Embodied Fall 2022

LIFE

FITS

5

FROM HERE HEADING INTO YEAR TWO 8

BLENDING THEOLOGY & PHOTOGRAPHY

BY CHRISTINA RIES

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DON’T STOP AT HALF THE STORY

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THE CALL TO LOVE FROM INFERTILITY TO FRUITFUL LOVE

Kelsey Green dove into the photography class not knowing that through pointing the lens at others she would learn to see herself more clearly.

IT IS WELL WITH MY MIND

BY KATE BASI

Maria Gari spent her adolescence and young adulthood battling an unhealthy body image as well as a predisposition to anxious thoughts. Her mind kept telling her she was not good enough. But when she added some TOB knowledge to her slate of healthcare tools, things began to change.

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KIMBERLY HAHN FOR CITY COUNCIL

BY PATRICK NOVECOSKY

Kimberly homeschooled their six children for 26 years, and when the youngest left the nest in the fall of 2014 she was left asking, “What next, Lord?” Sitting across the kitchen table from her theologyprofessor husband, they pondered her future. “Maybe it’s time for politics,” Scott suggested.

NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

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UNCOVERING WISDOM AND BEAUTY—YES, IN OLD CHURCH DOCUMENTS

BY LAURA M. DEVICK

This busy mom could hear in her head the oftrepeated question “Why???” Why should anyone read these documents in the first place? But she soon realized: Because they provide wisdom for modern problems.

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WE BOUGHT A FARM!

BY CHRISTINA RIES

Leah Darrow is a long way from her days as a model in New York and a contestant on “America’s Next Top Model”—and she is far happier for it. Leah and her husband, Ricky Soldinie, reflect on their big adventure: moving to an 80-acre farm. “We started talking and asking, ‘Why can’t we give a simpler life to our kids?’”

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OH, THE TREASURES YOU WILL FIND!

BY VICKIE GECKLE

As a young girl, Vickie Geckle fell in love with Dr. Suess books from the school library as a source of escape, delight and friendship. Many years later and now a teacher herself, she takes joy in leading her students to discover some timeless truths in these same stories.

THEOLOGY OF THE BODY: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN

When Karol Wojtyla, the cardinal archbishop of Krakow, Poland, came to Rome in August 1978 to help elect a new pope, he brought along the lengthy handwritten manuscript of a book that he had been prayerfully crafting for nearly four years. It was almost complete, and he wished to work on it, when he could, during the conclave. Page one bore the unusual title (in Polish): “teologia ciala”—“theology of the body.” The hundreds of pages that followed held perhaps the most profound and compel ling Biblical reflection on the meaning of our creation and redemption as male and female ever.

After the election of Pope John Paul I, Wojtyla returned to Krakow and completed his manuscript. Soon after that, to the astonishment of the whole world, he emerged from the second conclave of 1978 as Pope John Paul II. And his “theology of the body”—delivered as a series of Wednesday talks between September 1979 and November 1984 rather than being published as a book— became the first major teaching project of his pontificate, establishing the core of John Paul II’s great vision of what it means to be human.

Still, it took some time for people to grasp the significance of what John Paul II had given us. It wasn’t until 1999, for example, that papal biographer George Weigel described the TOB to a wide readership as “a kind of theological time bomb set to go off, with dramatic consequences....perhaps in the 21st century.” While the pope’s vision of the body and of sexual love had “barely begun to shape the Church’s theology, preaching, and religious education,” Weigel predicted that when it did it would “compel a dramatic development of thinking about virtually every major theme in the Creed.”

From “Theology of the Body for Beginners” by Christopher West

Fall 2022

PUBLISHED BY

Embodied Publishing info@embodiedmag.org

EDITOR

Ann Gundlach • ann@embodiedmag.org

SENIOR EDITOR

Christina Ries • christina@embodiedmag.org

THEOLOGICAL ADVISOR

Katrina Zeno, MTS

DESIGN and PRODUCTION

b graphic design • www.b-graphicdesign.com

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Heading into year two

by Ann Gundlach

If you’ve been with Embodied from the start, you have probably heard me tell the story of being challenged by my spiritual director to get this magazine started. I had felt the call to do so for several years and was finally told point-blank by my spiritual director: “This nudge isn’t going away. If you do not take concrete steps to make it happen—succeed or fail—you are being disobedient to the Holy Spirit.”

Yikes, that lit a fire under me! Eighteen months from that edict we published the Gift Issue, followed three months later by the first official issue, Winter 2022. This one in your hands rounds out year one.

It’s been a whirlwind of many highs, milestones reached, donations given and compliments received. Among my favorite moments was receiving this from

ongoing paper shortage and a mass exodus from the insti tutional church of young adults who were raised Catholic.

But that last point, my friends, speaks to the heart of why I wanted to create Embodied. If you are tuned into the Church, you will find truth, beauty and goodness. But too many are tuned out. They go to Mass only at Christ mas and Easter; they send their children to Catholic schools for the better education; they registered at a parish only to get their baby baptized.

When I think of the media messaging about the Cath olic Church likely reaching these folks, I cringe. They are arguably left with the impression that the Church has nothing of value to offer to them.

My dream is for Embodied to be a vehicle that delivers the beauty of our faith to the disengaged, in a way that is welcoming, enjoyable and surprising. To hopefully open their hearts just a crack to the truth. Because that crack is all the Lord needs to do the rest.

Any look at the numbers tells us there is great potential for Embodied.

In August, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) up dated their data on Catholic populations.

Just looking at their “parish-connected” numbers, we see there are nearly 42 million people registered at a U.S. parish. Factoring out those attending at least weekly Mass leaves over 24 mil lion folks that are ripe for Embodied.

Wendy West, wife of TOB expert Christopher: “I want to tell you that I LOVE Embodied. I read it all. I read it more than once.”

I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many times I have reread that to myself. I go back to it for the affirmation that we are creating something of value here because of how often I wonder how we will ever make it. Because it’s not easy to launch a new Catholic magazine at any time, let alone during a (likely) recession, record inflation, an

Look at the Parish Partnership ad on the inside front cover of this issue and see how easy it could be to distribute Embodied as a gift to many of these Catholics. Ask your own pastor to look into Embodied.

consider who you can gift Embodied to! Go to www.embodiedmag.org, click SUBSCRIBE then “Give a gift” and use promo code YEAR2 for a discount that helps you help Embodied.

THE WHOLE STORY

Don’t stop at half the story

by Katrina Zeno

We are a culture enamored with acronyms. From NFL to VIP to LOL, our efficient American mindset influences even the way we write. And TOB is no exception.

Over the years I’ve developed my own list of acro nyms, including SMB (spousal meaning of the body), U&C (union and communion), and COP (communion of persons). Last spring, however, as I was teaching an undergraduate TOB course, one of my students invented her own acronym: TGOSIL. I stared at it for a few sec onds, and then the light bulb went on: total gift of self in love. Quickly, though, I realized it was incomplete. The full acronym had to be TGOSILTTB. Can you guess what TTB means?

So often we hear, “Jesus came to save souls,” but this is only half the story. Jesus came to save embodied persons. We are a “personal unity of spirit and body” (as St. John Paul II says in Audience 51:2), which is why our salvation is incomplete until Christ returns and our bodies are raised, glorified and perfectly united with our spiritual souls. In the meantime, Jesus took on flesh precisely to save our flesh. And He saves our flesh by making a total gift of self in love through the body, otherwise abbreviated as TGOSILTTB!

Jesus took on flesh precisely to save our flesh. And He saves our flesh by making a total gift of self in love through the body, otherwise abbreviated as TGOSILTTB!

Why through the body? Why couldn’t God simply make a total gift of self in love through the Spirit? Indeed, Christ gifted us with His Spirit when he “gave up his Spirit” on the cross and when He breathed on His dis ciples on Easter morning. But notice the source of the Spirit—it is His Body. From His Body, Jesus sends us the Spirit who bring us eternal life.

But that’s still only half the story. How does the Spirit bring us eternal life? By uniting us to Christ’s body. Christianity alone professes the resurrection of the body.

The cross is followed by the resurrection of the body because Christ, as the Divine Bridegroom, requires a glorified body to which He can unite us, His Bride.

Spouses love each other through a total gift of self in love that includes the body.

