sacred Scripture.I admit I skipped Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, the Wisdom books, and all of the letters of the apostles. After I read the Book of Acts, I jumped right into the Apocalypse of St. John.It was a trip into a strange and bizarre world that held me spellbound. By the time I finished, I was wide-eyed with visions of ladies crowned with stars or sitting on horrible beasts, fantastic monsters, and bloodstained saints. What a book! I couldn't wait for the world to end so I could see these marvels, a cosmic showdown between Christ and the devil. It would be better than any movie.But as I grew older, I grew less anxious to see the end of the world, which always seemed to be perilously imminent. I learned about the threat of nuclear holocaust, the widespread evil of abortion (kids tend to take abortion more personally. After all, kids were recently babies themselves. If adults can kill cute little babies, what would stop them from killing ten year olds?), violence in the cities and the suburbs, and horrible foreign wars.The blackness in the world is so thick and so potent that it's hard to believe in a loving God, let alone an all-conquering one. Lots of times, it seems that good exists merely to be trampled over by the evil and the nonchalant. I became concerned more about how much my family and I would have to suffer when all hell broke loose on earth. Watching the heart of the world grow cold is a chilling process.Canadian author Michael O'Brien meditates on this phenomenon in his fascinating metaphysical thriller, Father Elijah. (Ignatius Press, 1996) "Why does God allow suffering?" is a major theme in this book, tightly woven with Vatican intrigue and world-wide struggles. Father Elijah is a Jewish WWII survivor, a one-time Israeli politician, now a Carmelite priest. The Vatican summons him from his cloistered monastery in Palestine to try to convert the new European President, a man who may be the Antichrist. This mission of the spirit is fraught with political dangers and temptations both temporal and spiritual.Through this tale, O'Brien attempts to come to grips with the whole problem of evil. The author wades into the grim waters of the Holocaust in the first few pages, and doesn't emerge until it plumbs the depths in the last chapter. The Holocaust is a paradigm for our century, and allows O'Brien to probe the mystery of Divine Mercy as the world teeters on the brink of a new Holocaust.Overall, the book resonates with fine writing style, although parts in the middle are a bit patched together. One or two jumps in the plotline mar the narrative. As most of the book is set in exotic locales -- Capri, Rome, the Holy Land -- there's hard to detect any break in realism. However, when O'Brien sets some scenes in America, he tends to use a broad black brush to paint the state of the American Catholic Church. Granted, this book is supposedly set slightly in the future, when things are much worse. But I don't think that the trends O'Brien outlines in his book -- for example, the gradual "liberalization" of Catholic journalism in the USA -- are necessarily true to life. O'Brien's scenario is far more pessimistic, and a bit unrealistic. For example, most national Catholic papers are owned by lay organizations and are not under diocesan control to the extent that they are in Father Elijah.The book makes a long aside in Warsaw, where Elijah confronts an aging homosexual, Smokhrev, who figured in his past. Smokhrev's story, like the Holocaust, becomes an interesting replay of the Garden of Eden. The theological arguments between the aged atheist and priest are a bit tedious at parts, but the subplot becomes truly satisfying at its conclusion.O'Brien warns the reader in the introduction that this book isn't a simple potboiler. True to his warning, the book is more theme-oriented than plot-oriented. The storyline has starts and fits, meanders a bit, then gathers speed, races through several heartbreaking chapters, comes to an abrupt halt in the second to last chapter, becomes leisurely and metaphysical, ending in a subdued but striking manner.It's not the typical Tom Clancy tome. Because of this, the average reader might struggle a bit with the unwieldy structure. However, I think some will ultimately find it more satisfying than the average thriller.The resolution of Father Elijah is an epiphany, a bright rebirth that wouldn't have been as effective if the book hadn't confronted the darkness for so long. I think O'Brien manages to accomplish the obscure and ill-appreciated task he is laboring under -- not necessarily to write an apocalyptic novel of suspense and doom a la Pierced by a Sword, but to create a parable about suffering and its meaning in the light of eternity.The book ends on a subtle note, with a scene that is (not unexpectedly) drawn from the Book of Revelation. Readers unfamiliar with the Scriptural Apocalypse might want to read Chapter 11:3ff so that they will be prepared for what happens. When I read the final scene of Father Elijah, I was hit with a spark of that excitement that had first touched me at the age of ten. And I picked up the Bible to get re-acquainted with Revelations.It was even better than I remembered.copyright Regina Doman, 1999. This document is available for republishing only after the author's permission has been obtained. Click the top button for an email link to the author.

