Melanie Rigney's Blog

On the Nightstand: No Such Thing as Ordinary

My sister and I recently did spring cleaning, and we have boxes and boxes to go to the local donation center later this week. (And if you live in Arlington and are a jigsaw puzzle fan, stop by Central Library’s friends room. Just saying we donated a lot there, including a couple puzzles we never opened!)

As I was culling through books, I came across this one, which I bought a few years ago. Hmm, I thought. I don’t remember reading this one, and it looks good. I’m looking forward to reading it...

On the Nightstand: Living in Wonder

I recently rewatched the classic comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and shared that on my personal Facebook account. A number of people weighed in with their favorite Ferris moments, and a side thread emerged via a friend, waxing poetic about Chicago in the 1980s, when we worked together at a trade magazine. We were both raised Catholic but not practicing any faith at that point. Since then, I’ve, well, you know, come back, and she is exploring, including doing Father Mike Schmitz’s Catechism in a ...

On the Nightstand: Braving the Thin Places

I first heard the phrase “thin place” more than twenty years ago, watching the sun rise over a Wisconsin lake with a new acquaintance. She told me it was a place where it was easy to meet God. Not practicing any faith at that point, it really spoke to me.

But recently I ran across this book by Julianne Stanz, subtitled “Celtic Wisdom to Create a Space for Grace.” Her definition is a bit different: “Your thin place might be an important threshold, a soul friendship, a fresh chapter in your own...

On the Nightstand: A Two-Fer!

Well, OK, maybe a one-and-a-half-fer!

Sketches From a Sunlit Heaven: A Novel was recommended by a non-Catholic friend who’s fascinated by St. Therese of Lisieux and her Little Way. It includes fictional looks at Therese through the eyes of her four sisters, a cousin, and a seminarian with whom Therese corresponded. I’ve been warned there’s not a lot of plot, but that the writing is beautiful.

A Beautiful Second Act: Saints and Soul Sisters Who Taught Me to Age with Grace I can’t recomm...

2025: Your Words

Last month, I shared that my word for 2025 is harmony, and I asked for yours. Here’s a sampling:

Angie: “It may be a bit current-culture-cliche, but I chose the word INTENTIONAL. This year, I want to be more intentional, more aware, more conscious and purposeful about everything I do . . . in my relationships (spouse, kids, friends, family), my prayer life and spirituality and relationship with God, my work life … my self-care, everything. It may be too lofty a goal and I don’t know exact...

My Word for 2025: Harmony

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays so far have been beautiful and filled with joy. After a bevy of get-togethers, I more or less crashed with a bad head cold on December 20–just in time to go to a Shenandoah Valley retreat center with my sister until Christmas morning.

The quiet provided me with a great opportunity to think about 2024–my first year of retirement from the day job–and how 2025 might look different. I had lots of fun travel adventures (and caught up on sleep!), but I’ve been f...

On the Nightstand: Flight Behavior

Back in the day, I was a big Barbara Kingsolver fan–Prodigal Summer, Poisonwood Bible. But more recently, I’ve found her a bit preachy, and she’s fallen off my radar screen.

So I was delighted to find I’d missed 2012’s Flight Behavior, which sounds right up my alley. One newspaper called it “an intricate story that entwines considerations of faith and faithlessness, inquiry, denial, fear and survival in gorgeously conceived metaphor.” That’s what’s on my nightstand this month, and I’m hoping ...

On the Nightstand: Consumed

I freely confess to being a Heather King groupie. She describes herself as “an ex-lawyer, a sober alcoholic of 35 years, a Catholic convert, and a lover of books, film, and art.” She’s one of the finest memoirists writing today. (I especially love her one-word-title books, including Parched, Redeemed, and Stripped.) So when her essay collection came out last month (subtitled “The Joys, Sufferings and Debacles of a Life Ordered to Art”), I jumped on it.

I just started reading Consumed, and I’...

On the Nightstand: This Is Where It Ends

I bought this book earlier this year and put it on the shelf, but forgot about it until a sister Christian fiction writer recommended it recently. So, back to the top of the nightstand it goes!

This Is Where It Ends is the story of Minerva. Eighty years ago, her husband left her a box he said was filled with gold. He swore her to secrecy about the box and its contents. Now she must answer a question: how long is one bound by a promise? I’m looking forward to learning what her decision is and...

On the Nightstand: Iscariot: A Novel of Judas

Judas has been on my mind a lot the past month or so because… was he that different from us? He thought he knew what was best, and didn’t agree with all Jesus’s decision making. Sound familiar? I’m really excited to start reading Tosca Lee’s fiction take on the man who betrayed Jesus.

Tosca spoke twice at the American Christian Fiction Writers’ conference I attended in early September, and then two weeks later, Judas was front and center at several panels and conversations at ChosenCon. The ...