Embedded in this string of letters—TGOSILTTB—is salvation as a spousal reality. Spouses love each other through a total gift of self in love that includes the body. This is the not-so-minor point being omitted by legally redefining marriage. The way a husband and wife give themselves to each other is different than the gift of self they make to anyone else—it includes the totality of fruitful self-giving through the body in a one-flesh union. Likewise, Christ, the Divine Bridegroom, offers a TGOSILTTB on the cross and in the Eucharist to us. Christ’s love for us is not only redemptive, but spousal, and marriage is the “visual aid” that leads us to see and understand the spousal reality of salvation that occurs through bodily union with the Body of Christ.

In case you think I’m bordering on heresy, St. Paul proclaims this spousal reality of salvation through the body in Eph 5:31–32: “This is why a man shall leave his fa ther and mother and unite with his wife and the two shall be one flesh.’ This is a great mystery; I speak in reference to Christ and the Church.” The Great Mystery is not only that we become one spirit with Christ, but that we be come one body with the glorified Body of Christ—first in Baptism and then every time we receive the Eucharist.

And these two realities point to our ultimate perfec tion in heaven where our glorified bodies will be united with the glorified Body of Christ for all eternity through a TGOSILTTB. This is the great gift of being an embodied person and the reason this magazine is called Embodied— which has a better ring to it than TGOSILTTB.

Katrina J. Zeno, MTS, received her master of theological studies from the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Washington, D. C., and is currently pursuing a second master’s in theology from the Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio.

From infertility to fruitful love

by Father Walter Schu

Rebecca first cast her eyes on Bill Donaghy through a chain-link fence as she was emptying out trash during her work for a Philadelphia soup kitchen. She immedi ately noted that he checked the “tall, dark and handsome” boxes. Bill remembers taking in her glistening blue eyes.

He asked how to get into the soup kitchen to speak with the director. Rebecca pointed to a locked door of the adjacent building and said, “One of the volunteers will open it for you.” She then rushed through another back door, darted past several volunteers in the soup line and was there to breathlessly open the door just as Bill rang the bell.

After they began dating, Rebecca discovered Bill was a for mer seminarian who discerned his true calling was to marriage. At the time he was working with the Pontifical Mission Societies, a ministry that had taken him to many countries to train missionaries. Then he discov ered there were missions right in his own backyard that needed help, which brought him to the soup kitchen.

Through their dating and engagement time, they were drawn to learn more about theology of the body. Bill had been familiar with Pope John Paul II’s series of Wednes day talks since 1999 when a seminarian friend gave him a series of Christopher West’s tapes. As Bill says, “It rocked my world!” While he and Rebecca were engaged, they at tended one of Christopher’s conferences, and he called on them from the audience as an example. A deep friendship ensued between Christopher and the couple, and in 2006, Christopher invited Bill to be a speaker and teacher for the TOB Institute located near Philadelphia.

Bill notes that teaching TOB is one reality, but living it in their married lives soon became quite another. The shadow of the cross fell across their love and life when they discovered they were unable to have children.

Rebecca was the seventh of nine children, and raising many children of her own was one of the deepest yearn ings of her heart. As a result, many long and tearful wrestling matches with our Lord ensued. If she and Bill were so on fire with the message of theology of the body and burning with an ardent desire to raise a large family, how could God allow them to suffer infertility?

Through prayer and the passage of time, she and Bill realized God had allowed their infertility because there were needy children waiting to be adopted by a loving mother and father. And so, in a few short years, Seth, Clare, Sheila, and Ka gan entered their lives as their chil dren through adoption. When Seth grew old enough to understand, Rebecca and Bill began to share with him that he was their own lit tle Simon of Cyrene, helping them to carry the cross of infertility.

Family life in the Donaghy household hasn’t always been easy. As Bill notes, “There are eight family trees running through our home, and in those trees the right decisions haven’t always been made about love, sexuality and bearing children.” As most adoptive parents know, their children often have unseen wounds of many kinds. So Bill and Rebecca soon became prayer warriors. They learned to turn to God in prayers of deliverance for their children, pleading with him each day to accomplish for their children what they could not do on their own.

“That’s the gift of parenthood,” Rebecca smiles. “At first, they each were Simon of Cyrene to us, and now we have become Simon to them. We help our children carry their crosses. We can’t take them away; we just help them carry them. Ultimately, we surrender everything to God, the Healer we all seek.”

Blending theology & photography

How a wedding photographer has learned to love herself

By Christina Ries • Wedding photos by Kelsey Green Photography

Kelsey Green was looking for a break from all her the ology courses. As a junior majoring in theology at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D., she was starting to get bleary eyed from all the reading.

“It was very heady, very intellectual,” she said. “I was kind of drained after a semester of straight theology.”

She knew she needed a creative outlet and considered enrolling in photography.

“I had never touched a camera before,” Kelsey said. “I thought, ‘Why not?’”

Her parents understood her need for creative expres sion and bought her a Canon Rebel T-5.

“I took the class and fell in love,” she said.

What was intended to provide a reprieve from theolo gy animated it. Behind the lens, she was seeing people as

God sees them: beautiful, unique, worthy of dignity. And seeing St. John Paul II’s theology of the body through a new angle.

When the class ended, she kept snapping pictures. Now 24 and living in St. Paul, Minn., Kelsey is an indemand wedding photographer. She draws on her photography skills at her day job as the digital con tent creator for St. Paul’s Outreach, an evangelization initiative aimed at young adults and based in Mendota Heights, Minn.

Through it all, she’s coming into her own as a daugh ter of Christ. Pointing the lens at others has helped her see herself more clearly.

October is the new June when it comes to wedding season. You’re in the thick of it!

It’s busy! It’s usually a 10-hour day and then I get home and have a month’s worth of editing to do.

How has being a wedding photographer shifted your thinking on your own wedding, whenever that day comes?

Before doing this, I would think about the look of my wedding—the dresses, the colors. I wanted to present my wedding in a certain way.

I don’t think about that anymore. The main thing I’ve taken away from shooting weddings is that I want to just enjoy the day. So many brides have said to me, “I’ve been more stressed about the darn centerpieces than any thing.” Why? That’s the least important part!

Yes, I want my wedding to be beautiful, but not so much the aesthetics. My focus is shifting to the beauty of marriage as a sacrament and entering into that.

Do you prefer big weddings or intimate ones?

Intimate for sure.

How do you seek out beauty in daily life?

It’s a matter of slowing down. Daily life is busy. It’s easy to go through the motions and be oblivious to everything around you. Just the other night, on a drive home from my parents’ place, my boyfriend was playing some music, we were driv ing past the Minneapolis skyline and the sun was setting. It was this great moment where I slowed down and soaked it up.

It sounds like you took a picture with your heart.

That’s a good way to describe it. Sometimes I feel like I have a bad memory. That’s why I like photography. It’s taking these moments you want to remember and having them in a still frame.

I bet a lot of us think we have a bad memory.

There’s so much information coming at us, especially with the digital world. We’re constantly seeing images and videos. It’s nice to have your own: “This is me! This is what I’ve done.”

Sometimes I pick up my phone and just look at my own photos on it.

I do that all the time—more than I go on social media now. Even if it was just pictures from yes terday. It makes me feel so grateful for the people in my life and the memories we make—rather than looking at other people’s pictures and thinking, “Oh, I wish I had that.”

Do you encourage clients to print their photos?

Yes! I’m a huge proponent of printing photos. In my mind, it’s like a photo doesn’t really exist unless you have a hard copy of it. Everything is digital now, and we have all this online storage, but one little thing could happen and you could lose it all.

There’s something so special about holding a picture in your hand. I have this app, Timeshel, where I can up load pictures and then they send me a pack of the photos I took for the month. They’re little squares. They come in thin cardboard slips. I keep them in my bookshelf.

I’m such a sentimental person. One of my favorite things in the world is to sit down and look at the photo books my mom made when we were kids. It’s like looking back at your childhood. They’re going to be there for my kids and their kids. They’re going to be there forever.

Was it hard to establish your rate when you first launched your business, Kelsey Green Photography?

I felt bad asking for much money. I didn’t feel deserv ing of it yet. Then as I got more experienced and honed

I find myself second guessing a lot: “Am I really worth this?” I don’t want to rip people off. Then I realize how much work I put into it, and I know what I’m worth.

Does being a photographer make you a better Catholic?

It’s cool because I can see a pretty stark contrast in myself from before I was doing this and now. Photogra phy has helped train my eye to see beauty more—more often and in unexpected places. It’s changed my percep tion of the world. Different light and shadows, shapes, colors—I notice all the intricacies. It’s filled me with a greater sense of awe and wonder. I feel like I’m closer to who God created me to be, and I’m able to see through his eyes a little better.