Not-So-Wonderful Catholic Book (1996)

Book Review: Catholic is Wonderful! How to Make the Most of It by Mitch Finley, (Resurrection Press, Mineola, NYPublished in Lay Witness, January/February 1996
This text is the author's copy and may vary slightly from the publisher's copy.I once wrote an article about the unity and diversity competing in the Catholic Church, noting the variety of opinions among those united in the Catholic Church on topics such as spirituality, Operation Rescue, clothing, raising children, and so on. At first glance, this slim booklet by Mitch Finley might seem to be written in the same vein.But I would argue that there are some differences. I was trying to demonstrate that even fully orthodox Catholics can disagree about some non-essential matters, and this gives the Church Her diversity.Finley's book, however, seems to lump dissenters and faithful Catholics gleefully together, proclaiming, "We're all Catholic -- isn't it great?" I would like to argue that some of the aspects of the Catholic Church that are truly wonderful -- such as her faithfulness to Christ's teaching on divorce, life issues, and so on -- are ignored with this treatment of Catholicism. However, that's not the point I'm going to emphasize.The first two chapters are filled with statements that made me start talking back to the book in wrath, such as Finley's description of "progressive Catholics" as Catholics who are sincerly devout, attend Church regularly, have a vibrant faith life and "disagree with a few non-essential Church teachings." Or, "A conservative Catholic would say that you can't stay Catholic unless you obey the church's official prohibition of artificial contraceptives and never disagree with anything the pope says." I beg to differ. First of all, no one ever said you can't disagree with the pope (and your bishops). You can disagree with them all you like. But you still have to respect and obey them.However, after the first two chapters, the book actually gets pretty good. Finley writes on how to "stay Catholic" in your relationships, your workplace, and your parish. He even makes a strong argument for keeping (or bringing back) crucifixes, statues, and benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. In one passage, he argues forcefully against substituting a "risen Christ" or a bare cross for a crucifix in Catholic churches:

People don't have a hard time understanding or accepting the joy in their lives. With that, they need no help. People find it difficult to accept suffering and anguish, and with that, they need some help. That is why Catholics are perplexed, sometimes angry, when a new parish church does not have a crucifix prominently displayed. An image of the risen Christ is theologically legitimate in itself, but to substitute it for a crucifix is spiritually redundant to the point of crass insensitivity to the lives of ordinary people.

