MANUSCRIPT COMPLETE: I'm just waiting on feedback from my beta-readers so I can edit and polish the book before submission.
Your prayer welcome: If you are a praying person, I REALLY need to land a better publisher. My present publisher won't even pay me royalties because promotion of the books is so poor, even though I have contributed $$$ to that task. And at the present moment I am in a place of financial reliance on the Almighty -- there's nothing like having to LIVE what you WRITE for others to read! [Clare would be pleased with me.]
INTO THE DREAM OF SAINT CLARE:
"You should write YOUR story..."
Feel free to comment on the title: someone felt the word "into" made it more appealing, but I think it is a bit intrusive and presumptuous, as no one can really enter someone else's dream! I'm even open to making it shorter...
My life is such a mosaic/jumble/crazy quilt, it will be some time before I even begin to tackle my Story. I don't even know how to do God justice in that task... However, SINCE you asked... [Into] The Dream of Saint Clare: Reflections on Divine Dependence is now a complete manuscript ready for a publishing home.
The Reflection piece cobbles together scenes from Saint Clare's vision in the 13th Century, Clare's advice to people wanting a more intimate relationship with God, and my reflections and memories of insights related to dependence on my Creator and Lord. A Franciscan since 1999 (formally; my leanings that way go back to the 1970s), I have been inspired by Clare's calm trust in God to meet her every need, bring sisters to the Order she began in 1212, and to loan her quiet Power to heal and restore those with relational, physical, and mental illness.
In this Reflection Piece, I try to tackle the overlap of relationship and spirituality, at least in my own life and in those of the Western Mystics. I share memories of how I have learned to depend upon God's Goodness both as a widow and a Franciscan. (Yes, I know I was divorced, but he remarried soon after and passed in 2015. I intentionally remain celibate, so I feel like a widow.) In this book I am trying to 'pay forward' so much wisdom I've gleaned from spiritual directors and Big Siblings in my life.
If you want to know my own journey, or if you crave a quieter and closer walk with the Lord, or even if you find 'dreams' fascinating in the Jungian sense, I'm sure you will find Into the Dream of St. Clare an insightful read.