On the flip side, does being a Catholic make you a better photographer?

my craft, I was more confident to ask for a better rate. But it was still difficult to go from, “Oh, I charged $50 for a photo shoot and now it’s $300.”

It definitely gives me a disposition toward seeing people as beautiful in their uniqueness. Being able to see them in light of being God’s creation, being a daughter or son of God and being so loved by him. I especially want to live up to portraying them the way that God made them.

Photography has helped train my eye to see beauty more—more often and in unexpected places. It’s filled me with a greater sense of awe and wonder. I feel like I’m closer to who God created me to be.

That is theology of the body sprung to life! You were first introduced to TOB as a teen while growing up with four older brothers. What was that like?

I absolutely loved it! There was definitely a period of time where I had to figure out what being a woman looked like. Being around so many boys, I just sort of naturally was a tomboy because I did everything with them. It was tough at first, but the more I leaned into the differences [between men and women] the more beauti ful it became and the more confident in myself I became.

Recognizing the male/female difference is a central TOB principle.

What does it mean to you now?

It’s so beautiful. The more you see the differences in men and women, the more you see their complementarity. I love seeing how men naturally lead, take care of others and give to others in very selfless ways. The way they can have the perfect combination of strength and tenderness is so beautiful. Whereas women, I feel, are very attuned

to caring for others emotionally, and when they are good at creating a loving and encouraging environment, it allows men to lead them and others well.

I love the way TOB looks at male and female and the way it gives us a positive light to look at our physical and emotional bodies as masculine or feminine in the way God does. Growing up as tomboy-ish, I had a tendency to almost look down upon feminine things. But once I learned the beauty and importance of femininity, I fell in love with it and feel more comfortable with who I am truly and my own beauty.

How does photography influence your own self-image?

I think it’s helped me embrace myself more naturally. I’m not overly concerned about my appearance, as I was at one point. A lot of that has to do with my relationship with the Lord and coming into who God created me to be. When I’m taking someone’s picture, I love getting to focus on their beauty and getting to hype them up, saying, “Wow, your hair!” I like it when people arrive not completely done up. It’s more fun because it’s playing on their natural look. “Oh, wow— this is a cool part about how you look.”

Everyone’s beautiful in their own way!

So is there something you have come to appreciate about your own look?

One thing I can say confidently would be my eyes. I feel like they’re kind of unique in color. When people comment on my eyes, it’s my favorite compliment to receive.

Your career path has unfolded from real estate to weddings and now the music scene. What have you learned from that unfolding?

I used to be stressed about figuring out my career and how to provide for myself. Then I tried to detach from that idea of having a crazy good career. It was a lot

I try to prioritize rest as much as possible. I make sure I spend time with people I love and doing things I love so that I don’t burn out.

easier to place it in the Lord’s hands. I looked at broadening my options—I even considered doing mission work full time. I just wanted to give the Lord room to work.

And it worked! The Lord took all the desires I had for my career, my life and my faith and handed me this job at St. Paul’s Outreach. It’s a way I can do mission work and use photog raphy and creativity to show case the beauty of the Lord.

Now I have a lot more peace about discerning things for my life. Obviously, you have to do the work and take the action, but so much of it is opening your heart and mind to what the Lord wants to give you and being willing to accept what that might be. Even if it’s terri fying at first, it always winds up being the best.

In what way does a wedding photographer make a gift of herself to those she serves?

I’m on all day. I’m pouring into the couple all day. It’s high stress, and I’m having to step into certain roles that don’t nec essarily come naturally to me. And because I’m an introvert it’s just all very draining. But I’ve come to love it.

How do you take care of yourself?

I try to prioritize rest as much as possible. I make sure I spend time with people I love and doing things I love so that I don’t burn out.

Music is something I’ll turn to when I want to do something creative that’s not photography. I’ll pick up a guitar or sit down at the piano and play around.

Is it nice having more than one creative outlet?

I’m super grateful that I have multiple. With photog raphy being my job, there are certain stresses attached to it, but when I add other creative things, those fill me in different ways. Even if I work all day with photography,

I still have music that will re-fill me and then I’m more ready to go back to photography for fun.

I notice an undercurrent of gratitude in all your comments…

Focusing on gratitude is huge. It makes me ground myself. It’s usually the little things. Like, this coffee I’m drinking at work is really, really good—and I’m thank ful for it.

Gratitude leads me to my parents. They’re the ones who decided to invest in this random creative outlet for me. They had no idea where it was going to go. They were willing to make that purchase without knowing how much that would completely change my life. Their love and trust and generosity are the reason I am where I am today.

It is well with mindmy

How theology of the body can inspire our approach to mental health

by Kathleen M. Basi

When Maria Gari was 15 years old, she had to wear a leotard on stage. The only logical thing, in her mind, was to go on a diet. After all, she wanted to look her best.

The trouble was, counting calories quickly became an obsession. Restricting what she ate satisfied a deep-seated desire for control she didn’t even know she had.

And just like that, she spiraled into eating disorder behaviors.

Maria Gari

“I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THE END GOAL WAS,” said Maria, 31, a running coach and founder of RunningMyselfTo gether.com. “I was just creating control.”

The Jacksonville, Fla., resident spent her adolescence and young adulthood battling an unhealthy body image as well as a predisposition to anxious thoughts she had no idea how to manage. Since nobody around her talked about mental health, she had no one to help her. Her mind kept telling her she was not good enough.

For years, Maria felt sick all the time: numbness, tingling, stomach pain. It took a long time to recognize that her physical problems were a manifestation of poor mental health. “I couldn’t control my thoughts,” she said. “I had these irrational fears and a desire to make myself smaller so I’d fit in.”

It took even longer to understand that theology of the body held key insights to wellness of mind as well as of body and soul.

SQUELCHING BAD THOUGHTS

Her first step in healing was cog nitive behavioral therapy (CBT). “CBT helped me take a more intentional approach to my anxious thoughts,” Maria said. “It helped me recognize what’s true, throw out what’s false and rewire those thoughts.”

It’s hard work, she said, adding that many people quit therapy too soon because they don’t feel

immediate results. CBT did not eliminate her negative thoughts; it just taught her how to deal with them.

Running as a healing mechanism came later. In college, Maria spent time exercising with friends who were on the track team. She realized that when she was running, her body was as active as her perpetually racing mind. This made it easier to process her anxious thoughts. So she incorporated running into her recovery.

Still, anxiety plagued her. She didn’t yet understand that she was neglecting the most important healing influ ence of all: God.

“[Cognitive behavioral therapy] helped me take a more intentional approach to my anxious thoughts. It helped me recognize what’s true, throw out what’s false and rewire those thoughts.”

Then a conversion experience while on pilgrimage to Fatima inspired Maria to explore her faith more deeply. The more she studied and prayed, the more she under stood what she’d been missing: stillness and prayer. Her anxious thoughts had always prevented Maria from sitting in silence and instead kept God’s voice buried in the chaos of busyness and a buzzing mind. Silence, she discovered, is where God speaks to our wounded places and heals them.

As Maria plumbed the depths of her faith, she began to meditate on one of the central truths of theology of the body. If God says we are made in his image and likeness, what exactly did that mean? Meditating on what she was learning about TOB, she began to internalize and em brace—and not just intellectually “know”—that her body is holy and sacred, a vessel for bringing Christ to others, and that she has the dignity of being a daughter of God no matter the state of her mental health.

And slowly, things began to change. For years, she had tried to manage her anxiety, depression and eating disorder behaviors through running and therapy. But in 2018 she started taking an antidepressant. Almost immediately, she noticed a major transformation in her outlook. Sixteen years into her journey, Maria still bears the cross of anxiety and depression. Her brain still offers up destructive thoughts. But now, she pro cesses them differently.

THE STIGMA LINGERS

Maria’s experience is unique only in that she has been willing to speak publicly about it. If Covid has taught us anything, it is that mental health matters. According to the World Health Organization, depression and anxiety have increased by 25 percent in recent years.

Yet many people continue to resist seeking mental health help—or even admitting it’s necessary. Mental health struggles still bear a punishing stigma.

But TOB reminds us that our mental health is very much a part of our physical and spiritual health. The brain is, after all, one of our bodily organs and when it is affected by imbalances or illness, our ability to make a gift of self to others is hampered by our own pain. For how can we focus on others when we are suffering so profoundly ourselves?