Finley's arguments for devotions, especially devotions to the saints and for Eucharistic Adoration are worth reading. This book could be pretty useful to anyone whose church is undergoing "renovation," especially if your pastor might be influenced by a book whose forward is written by Andrew Greeley.Returning to the objectionable first two chapters, I want to note a point Finley makes in defining who is Catholic. He says he defines any baptized Catholic who agrees with the Creeds (Apostles' and Nicene). He cites Canon Law which says "if you were validly baptized and have never formally abandoned Catholicism ('apostatized') then you are a Catholic."I hate to say it, but I think he's right. Part of me wants to say, "But you can't call people who blatantly ignore and undermine the Church's teachings Catholic!" Yes, I certainly don't want to call them Catholic. But they still are.The Church, ever conscious of herself as the Ark of Salvation, outside of which no man can be sure of his salvation, is very slow to pitch even flagrant sinners off the side of the boat. Some people may cause an awful lot of agitation. Some by their preaching, endanger their souls and the souls of others. But Mother Church, who tries to be as patient as her spouse, Christ Himself, seldom uses her privilege of excommunication. The definition in Canon Law is an example of these generous boundaries.Some of us, like ticked-off older kids, wish that Mom wouldn't be like this. Boy, we'd like to see a few people get their heads cracked. But, honestly, I have to tell myself that these folks are really still in the Church, regardless of me.In our day and age, the word "Catholic," like the word "Christian," as used by some Protestants, has come to have a subjective meaning outside of its traditional definition. I've heard my separated brethren use phrases like, "Well, they go to church, but they're not really Christians." "She calls herself Christian, but she really isn't." It's tempting to use the word "Catholic" in the same way -- as a subjective term of human judgment.But really and truly, the ultimate judge of who is truly Catholic is God, not us. Thank God, because God is way more generous than I would be in determining who belongs in the Church and who gets the boot.Perhaps that's why our dissenting brothers and sisters like Mitch Finley find us conservative Catholics so unlovable. Because sometimes we are. We can't set ourselves up as the Church and excommunicate this person and that person. Our task is to love the sinner, and I suppose that must mean speaking of them charitably -- not ignoring their deviations, but seeing those sins for what they really are -- sins of our brothers and sisters in Christ. They need our prayers. Our heartfelt, anguished prayers.copyright Regina Doman, 1999. This document is available for republishing only after the author's permission has been obtained. Click the top button for an email link to the author.

Requiem to the Things in My Trunk (1993)

Originally published in Caelum Et Terra, Winter 1994
This text is the author's copy and may vary slightly from the publisher's copy."The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang oft a-gley" -- BurnsI live in New York City in the Bronx, which has a reputation worse than reality. People seem to think that if you even walk within its precincts, you'll immediately be caught in crossfire between drug gangs. And when the police come to cart off your body, your pockets will be empty. But it's not quite as bad as that.My car's gotten broken into twice since I've been here to join a Franciscan lay community working with the homeless. The first time, the thieves smashed my front window, rifled through my glove compartment (ruining a lot of holy cards), and tried to wrench out my tape deck. Not succeeding, they tried and failed to get into my trunk, and tore off my pro-life bumper sticker instead. They took my small change, but missed the box of cash I keep beneath my seats for emergencies, which had $5.00 in it. All in all, I was pretty tickled by the episode. Especially since the tape deck still works, but now looks so smashed up that I doubt anyone will bother to try to steal it again.Approaching marriage is a good time to reflect and survey the past and take stock of your resources. I had been sensing that this was where my relationship with Andrew was heading. He was, honestly, everything I'd ever wanted in a husband: a kind-hearted, earnest, free-spirited man who shared my three loves for art, family, and the Catholic Church. We had met in my sister's wedding party and had started a seemingly endless conversation, carried on through letters, phone calls, and visits, until we realized, simultaneously, where all this might be heading. Finally, during one belabored phone conversation, he brought up the "m" word, and I admitted it was in my thoughts as well. And the world spun around us for a bit as it all sank in.So we made tentative plans: I'd take up a job offer in the Ohio area where he lives, and move out there so that we could be closer and see what would happen. In preparation, I would meet him in Harrisburg over a weekend and pass some of my belongings onto