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The coming week is a big one for me. I’ll be flying to Chicago tomorrow to meet with leaders serving in Claretian-sponsored ministries and to shoot some video with Liturgy Training Publications on women who helped shaped the Liturgical Movement that led up to Vatican II. I’ll then be going to Washington, DC to talk with a group of pastors from the National Association of Evangelicals followed by a gathering of executive directors of Catholic ministry organizations. So yesterday in a moment of vanity (thinking, “I want to look good for all this”) mingled with some laziness (“And using an eyebrow pencil in the morning feels like just tooooo much effort”), I went to have my eyebrows done.
Now for those of you out there who’ve managed to avoid engaging in this kind of behavior in your own life, let me tell you that “having your eyebrows done” involves someone doing a bit of wizardry involving a thread, followed by an act of complete trust that the shade of tint they’ve chosen as “natural” for your eyebrows is the same shade of tint you think looks “natural” on your face. Sometimes the visions are aligned, and sometimes, well…. The next generation seems to have a thing for big dark eyebrows. And let’s just say that there is a reason that the picture that accompanies this newsletter includes just the cover of my book and not me smiling as I hold my book. It is because at the present moment I look like Groucho Marx.
I am not in a total state of panic about this because I anticipate that maybe my eyebrows will fade a bit in the next 24 hours before we shoot this video, so that liturgy professors in decades to come will not have to announce to their classes, “Today I am going to show you an important video on the critical role women played in the Liturgical Movement. Try not to be distracted by the strange blond woman with the black eyebrows.” Nor will Evangelical pastors tell their children and their children’s children unto the fourth generation, “Remember that time we dared to invite a Catholic speaker, and she showed up with those demonic eyebrows?”
Rather, I am trying today to look in the mirror and tell myself what I tell the children in the atrium when they spill things, “It’s okay. These things happen,” followed by a line from my mother, “God sometimes does things to keep us humble.” I think the first time she said that was in 9th grade when I cut my own bangs, but there were others.
Nevertheless, from my place of temporary hiding, I do have some good news to share.
Last night, the Association of Catholic Publishers held its annual award celebration and Redeeming Power tied for third place in the General Ministry category. Now, this is funny for reasons having nothing to do with my eyebrows, but having to do with the fact that the last time I got an award from the Association of Catholic Publishers, it was a tied third place award in the General Ministry category, and I tied with the exact same people. Congratulations to Russ Petrus and Elizabeth Donnelly, editors of the wonderful third volume in the Catholic Women Preach series (Cycle C). And congratulations to all the women who provided preachings for this volume! The potential good news for me in this little rivalry is that the Sunday lectionary cycle is comprised of only three years whereas I can continue to try to redeem things until the end of time. But Russ and Elizabeth are of an industrious sort, so you never know when they are going to come out with a 4th volume on Catholic Women Preach Major Feast Days of Saints or something like that. Furthermore, they have been so supportive of me and many of my friends in their efforts to elevate Catholic women’s preaching that I owe them a huge debt of gratitude. So, truly, there is no one else I’d rather share (another) bronze medal with.
If you’d like to learn a little more about Catholic Women Preach, check out their website here. And if you would like a short intro to what Redeeming Power is about, check out this brief article I wrote for The Behavioral Medicine Institute at St. Louis University. I’ve had the joy of collaborating with this team for such a long time in my role at Aquinas Institute. They do lovely work at the intersection of psychology and spirituality.
Meanwhile, let’s celebrate the good, rub elbows with the best, be patient with ourselves, and accept our eyebrows whatever color they might be this week.