FAITH MATTERS

A review of research highlights the connection between faith and mental health. Those who attend religious services have lower rates of suicide, alcohol use and abuse than the general population. People who

receive religious or spiritual intervention experience significant reductions in anxiety levels. In fact, one study showed that pastoral care by religious profes sionals yielded long-term benefits as good as or better than cognitive behavioral therapy, whether secular or religious-based.

Some dioceses in the United States are acknowledging the role of faith in total health by establishing diocesan mental health ministries.

In San Diego, that effort is shepherded by Deacon Wil liam Adsit. A husband of 37 years, a father of three and a former orthopedic surgeon in the Navy, Deacon Adsit was in the last year of his preparation for ordination to the permanent diaconate when his auxiliary bishop, John Dolan, asked him to restore San Diego’s once-flourishing mental health ministry.

The role of mental health ministers is to sit with a person and let them talk. Their message—communicated simply by their presence—is: “You are not alone. I’m going to be with you.”

Deacon Bill Adsit and wife Sandy

In this ministry, ordinary lay people are trained to accompany those struggling with mental health.

“As Catholics, we’re taught to love people,” Deacon Ad sit observed. “Part of loving somebody is being with them when they’re having trouble.”

This theory of accompaniment is revolutionary. Too often, suffering is met with platitudes: “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle!” “God chooses special people to give this burden to.”

Those who work in mental health ministry are com mitted to eradicating the stigma surrounding mental health. “We want people to understand that many mental health struggles are not a choice someone makes,” Dea con Adsit said. Once, people diagnosed with cancer were treated as if they were contagious. Now we know better, and faithful people undertake what Deacon Adsit calls the “chicken-soup rule”—bringing meals and offers of help to people who are suffering.

By contrast, the role of mental health ministers is to sit with a person and let them talk. Their message—commu nicated simply by their presence—is: “You are not alone. I’m going to be with you.”

This is TOB in action: making a gift of self by express ing the love of Christ to the brokenhearted.

This is especially important in the case of mental health struggles because the effects of mental illness ripple outward to the family and the community. “When somebody is suffering with a mental health condition, it affects the whole family,” Deacon Adsit said. In fact, when one person takes his or her own life, there is an increased risk of it happening to others in that person’s immediate circle.

Mental health ministers can step in to educate the community on suicide prevention. They give people permission to talk about their own struggles. Lives can be saved.

“We want people to understand that many mental health struggles are not a choice someone makes.”

Most mental health ministers have a particular rea son to get involved. Usually, they have a family member or loved one who has suffered in some way, and so are sensitized to the issue. Deacon Adsit trains them to recognize when they need to refer someone to mental health professionals.

AIMING FOR STABILITY

The goal of all health care, of course, is wellness. The publication “Compassion In Action,” from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives, emphasizes that for people with mental illness, “wellness” means stability, not a cure—similar to how a person with well-controlled diabetes can live a rich life.

Maria Gari says that faith is critical in achieving that stability. The sacred silence in which she found healing is something saints have advocated for centuries.

The more we can rest in silence, hearing only the still small voice of God, she said, “the more we can under stand how God calls us to holiness, right here, right now. When you struggle with mental health, everything turns inward. You can’t focus on loving others because you’re struggling so much to love yourself.”

The fruit of anchoring her mental health to her faith is obvious. Even a few years ago, Maria could not have sus tained a long-term relationship. But today, she is a new lywed. She and her husband, Gus, were married in May.

“Now, I can better think through anxious thoughts, so I’m not taking my mood and placing it on my husband,” she said. “Now I can think, ‘this too shall pass.’ Before, anxiety was all consuming.”

TRAVELING MERCIES

Maria cautions against thinking there is a simple, foolproof process to reach this mental stability. How ever, she loves how mental wellness has made a life of self-gift more possible. The pursuit of wellness requires us to surrender to God and accept that it’s going to be a messy, wandering journey. She encourages others to not be deterred.

She finds encouragement and consolation from saints who had re-conversions. “Did they ever slip up? Sure! Just like I have fallen flat on my face many times.”

But when she does, she knows she can trust the mercy of Christ.

And so can we all...because, as St. John Paul II stressed throughout his writings, we are beloved sons and daugh ters, made in the image of a Trinitarian God...no matter our struggles.

Resources

Mental Health America • mhanational.org

A free online screening of 37 questions to help people identify if they have a need for professional health. “Take a check-up from the neck up.”

CatholicCounselors.com

Telecounseling and spiritual life coaching for individ uals, couples, and families through a Catholic lens.

Ruah Woods • www.rwpsych.org

Provides psychological services to adults, children, couples, families, priests and religious in the south west Ohio area based on a Catholic view of the human person to have stronger relationships, more peace and confidence.

Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships • bit.ly/faith-based-partnerships

Two more highly recommended for their St. John Paul II lens:

Sacred Ground Psychotherapy www.sgpsych.com/about

Dr. Greg Bottaro and Catholic Psych Institute www.catholicpsych.com/

by Patrick Novecosky

KIMBERLY HAHN is a passionate woman.

For those who know her or have heard her speak at conferences across the country, there’s no question of her passion for her family, her country and the faith.

But her passion runs deeper than that.

So deep in fact that seven years ago she decided to run for City Council in Steubenville, Ohio, where she and her husband—renowned Catholic theologian and author Scott Hahn—have lived since 1990.

Kimberly homeschooled their six children for 26 years, and when the Hahns’ youngest went off to board ing school in the fall of 2014 she was left asking, “What next, Lord?”

Sitting across the kitchen table from her husband, they pondered her future.

“Maybe it’s time for politics,” Scott suggested.

That idea was not as random as you might think.

At the tender age of 12, Kimberly served as an honor ary page at the Washington State legislature during her grandmother’s tenure as state representative.

Gladys Kirk served seven terms in Olympia, Washing ton, from 1957–1973. She had followed in her husband’s

footsteps. Douglas Kirk was a state rep from 1951–1955 before going on to serve on City Council in Seattle.

“I’ve always considered public service to be some thing very good,” Kimberly said. “My grandmother was an inspiration. I flew out to Washington and watched my grandmother in action.

“She never lost. She died of cancer while in office. I only found out a year ago that my grandmother’s last year of formal education was sixth grade. She was a very smart young girl, but her family needed her to work in their business, so she quit school to help them out.”

HITTING THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

With a population of about 18,000, Steubenville is the seat of Jefferson County. It sits on the Ohio River, about 33 miles west of Pittsburgh. The city is home to Franciscan University of Steubenville where Scott Hahn is a profes sor of theology.

“With his blessing, I began asking people who knew me pretty well what they thought about me running for City Council, and then I campaigned for a good eight months,” Kimberly recalls.

“We have over 7,000 residences in Steubenville, in cluding a number of apartments. I went to every single door and knocked and left literature. I had over 40 neigh borhood coffees where I had friends invite their friends to meet me. I did many events and just got out there and met people.”

In late 2015, she won the City Council at-large race against incumbent Kenny Davis by a margin of 545 votes (2,711 to 2,166). She won by an even wider margin in 2019. Kimberly credits her success, in part, to trusting her instincts.

“I ran as a Republican,” she said. “People said, ‘Don’t mention your party affiliation’ because the population was six-to-one Democrat to Republican in the city. I said, ‘Well, I’m not going to hide this fact. This is how I’m going to run, and if the doors slam in my face, so be it’. But that was not the case.”

Others advised she not mention the Catholic univer sity where her husband works. Kimberly also ignored that guidance.

“I wasn’t campaigning on behalf of my husband, so I didn’t feel the need to talk about the university,” she said. “But I was so impressed as I went door-to-door. People said that if it wasn’t for the university, our city would have folded when the steel mills shut down. They expressed a lot of gratitude for the university. I didn’t find that a negative at all.”

TOB VALUES

Located in central Appalachia, the region has suffered economically since the decline of the coal and steel indus tries in the 1980s. In keeping with her Catholic faith and St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, Kimberly is using her influence to elevate the dignity of citizens—particu larly the underprivileged—by creating opportunities to work and to experience the outdoors.

“Jefferson County is near the top in Ohio for heart disease, diabetes, obesity and opioid trouble,” she said. “That has a great impact on us. Part of why I have such a passion for Parks and Recreation is because I believe that getting out and moving around will help people work on their own health.”

Kimberly championed the redevelopment of the city’s marina, investment in community gardens, restoration of the city’s parks and other recreational facilities.