him, so that I would have less to move.At the house, I'd pared down my possessions to a minimum, in keeping with the Franciscan rule of poverty I was trying to live out. However, at my office I guiltily hoarded my old booty: heirlooms, antiques and porcelain animals, all sorts of Things.I have a deep affection for Things: soft, pretty, shiny, antiquated, odd-shaped, unique, dear Things. My bedroom used to be filled, embellished, and crammed with Things. I remember all the trinkets that festooned my old dresser: old shell necklaces, brass Victorian pins, a tiny china girl holding her sleeping doll, brightly colored wicker baskets, a linen cloth with my initials on it, a glittering flapper purse which added that fascinating hint of glamour.Nowadays my dresser has a small basket for hair pins, a lamp, a votive candle on it, with a tiny image of our Lady of Guadalupe: a far cry from the old days, and an adjustment I'm still struggling to make. It goes against the grain of twenty-three years of collecting and decorating. At times I thought I would suffocate if I hadn't had a large and accommodating office at work I was free to adorn as I wished. And I did, extravagantly, stowing the excess in my big black steamer trunk.Inside it were nestled and crammed Things from childhood, from high school, from college, from afterwards. This trunk would be the perfect item to move to Ohio first, I decided, and opened it up to take stock, re-kindle the old affections that kept me hanging onto the contents, and added some Things from the walls and nooks of my office. Such as my stained-glass suncatcher and my plaque with a quote from Jeremiah: "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for good and not evil, to give you a future and a hope."At the bottom of the trunk I found old posters and blank paper I intended to use for painting. There was a poster from The Cocktail Party, my favorite T.S. Eliot play, a few Impressionist prints, a photo of the Veteran's Memorial Bridge, and a large, treasured poster of the Unicorn Tapestry exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've always been strongly attached to the unicorn as a symbol of Christ, and of that elusive, mysterious longing within each of our hearts, the longing C.S. Lewis says we feel for heaven. The unicorn tapestries stirred up that longing in me when I first saw them, that desire for something more, perhaps to be found in that calm, enflowered world of the medievals. When I saw this tattered poster hanging up in the copier room at my work, I begged to have it, and hung it in my bedroom for a while. Until that inexplicable call to poverty came and I decided to follow it, and I put away some of my Things...Like a Victorian purse I had sewed myself for my part in the play Hedda Gabbler, now residing in the trunk. Inside it I kept some choice fabric scraps I had plans for, and a silk rabbit, with silver sequins for eyes that I'd stitched myself at the tender age of ten. That rabbit and I had shared many secrets, despite his asymmetrical and lumpy appearance, and I carried him everywhere, almost superstitiously. At one time he had a name, but I've long forgotten what it was.This was not the case with Shasta, my black stuffed cat, also a trunk resident. Once as a child, I was en route to summer camp, which my parents assured me I would love and which I dreaded. On the way, we stopped at a rest stop, and in the gift shop on a high shelf I saw this dark grey cat with green eyes and a wide, stitched-on smile. Desperately I pointed at it. "Daddy, please buy me that cat." My parents seldom bought me anything on request, and never from rest-stop gift stores, but an angel must have moved my father, and he bought it for me. I think it was seven dollars. I loved cats and had never had a stuffed one before, so I clung to this little black feline the whole rest of the trip.Camp turned out to be as lonesome and as bleak as I imagined it would be, but that little cat comforted me the entire week by sitting on my bed and soaking in my homesick tears. That was a real bonding experience, and Shasta accompanied me perpetually from that time on, outlasting an entire stuffed animal collection. I should have left her in my cedar chest at home, where I'd been keeping my trousseau, but no, I had to have her with me, and so she had been living in the bottom of my black steamer trunk up until this point.Along with my manger scene, the sole last collection I allowed myself to continue. The little figures were white porcelain children, dressed as Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds, children deftly play-acting, children gathered around a sleeping baby. My aunt bought me the set as a confirmation present, long before children's manger scenes became in vogue. The set has been discontinued, and for a long time I've scoured antique shops with all the obsession of a professional collector. Once I offered a lady fifty dollars for an angel from the set which I didn't have (she turned me down).Through the years I added colorful additions to the set: a dalmatian, a clown, a unicorn (of course), a white horse, a lamb, a squirrel, two dancing Spaniards, a Siamese cat. In Assisi, I