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Aack. If you ever wondered what authors do minutes after finishing a book manuscript, you are looking at it. After a year of spending ten months thinking about “Redeeming Power” (still a tentative title) during every minute I wasn’t doing something else, I just finally hit “send” to my wonderful editor Eileen and ran downstairs to tell my husband who simply said, “I don’t believe it. You’ve said this before.”

This week I’ve been in St. Louis getting ready for Aquinas Institute’s baccalaureate and commencement on Friday the 12th. We’ve got a couple MAPS-CGS students who are finishing their degree with us and it is time to celebrate them. They’ve been an extraordinary group.

My goal this month is to reach the corners of the country. Last week found me with the wonderful people of the Garaventa Center at the University of Portland. Karen Eifler is not only a marvelous educator and writer, but host. I was able to meet with around 60 education leaders on the topic of Let’s Talk about Truth.

I know. I never send out newsletters on Saturday. We are all trying to step away for our computers for the weekend, and trust me, I’m about to do that, too. In fact, after an incredibly hectic last couple of months, I’m going to try to be offline for the whole coming Holy Week to do some retreat time for myself. In preparation, I have done a good amount of reading in the last couple weeks on Caiaphas and the many ways of understanding his statement: “You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” (John 11:50).

So, once again I am trapped in the middle seat of a long flight. This one to Seattle where I will be working with the pastoral administrators of the Archdiocese at their annual gathering. I’ve had the privilege of working with them several times now and this time I’ll be sharing for the first time material from my current writing project on Redeeming Power. I’m a little nervous about this… and also very excited. Curious to see how the research I’ve done will intersect with their experience in parish life.

Yes, it’s either feast or famine. Sometimes you don’t hear from me for weeks on end and then sometimes I write only a few days after you last heard from me. Perhaps it is because I am trapped on a plane in the wee hours of the morning en route to Denver for the Mennonite Health Assembly. I always think that I am going to do some major thinking whenever I have a long flight. Here I am undisturbed for four hours with noise-blocking headphones. I could write a whole chapter! Maybe half a book! And yet, there is something about having to get up at 4:45 a.m.

This week I am once again back in Charlotte, North Carolina working with the next class of Wexner Fellows teaching a leadership seminar in Difficult Conversations.

The rain is a steady drip outside my window right now and I’ve just returned from Compline, which at the Trappist monastery in Conyers, GA is prayed entirely in the dark. The monks have all the psalms memorized, so it is not a problem for them. For me… well, I’m content to just listen. Many of the words I cannot quite catch. They echo because the church is large and we are few and the voices a bit faint.

This past week I have had the extraordinary blessing of being in Florida for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd catechist formation. It’s a blessing because… well, it is Florida… and it is warm. Not to be underestimated after a semester in the middle of Minnesota. But more so because I’ve gotten to be with a whole course of wonderful people including my dear sister (Happy birthday, Janet!) and longtime catechist Carol P. Carol and I have crossed paths in the CGS world on any number of occasions—not only in Florida, but in South Dakota.

This year with Christmas being on a Sunday (to the joy of liturgists and choir directors everywhere), the church calendar goes a bit wonky and the feast of the Baptism of the Lord got bumped to a Monday, but the lectionary tries to make it up to John the Baptist this coming Sunday by giving him center stage again.