Kimberly is using her influence toelevate the dignity of citizens—particularly the underprivileged—by creating opportunities to workand to experience the outdoors.

“I worked very hard at making sure we didn’t shut down our community pool. I think it’s a great asset. Groups of volunteers were very motivated to restore a 99acre park and I have tried to give them as much support as possible.”

Decades ago, the city acquired a 100-year-old lock and dam on the Ohio River. Steubenville uses the riverbank area as a marina.

“There’s been no real development there, and I have worked hard for some very simple things—a shared-use path and getting water and sewer lines so we could even tually have bathrooms,” she said. “I’m hoping and praying that I can set in motion over these next two years some significant improvements to the marina. Once we restore the marina, I think people will buy up land next to it and put up restaurants. I do not believe politicians create jobs, but we create the environment so that entrepreneurs will risk and create jobs.”

Kimberly’s political philosophy is in lock step with theology of the body.

“My approach is that every person is made in the image and likeness of God, so each person is worthy of respect, worthy of a careful listening—even if we’re at odds.”

Such adversity has sometimes been difficult, Kimberly said, noting how she has been challenged by voters and fellow city council members.

“You have to have a thick skin,” she said.

A new council member recently told Kimberly that a colleague advised him to oppose everything she said. That councilman now admits the advice was bogus.

“I appreciate him being honest,” she said. “He’s been with me long enough now to know that I don’t talk out of both sides of my mouth. I really want what is best for the city and the people, and I’m willing to compromise to build bridges when it doesn’t have to do with a moral issue.”

Kimberly said that being herself and focusing on human dignity has won over many detractors.

Her door-knocking brought her face-to-face with the city’s poor. She again jettisoned conventional political wisdom and visited the city’s low-income housing projects.

“People said, ‘Oh don’t bother. Most of them aren’t registered to vote and the ones that are will be hard-core Democrats.’ I knew that I had to meet the people. I had to know what their concerns are. I will still represent them even if they don’t vote for me.”

Kimberly recalls how one gentleman came out of his place in the projects and told her no one had ever knocked on his door. He said, “The fact that you stood here, you have my vote.” Other people said similar things. No one running for council had ever showed up.”

Kimberly relishes her work and her grassroots popularity in Steubenville. Residents regularly come up to her on the street or in coffee shops and strike up a conversation while her internationally known husband goes unrecognized by the locals.

“Scott is so well-known in his sphere, but most don’t know him here.”

Kimberly said she finds politics thrilling—not for her own glory but because locals are able to connect with someone in political office.

“It’s such a joy for them to feel like ‘she knows me.’ That’s what they communicate: ‘She knows me. She cares. She wants me to stop and say hi.’”

THE NEXT CHAPTER

Term limits mean that Kimberly will give up her council seat at the end of her second four-year term in the fall of 2023. After that, she is relying on the Holy Spirit to guide her.

“I don’t know what’s next,” she said. “I’m 64. I feel like I’ve learned so much that I hate to just put it all away and say, ‘OK, the files can be burned. I’m done. God bless the next people stepping in.’ I would love to use the knowl edge I have gained.”

Kimberly said she may dive back into private life and devote more time to her family. A daughter and her fami ly just moved back to Steubenville.

“I’ve never had grandchildren in town, so who knows. Maybe I go back to the hidden life and be less in the pub lic eye. That’s fine. In a year, that could change. But I just want to keep saying, ‘Yes, Lord, whatever you want.’”

Patrick Novecosky is a Virginia-based journalist, author, international speaker and pro-life activist. His latest book is “100 Ways John Paul II Changed the World.”

Not for the faint of heart

by Lindsay Caron

Potty training is not for the faint of heart. Last week my 3-year-old changed his own diaper and hid the contents under the bathmat—he literally “swept it under the rug.” Potty training can be entertaining, exciting, and yes, sometimes gross. But it also provides wonderful oppor tunities to teach your children about gender differences with an eye toward later discussions as they mature.

God designed humans to be male or female. As this truth is under tremendous attack from the culture, it is a reality that parents now need to discuss anatomy differ ences at much younger ages.

My husband and I are in the camp of “the earlier the better” when it comes to talking to our children about their bodies and sexuality. With a little forethought these topics can be handled with the delicacy they deserve—teaching the truth, while still maintaining the very important natural innocence of the child.

Our kids prefer “poo” or “poop” to “feces,” and that’s ok. The overall goal should be to educate them, instill some healthy curiosity and guide them to being comfortable asking you questions.

Here are a few sample exchanges to get you thinking of your own possible answers.

How does a girl pee without a penis?

Potty training does heighten a child’s sense of curiosi ty about genitalia. My boys ask why I sit to pee when they stand. I’ve told them, “Male genitals are on the outside and female genitals are on the inside, but we all have a bladder (where the pee is stored) and a urethra (a little tube to let the pee out). We can talk about why your geni tals are outside your body when you are a little older.”

Why is my penis hard?

With their male parts no longer covered by a diaper, this experience became more noticeable to my boys. I explained, “That just happens sometimes...it’s called an erection and it’s normal. When you are older you will learn the reason your penis does this. God has really thought of everything in how He designed our bodies…. every little detail has a purpose.”

Why do I wipe from front to back?

Don’t worry about the conversation going too far. If your child asks questions that you or they aren’t ready for, just say “That’s something we’ll discuss when you’re a little older,” or “Today we’re just talking about this part.” Key, though, is trying to weave in an age-appropriate reference to God’s plan for men, women and sexuality. The kids don’t have to comprehend the plan but it’s good to help them pick up that our anatomy is deeply rooted in a plan that has purpose and design.

Finally, try using anatomical terms to educate them, but use your own judgment on using casual words, too.

Girls have the added task of learning how to wipe properly to avoid infection. If they ask why, it’s important to explain: “The opening of your urethra where your pee comes out is very close to the opening where your poop comes out. But poop has germs that should not get into the urethra, so it’s important to wipe away from your front. It’s important for boys, too, to be good at wiping, but they have an easier time keeping the two areas sep arate because of their different anatomy. God made the front end of our private region for one purpose and the back end for a different purpose.”

Lindsay Caron lives in Portland, Ore., with her husband and three young boys. She is the founder of the TOB Parent School, which empowers parents to introduce TOB principles to their children. Learn more at www.tobparentschool.org

Uncovering wisdom and beauty in surprising places

by Laura M. Devick

*

Papal documents, bishops’ statements, apostolic exhorta tions—oh my! My university training in Catholic Studies and English included studying all of the above, but the intervening years have been a blissful blur of marriage, motherhood to six kids and a stint in parish educational ministry.

Admittedly, I was hesitant to “take up and read” again a bit of more lofty fare after years of marriage and moth erhood. Would an encyclical be beyond comprehension for my sleep-deprived brain? If I had such limited time each day for reading, was it worth it? And I could hear in my head the oft-repeated question (by my children, at least) of “Why???” Why should anyone read these docu ments in the first place?

But I realized there’s a simple answer: The world is facing new challenges that call for solid and basic strate gies to answer them. Church documents re-root us in the

Biblical teachings of our faith. They also respond to cur rent issues by applying the long-standing teaching of the Church to contemporary concerns. This helps us assess more accurately the headlines we read in the paper and to have some answers to the statements made by friends or relatives that align with the eternal perspective of Divine Revelation entrusted to the Church.

Hey, it’s actually—exciting! I know reading a church document may be out of your comfort zone, but I en courage you to give it a try! This is why I’ve compiled for you my thoughts on three relatively recent documents, giving special attention to their connection with theology of the body. No matter where you are in your spiritual journey—whether sleep deprived or with lots of dispos able time in retirement—I hope you’ll rediscover the timeless wisdom and practical tips our Catholic faith has to offer. Friends, if I can do it, so can you.

Letter to Women (1995) • Written by Pope John Paul II (bit.ly/letter_to_women)

Quotable

“Perhaps more than men, women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts. They see them independently of various ideological or political systems. They see others in their greatness and their limitations; they try to go out to them and help them.”

Medium of study

Audio recording . I listened to this document via the Hal low app (www.hallow.com). At a length of 33 minutes, Jen Fulwiler (Catholic convert, wife, mom of six, writer and comedian) read the text with heartfelt inflection.

Background

This letter was written in 1995, prior to the World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. This United Nations conference was held every five years from 1975 to 1995 to promote equality for and end discrimi nation against women.