was ecstatic to find three cows, all just the right size, which joined the manger scene this year. This year I set up my collection on a round table at the office for our Christmas party, and surrounded it by roots, dried flowers, shells, rocks, and interesting votive candles.My christening cup of translucent white china with cloverleaves on it was packed among the candles. What does one do with a christening cup? I never figured out, but I held onto it, all the same, and I packed it in with my manger scene in the trunk.So often we hold onto Things not because of what they are, but because of how we attained them. Such as the craggy tree roots I found during a depressing walk in the woods while I was unemployed last year. A colored candlestick I bought half-price because it was chipped on a "special" shopping trip with my kid sister, and a white lace angel my college friend made me. Also a dark, wildly colored oil painting my best friend made me, which I kept because of her, not because of the painting. And the Victorian whimsy box with the green tassel from another kindred spirit. And my favorite family picture, where all of us are up in a tree in our backyard. It was my mom's idea to climb the tree, and it turned out to be the most natural pose, with even the dog making an appearance, on the ground, of course.What else was in that trunk? Old cheap books I'd just bought, keepsake jewelry, a dresser jewelry box, Things I planned on giving as gifts, Things I hoped to find a use for someday. Things I thought dreamily of handing on to my children, should I have any. An old lamp from my great-grandfather. Tablecloths from my mother. Curtains from the Dougherty's.The curtains deserve an explanation. During my teenage years, a couple named the Dougherties became my first grown-up friends. In their small dining room they had these flowered curtains of old linen, with blue, red and green flowers. No, not just blue, red and green, but teal blue, burgundy red, and forest green, all of which are my favorite colors. At that time they had a deep green carpet in the room, and I loved the room, especially the curtains. Around the time I graduated from high school, they had to get a new carpet, and took down the curtains. When they came to my graduation party, they handed me a package, and inside I was dumbfounded to find the curtains. Never has anyone given me a gift that surprised and honored me more. It spoke of a parent's reassurance (for they were sort of substitute parents) that the teenager would become an adult and would someday have a home of her own. It was very grown-up gift. Yes, I hung those curtains everywhere I went. And when I lived in a place where I couldn't use them, I wore one of the ties as a headband. I think I have two school pictures wearing it.Another treasure in the trunk was a rectangular wooden box with an owl's head on it, with tortoiseshell eyes, intricately carved. When I was in college, I went through a phase, a very healthy one, where I was memorizing Scripture verses. I made myself flash cards, and would shuffle through them in my spare time. A pile of flash cards still lies on my desk, but now I've included quotes from the saints among them. Anyhow, one spring morning I walked into an antique store and found this carved box. It was just the right size for my cards, but I was worried, because I wasn't sure if the carving on it was an owl's head or a devil's head -- I couldn't tell. On an impulse I bought it, but felt an eerie feeling whenever I looked at it. Was it a pagan symbol? I didn't know, so I confided my fears to my wise friend Joan. She said, "Regina, if it is a pagan box, then baptize it and make it Catholic!" "But suppose it's a demon head on the front?" I protested. "You can't baptize a demon!" "Let me see it," she ordered, and I went and got it for her. "Regina, that's an owl. And if you're going to use it to hold scripture verses, I can't see how God could object." So I kept it, and every time since then when I've looked at it, I've seen an owl's wise eyes looking back. Quite appropriate for Scripture too, Joan pointed out.This is silly. In the trunk I also kept a maternity dress I bought once because it looked nice on me and I figured someday I could use it. Funny how we women plan ahead, isn't it?And there was this green and blue plaid jumper which was once the property of my friends Stacey and Karen. In college I found myself part of a trio for the first time in my life. Karen, Stacey, and I formed a tri-part alliance of companionship and craziness unlike anything I'd ever experienced in my past life of solitude and very private friendships. Stacey gave this jumper of hers to Karen, who wore it out, and she was throwing it away when I saw it. "Oh, give it to me!" I exclaimed, foreseeing a time when each of us would move on and away and mementoes would be precious. So I wore this plaid jumper, although I hate plaid, because my two kindred spirits had worn it before me.Today Stacey is far off, in a convent in Illinois. She gave away all her clothes before she left, and I still wear two of her old sweaters. Karen and I still keep in touch -- she's going to be a bridesmaid in my wedding. Stacey's