Key themes

St. John Paul II affirms all women with a wide lens here. He recognizes the contributions of women, names their manifold gifts, and outlines the “feminine genius.” John Paul II praises God’s creation of woman using passag es from Genesis, and at the same time recognizes the challenges that women face currently and have faced throughout history. Additionally, this letter is rich with theology of the body language and concepts. While the pope speaks directly to women, all readers will benefit from reflection on its truths.

A few more takeaways

Woman was created for her own sake. Together with the man, each contribute complementary gifts to soci ety and culture.

• There are many roles women fill in our world as sisters, daughters, wives, mothers and friends, accomplishing tasks in the areas of paid work, homemaking, religious life and many more that St. John Paul II mentions, noting that women have especially supported the fields of educa tion and healthcare.

• Women have a way of safeguarding human dignity, even amid threats to their own dignity. He reminds us that persons are to be loved and never to be used.

Welcoming the Stranger Among Us (2000) United States Catholic Bishops pastoral statement

Quotable

“The Catholic community is rapidly re-encountering itself as an ‘immigrant Church,’ a witness at once to the diver sity of people who make up our world and to our unity in one humanity, destined to enjoy the fullness of God’s blessing in Jesus Christ.”

Medium of study

I read a summary of this document—this entry point enabled me to get to the heart of the document in an approachable way.

Background

Reflection and questions on immigration are relevant to a large percentage of Americans since many Americans arrived as immigrants, either recently or in one’s family’s ancestry. This document invites us to pray and act in accord with our faith. At the heart of this document is the recognition of the inherent dignity of all persons.

Key themes

The bishops’ statement first highlights refugees and immigrants in Scripture, including our forefathers in the faith in the Old Testament as well as Joseph, Mary and Jesus’ Flight into Egypt in the New. Three key principles are outlined that must be embraced fully and have uni versal application:

• People have a right to migrate—to preserve their lives and their family’s lives.

• Each country has the right to safeguard its borders and to legally manage the immigration process.

• The third principle adds the faith perspective: A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy.

A few more takeaways

• “Welcoming the Stranger” invited me to deep reflection on universal human dignity and chal lenged me to think about what I am concretely doing to uphold the dignity of others, especially those who come from a different country.

• News stories about immigration can be polarizing.

I wanted to approach this document with an open heart to read, reflect and bring God’s gifts of logic and reason to my study—rather than listen to what pundits of various stripes say about it. This docu ment provided concrete principles to do this.

Laudato Si' (Praise be to You) (2015) • Written by Pope Francis (bit.ly/francis_laudato_si)

Quotable

“Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protec tion of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however trouble some or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?”

Medium of Study

I read the full text from the Vatican website.

Background

Rather than think about the Earth and creation as something completely “other,”

Pope Francis invites us to consider the interconnected ness between our stewardship of creation and our human relationships. While being aware of scientific advances to gain under standing of the best way to care for the Earth, there must also be caution in equating all technological advances as true progress, which must remain person-centered.

Key themes

Using Scriptural examples and examples in the lives of the saints (such as Francis of Assisi and Therese of Li sieux), Pope Francis encourages us that interacting with nature in light of faith is not a new concept. By calling for an “integrated ecology,” which echoes TOB’s emphasis on integration and interrelatedness—we are called to be integrated in ourselves and then in our relationships with others.

• The concept of ‘dominion’ over creation from Genesis 1:28 has sometimes been misconstrued. It should be properly understood as stewardship and not as unchecked domination.

• Science can advance our understanding, but Pope Francis also notes that these advances take time to understand and are not the realm of the Church to interpret without assistance from experts from the pertinent disciplines.

• We are to fight against the “throwaway culture,” which not only affects us materially, but first im pacts our interrelatedness with each other.

A few more takeaways:

• This document builds on St. John Paul II’s theology of the body by reiterating the holistic connection between our human relationships and how we relate to creation.

• Pope Francis also praised human persons as uniquely creative in meeting each age’s challenge, which provides an overall hopeful note to this papal document.

What to Take Up and Read Next!

Check out Jimmy Akin’s book “Teaching with Authori ty: How to Cut Through Doctrinal Confusion & Under stand What the Church Really Says” (2018, Catholic Answers Press) to discover more about the history, significance, and development of various Church documents. This is next on my own TBR (to be read) list.

•

If you liked “Letter to Women,” consider reading St. John Paul II’s document “Mulieris Dignitatem” (“On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”), which is a more “appetizer” form of theology of the body.

• If you want a deeper dive into issues related to immigration such as the dignity of work and workers, try “Rerum Novarum,” written by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. (In case you’re wondering how much I love Pope Leo XIII, our firstborn son is named Leo!)

“Populorum Progressio” (“On the Development of Peoples” by St. Paul VI, 1967) is another papal docu ment that focuses more directly on immigration.

• Eager to learn more about caring for creation? You might like Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s “Caritas in Veritate” (“Charity in Truth”), which approaches this topic from the human person’s unique role in safe guarding creation.

What if the whole world drew portraits?

by Katie Lovett

As a jack of all trades, master of none, I’ve spent my share of time with drawing pencil in hand, wrangling shapes and lines into order until they resemble what I’m trying to represent. While I’m not great, I’m decent enough that sometimes people ask me to give their children drawing lessons. I’ve found there’s really only one good piece of advice I have for beginning artists, so I repeat it ad nauseam and pretend I know what I’m doing.

But it works.

If you follow this simple advice, you will improve. Guar anteed. In a single setting. You could walk into a lesson drawing cats that look like tomatoes and leave drawing cats that look like, well, cats.

So what is this magical, trans formative advice? It’s nothing special, really. But it makes all the difference in the world: Drawing is seeing.

To draw something well, you have to look at the subject you’re drawing for at least as much time as you spend with your pencil to the page. This is more than a cursory glance. It’s a deep getting-to-know-you. A study. A discovery filled with wonder and unexpected delights. Beginning artists spend a lot of time drawing what they think they see rather than what’s actually there, and the results speak for themselves: cats that look like tomatoes.

We cannot draw well when we base our work on assumptions, on our preconceived notions. We cannot draw well when we base our work on what we want a subject to be like while ignoring the beauty and com plexity that actually is. If that’s true for landscapes and animals, imagine how much more true it is for drawing the human face.

Which is why portrait drawing can teach us an awful lot about theology of the body.

Drawing well has a lot in common with loving well— loving our spouses, family, friends and fellow man. It beckons us to look more than to touch. It forces us to step outside of ourselves, to care about that which we behold. It’s the call of the artist and the call of every person—to see, look and behold. When we do these things, we join God in admiring what He has made: And God saw that it was very good (Gen 1:31). Only when we join our sight to His Di vine Vision can we act well upon what

we have seen. Only after seeing and knowing that someone is good can we draw him well. Can we love him well.

When you spend hours tracing a person’s smile with your gaze, discov ering the line of a person’s jaw with your eyes and your pen, you develop a fondness for that face. The sparkle in the pupils and the tiniest quirk of the lips reveal something marvelous—a hint of the soul be hind the face. To draw a portrait well is to get an intimate glimpse of the sacramental person you are drawing, and it is an encounter that cannot leave you unchanged.

What if the whole world drew portraits? What if every man, woman and child on earth were trained to spend long, attentive hours looking at another person’s face, finding the beauty, seeing the soul, discovering the dignity and learning to love the unique, unrepeatable miracle before them? If the whole world drew portraits— and drew them well—we’d find it a lot harder to use each other as objects for our own purposes, wouldn’t we?

Katie Lovett works for the Angelico Project, a Catholic arts organization that seeks to evangelize through beauty. She lives in southwest Ohio with her husband and four children.

When you spend hours tracing a person’s smile with your gaze, you develop a fondness for that face.

WE BOUGHT

FARM

80 ACRES, 10 COWS, 6 KIDS, NO REAL FARMING EXPERIENCE. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

BY CHRISTINA RIES PHOTOS BY CARLI WINKELS FROM PINE & POPPI

When it’s time for my interview with Leah Darrow and her husband, Ricky, on a Thursday evening in the sum mer, she can’t reach him.

“He’s on the tractor right now and I think he forgot his phone,” Leah texts me. “He’s about 40 to 50 acres away.”

Suddenly the switch the Soldinie family made last summer from suburban living to farm life is very real. They’re off the grid now, measuring life in acres. “America’s Next Top Model” has become Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”—and the reality-TV contestant turned Catholic speaker couldn’t be happier.

The desire for change stirred in Leah and Ricky’s hearts early in the Covid pandemic when they set up a chicken coop and contemplated the unsettling possibility of a food shortage. At the same time, they were embrac ing the traditional Catholic liturgical life and exploring the virtue of ascetism, so sorely missing from modern culture. The intersection of those interests pointed to a new direction: farm life.

For the next year, Leah and Ricky searched for a place, touring dozens of rural properties. A friend suggested they pray a novena to St. Philomena, then another friend randomly sent them a St. Philomena relic.

They started praying.

One day Leah and Ricky visited a big farmhouse nestled on 80 acres with peach and apple orchards, a creek winding through the woods and a classic red barn. Inside the home, a prayerbook on an end table lay open: a novena to St. Philomena.

They toured a second time with Leah’s parents, over whelmed by the beauty of the property and the enormity of their decision. They decided to sleep on it and discuss the next morning.

When Leah awoke, she picked up her phone and was greeted by cheerful messages: Happy St. Philomena Feast Day!

“I woke up Ricky and said, ‘I think we should put an offer on the house!’”

Last July they moved into the farm outside Fordland, Mo. Leah, Ricky and their six children, ages 8 and under, manage 80 acres, along with 10 cows, six pigs, 10 chick ens and a rooster, two dogs and a cat. They’ve named the property The Big Family Farm and are now opening it up to the public to pick pumpkins from their three-acre field of ripe orange gourds. (Details at thebigfamilyfarm.com.)

“I haven’t worked this hard since being on active duty in the army,” said Ricky, 44, who worked as a firefighter before becoming a farmer. “Long hours, long days— there’s no one who’s going to do it but you.”

“It has not been easy, financially,” said Leah, 43, who recently launched a personal development program called Power Made Perfect (leahdarrow.com). “But it’s worth it for the freedom it gives us.”

Farming is meaningful work, she said, and they’re living out the principles of St. John Paul II’s theology of the body like never before.

Leah, what did you think when Ricky first mentioned moving to a farm?

Leah: I’m not surprised he suggested it. Ricky has always been willing to question his currently held beliefs in search of something that’s better for us.

Ricky: We adjust things that aren’t optimal for growth. We’re always ready to learn. You have to have some openness.

Leah: You have to be open to be wrong. Ricky and I say this over and over—in small decisions and big decisions—from how do we do this busy day together with meals, to selling everything and moving to a farm:

Is there a better way? That question seems to open up a conversation.

We started talking and asking, “Why can’t we give that [simpler life] to our kids?” It required a lot of sac rifice and effort. But we have the power to change our lives. God has this divine power and divine energy, and He allows us to share in his divine power to navigate our lives, to make these choices, to do difficult things.

It was a moment that God graced us with his own divine power to ask ourselves how we really want to live. It seemed really clear that we wanted to be in an environ ment that would connect us more with God’s nature—the

created piece—and give our children space to be them selves with less of the outside and extra influences telling them who they should be.

Your experience with chickens got you hooked.

Ricky: I thought, “Why aren’t we doing this more? Can we raise anything else? Can I raise a pig here? Can I put a pumpkin patch in my neighbor’s piece of land sitting empty? Can I have a milk cow?”

Leah: We were trying to have a mini-farm on our oneacre property on the outskirts of St. Louis. The dreams were bigger than our yard could hold.

What has surprised you about farm life?

Ricky: How obsolete tennis shoes are. You need boots. Tennis shoes are a mucky mess.

Leah: I used to wear athleisure to run my errands. I was a cute suburban mom.

I’ve also been surprised at how good homemade food tastes. Pigs specifically—pork. It’s almost a different meat. Chicken too. It’s so much richer. When you raise your own meat, if you can do it, it’s a thousand times better. Every time the kids eat bacon or pork chops, they ask, “Are these our pigs, Dad?” And I say yes, and they’re happy. Violet, our 6-year-old, named her pig Popcorn. So any time we have pork, she says, “Ah, this tastes just like Popcorn.” That’s the joke.

Leah: We’ll never buy meat again from a grocery store. We know how our animal was treated, what we fed the animal; we know how it was killed and processed and how it was put into the freezer. Before we were so separated from the food chain and we didn’t even think about it. But by not thinking about it, we subjected ourselves to what somebody else wanted to give us, and they don’t love you. To them, it’s a business.

You’ve had quite a learning curve!

Leah: We watch YouTube at night in bed.

Have your kids picked up some new skills too?

Ricky: They can plant pumpkins. They help butcher chickens. Agnes, who is 8, can do part of the de-feathering. They know how to take care of pigs, chickens, cats, dogs. They can open cattle gates. Agnes moved cattle with me, and she can drive an ATV! People might think we’re crazy, but she’s tall enough to do it so I let her.

Leah: They’re learning the ability to learn. Ricky takes them on so many errands as we talk to other farmers. They’re listen ing to these conversations. The greatest skill is the fact that they’re realizing that life has so many things to teach you.

Ricky: That doesn’t work out here! Any kind of quick-dry clothing just gets snagged. We had really nice puffy jackets—

Leah: Patagonia. It really puts you out of your comfort zone. They were cute, but they weren’t functional.

Any other surprises?

Ricky: People knock on your door here and pop in to say hello. Just passing by. I’ve met my neighbors not by calling them but by them showing up at my door. They just show up.

Ricky: They’ve also learned to deal with death and failure. We’ve failed on many things. They’ve learned a lack of attention will kill your animals

Leah: Like if you don’t close your chicken coop, rac coons will come and get them.

You’re winging it—figuring it out as you go, as a family. How does that feel?

Ricky: I spent so many hours getting the pumpkin fields ready. Several nights we were up till 1 am with flashlights—planting or weeding or fixing irrigation. It

“You have to work the ground. You have to sow the seed and nurture it. There are so many parallels to the spiritual life.”

—Ricky Soldinine

SIX STEPS TO CHASE THE DREAM

There’s a growing interest in simple living and homesteading— secular expressions of the virtue of asceticism that Leah and Ricky were seeking when they moved to the country. But not everyone can sell everything and purchase 80 acres.

“Don’t give up on the dream,” Leah said.

Here are six action items she shares in Power Made Perfect, her new personal development program available on leahdarrow.com.

1 WRITE IT DOWN

“Write out your dream. A whiteboard, a notebook, somewhere you can see it. What would you love to do? ‘I’ve always really wanted to have an acre or two where I can do homesteading.’ Maybe you live in an area where you could start support ing local farmers near you? Maybe you start getting your chicken or pork from a local farmer instead of going to the grocery store. Maybe you invest in an upright freezer so you can have half a cow and have your beef for a year.”

2 LET GOD IN

“Oftentimes our deepest desires and passions are from God. They still need to be cultivated and puri fied. God is patient, and He will work through that.”

3 THINK BIG

“Most of us are living out of limiting beliefs. ‘I’d love to have a farm, but I can’t, I don’t know how, or I don’t have enough money.’ But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn or you can’t save. It is possible! You don’t need to have 80 acres like us. You could do this on half an acre. You might not have hooved animals in your backyard, maybe you don’t even want that, but what you want is to cultivate and grow more peace in your life. Maybe you want to get back to nature. Maybe you want to spend less time with screens.”

4 WORK BACKWARDS

“Once you’ve written down your dream, reverse engineer it. Maybe you’re not in a place financially, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be.

What might that look like? Where do you want to be? What baby steps will get you there?

5 SIMPLIFY

“To cultivate peace, we have to create simplicity in our lives. Simplicity does not just happen. You have to create it. It’s not just the lack of presence of things; it’s a full ness of peace. So simplify your life. Do a massive purge. If it gives you anxiety to actually donate things or give them away or sell them, then put them into totes and store them away for three months.

“Start with one corner of one room. If you say you’re going to tackle the whole kitchen, that’s too much. Just go through one cabinet. You don’t need that much Tupper ware! Don’t tackle the kids’ room. Decide, ‘I’m just going to do shoes in the boys’ room.’ And that’s it!

“When you constantly have what you need, you’re not going to look for the things that your soul needs. It’s kind of like the person who’s never hungry. And think about our relationship with God, who wants to give us spiritual gifts. But then we shut down our need for spiritual gifts because material stuff is in the way.”