parting gift to me were her two Victorian tea cups, gilded and flowered, with matching saucers. When we were sad, or distracted, or wanted to celebrate, we'd dress up like the girls in Anne of Green Gables and spread out a tablecloth on our dormitory desks and drink tea from these cups, along with Karen, usually. There was a third cup she gave me, which one day she accidentally knocked of the shelf and shattered. I remember her tears and apologies, and I remember looking at the cup, shrugging, and hugging her. I always kept a fragment of that cup, in remembrance of her love of pretty things, and her love for me. The cups were in the bottom of my trunk, never used, since my call to simplifying my life came at the same time as hers. Friendship is a sacred thing: it might have profaned these cups of friendship to have used them casually, those cups which we only used when the two or three of us were gathered.One other Thing of special love was a double picture frame containing two black-and-white pictures of each of my parents as children, each photo taken miles and years apart, but still mysteriously like the other. My mom stands on a sidewalk in Greenwich Village in her Sunday coat with her doll, a satisfied smile on her chubby three-year-old face, framed with a bonnet. And my father, in enormous overalls and tight short coat, his head bald beneath a flat baby cap, a worried toddler expression, is balancing himself on the running board of an enormous parked Oldsmobile. When my dad was four, my mother was a newborn. When my dad was seven and my mother was three, when he was ten and she was six, when he was fifteen and she was eleven, when he was twenty and she was sixteen, they never dreamed that in a few years they'd be meeting and marrying each other. In those pictures of long ago, you can see the plan of God already at work, and I reflected that I would like to see pictures of Andrew from long ago, since we are the same distance apart as my parents.O Things! Dear precious expendable Things! Things I so carefully packed in a trunk and squeezed into the back of my car, not knowing they would exit my life that very night in the Bronx through a broken window!I went outside the next morning and noticed that my car window was broken, again. And then I noticed that the back seat was bare. "Oh look!" I called to my roommates. "I've been robbed again!"They came and were horrified. I stared at the back seat, and chuckled. I though of how my co-worker and I had struggled to fit that huge, heavy trunk into the back seat, and how those thieves must have cursed and swore as they tried to get it out. What did they do when they found out all their trouble had gained them was a box of china animals wrapped in fabric remnants and tattered books?"What are you going to do?" my distraught roommate asked."Oh, fix the window. And go down to file a police report," I shrugged. What else could be done? C'est la vie.An odd nonchalance had a hold over me, Obviously, I thought to myself, opening the car door and gingerly sweeping up the glass, God had thought that I could do without all the Things in that trunk. Obviously they were not necessary to my future happiness in Ohio. It was an odd, carefree feeling. Perhaps that's what they call grace.For, after all, what had the thieves left me? A car, for one, so that I could go to Harrisburg to see the man who really mattered in my life. The spring-weather day. My health. And my tape deck, which, as I had gambled, was so deceptively battered that the thieves hadn't bothered with it.And they had even left me some Things which, since they couldn't fit in the trunk, I left at work: my books of Anderson's and Grimm's Fairy Tales, my photo albums, my pewter-framed picture of Karen and Stacey and I, my San Damiano crucifix, and one black glass unicorn from Venice which, mysteriously, never got packed. Oh, and I still have lots of other Things which don't deserve a requiem. I'm grateful for what I have left, and lately, upon noticing a Thing that wasn't stolen, I thank the Lord for its prolonged existence.So I have lost my trunk and those bits and pieces of my past, but having lost them, I find that I have more with less. That's the mysterious side effect of striving to be poor in spirit. I've been trying to understand the mystery of poverty for the past two years with minute success. But when I saw that bare back seat, I think I understood.A day later, in Harrisburg, Andrew unexpectedly asked me to marry him, and I gasped and assented. In that rush of surprise, I think I understood a little more. Gifts are truly gifts when they take you by surprise -- they are less likely to be mistaken for just rewards. Surprise keeps you safely in gratitude in a way that planned recompense simply doesn't. Losing a trunk and gaining a fiancee both came one swoop of a weekend, and each, ironically, made me deeply grateful.How strange it is to live on the providence of God, on the toss of the daily bread. When I get married, I won't have a maternity dress ready to be unpacked in my trunk. But, I have a feeling, I'll be far more ready.copyright Regina Doman, 1999. 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