6 BE BRAVE

“Ask the hard questions. Is this how you want to live? Is there anoth er way? If there is, don’t be scared to start living it out. What’s stopping you? If your answer is, ‘It’s just too hard,’ that’s not good enough. This is about our whole lives—we need to look for those ways we can lovingly give of ourselves in all kinds of ways that are life-giving and fruitful. I know that sounds big, but are we really in mission with the Lord? With the mission He wants us to live out? Have we given him a shot?”

was a nightmare. But at the same time—my partner Jor dan said one night, “It’s 1 am, we’re in the fields, bro. Do you feel alive?”

I said, “Yeah, I’ve never felt more alive.”

It’s reinvigorating. I wish I were about 10 years young er, but I’m doing it. And the reward, I’m hoping, is that I can make a living on this. If God is so gracious to us, this fall, and we do well enough to replace my [fireman] salary from where I was working before, then that’ll be the greatest success I’ve had in my working life. It’s the first time in my life I will have attempted to work for myself.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not the stuff of pretty little Instagram reels.

Leah: I try to show as much as I can on Instagram. What farming can do is help you in the spiritual life. If you want good works, you have to plant the seed.

Ricky: You have to work the ground. You have to sow the seed and nurture it. There are so many parallels to

that you’ve been working hard at? It can just stifle it. Its roots can just take over.

Violet will look at the garden and she’ll say, “Look at all the sin!”

We homeschool our kids, and part of our home school is at the table—reading, phonics, math. But everything else is outside. We are allowing God to teach us through his creation, and there are so many lessons that I could not even find a book to teach us. I’m just trusting the process.

And when you planted all those pumpkin seeds, you trusted they would grow!

Ricky: We planted 4,000 seeds—three acres. It’s our first time doing pumpkins. We’ll have close to 15,000 or 20,000 pumpkins, depending on the yield.

Leah: It was definitely a “Field of Dreams.” I’ve never felt more connected to that movie. You’re just praying to God that they grow and nothing destroys them and that people will come. We’re try ing to create a space that reflects on what inspired our move to the land—bringing families together, giving them an oppor tunity to be outside together, away from screens, and grab some pumpkins.

It seems that this new life allows both you and your children to focus on some different and more important lessons.

Ricky: Yes, the farm enhances that. But we have a new lesson we have learned. We lost a baby in February. We’ve always been very open to life. God’s been really good to us, and Leah’s been very healthy and fertile, and our children are healthy. We’ve been open and God’s been good. But the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and that has a lot more meaning to us now.

the spiritual life. There’s a reason Jesus used so many farmer parables. These parables are coming alive! I un derstand them now. The curse of Adam is on my mind as I’m pulling up weeds and thorns and ticks; I’m thinking about Genesis, the curse, the fall. We all have to deal with thorns and bristles.

Leah: I’ve had some beautiful theology lessons in the garden with the kids. As we would weed the gardens, we’d talk, “Where is the fruit or the vegetable? We don’t touch that. But where are the weeds? Why are we pulling them out?” It’s so easy to relate this to sin: this is what sin does. Do you know what sin can do to a really good virtue

We were fortunate to bury the baby on our land, on the hill in a private area, and our kids are able to go visit the baby. They were really impacted by this whole experience, especially the four older ones. So we talk a lot about being open and receptive to accepting gifts from God, like new life. We talk about all the fruits, but some times we don’t talk so much about the misses. All those apply to losing a baby as well, not just having one.

Leah: We found out she’s a baby girl. We named her Amelia. We learned she had Down Syndrome and Triso my 16, which was a lethal combination for her. Losing her and burying her on the property and being here on the

You belong here

“God did not place Adam and Eve in Manhattan. God placed us in a garden. It’s part of our birthright to know how to do this, to understand how things grow and how to grow them—not just for survival but for the lessons that God teaches us with the fruits of our works.”

—Leah Darrow

farm—I’m so thankful we were in the space that we’re at when this happened in our family. And Amelia is a huge part of the story.

that? We need to take those four words and apply them to our whole lives, instead of just the bedroom and just natural family planning.

It was hard to sell much of our stuff and pack the rest and move our kids three hours away. But there was a reason we did that: there was more fruit to be had. There’s a lot of peace on the pasture. There’s a lot of quiet, a lot of beauty. There’s a chance for imaginations to be ignited again— even for Ricky and me.

Amelia was a great lesson for us to realize that that pregnancy wasn’t fruitless. We had our sev enth baby. We had our third girl. I’m a mama of seven. I’m raising six and I’ve got one in heaven who’s raising me. We definitely experi enced a loss. We lost her, and we lost the chance to raise her, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t fruit and that she’s not part of our family. It’s just that fruit had a lot of suffering to it. No theology book is going to teach you that kind of suffering.

TOB calls us to make a gift of ourselves. How do you take care of yourself so you’re able to do that?

There’s a beautiful story unfolding here. TOB teaches us that we are made in the image and likeness of a Trinitarian God as male or female, and that we live out this Trinitarian image when we give a total gift of ourself in love through the body that is life-giving/ fruitful. Of course Amelia is a huge part of that.

Leah: Yes! And I’ve come to see that TOB is so much more than a teaching on sexuality. It’s your entire way of life—to be free, total, faithful and fruitful in all kinds of ways. You’re missing the boat if you only apply it to sexuality.

Ricky: Yeah.

Leah: Are you free in your life? In your mission? Are you faithful in it? Where’s the fruit? How do we define

Leah: God wants our mind, body and soul to work in harmony—so our entire being is being cared for. We’re made with this beautiful physical body and this ability to move. Our minds are made with this amazing ability to move our thoughts through. Our soul is moved through the divine energy of God’s grace.

So what brings me energy and peace and calm? For me it’s not neglecting some prayer time. When I get a workout in, and I physically move this body God has given me, in a way that’s quick and easy for me and releases endorphins, I have clarity. My body feels good, and I have better mental clarity, so it helps with my mind. And I do a lot of mindset work. I have certain scripts I say in my mind throughout the day, like, “I’m gonna make it!” But I can’t leave out quiet time to talk to God. I love starting with Psalm 139: “I praise you, Lord, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Do you secretly dream of your kids raising their kids on the farm— and future generations?

Leah: We’ve told them outright, “We bought a farm so that you can have a portion of that one day.”

It’s like a giant playground for whatever passions they may want to pursue—farming, photography, writing, cooking.

Leah: And there are lots of trade schools out there. Ricky is going to welding school right now.

There are so many professions that keep our country running. The pandemic taught us how dependent we are on almost everyone else.

Leah, it seems like God couldn’t have carried you farther from those dark days of modeling in New York City to your joyful life now raising a big family on a Missouri farm.

Leah: It looks different, but the internal compass is the biggest difference.

I rarely spend time thinking about that. I don’t want it to entice me to think that I did something great. I was living a massively selfish, vain life, and I made one small step in the right direction with God’s grace and then another, and all those tiny steps eventually brought me here to the farm.

“There’s a lot of peace on the pasture. There’s a lot of quiet, a lot of beauty. There’s a chance for imaginations to be ignited again.”

—Leah Darrow

Oh, the treasures you will find!

Dr. Seuss through the lens of TOB

by Vickie Geckle

My first encounter with Dr. Seuss’s whimsical work was as a very young girl. Oh, how I loved his stories! They served as a source of escape, delight and friendship. I first found “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” in my school library. That story spoke to my soul. I was drawn into its drama, written in rhyming prose and accompa nied by delightfully unique illustrations. The Whos were so happy and loving! The Grinch was so . . . opposite! I wanted desperately to help that Grinch, and I wanted to emulate the love and friendship of the Whos. The story easily inspired empathy and compassion in my heart.

I checked that book out of the school library so many times in a row that one day the librarian sternly told me I could not renew it again. This proved to be a blessing. While “The Grinch” remained off-limits to me, I discov ered other Dr. Seuss stories. I loved “Horton Hatches the Egg,” about a loving, gentle, selfless elephant who agrees to take care of the egg of a selfish bird. Horton very much loves and cares for this egg, nearly losing his own life protecting it. Horton became a very dear, relatable friend to me, a lonely, friendless little girl. I also met “Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose.” He, too, became a dear compan ion, showing me what unconditional love looks like. He, like Horton, is willing to sacrifice everything to save others. His friends abandon him, leaving him to carry his “cross” alone. My heart ached for him, too, and from him I learned the importance of loving others, as well as loving myself.

I was completely un-churched as a little girl, so while I really didn’t know Jesus, I knew of him. Looking back, I now understand that my love for these Seuss characters was rooted in my own longing to seek and know God, who had written his love in my heart. I encountered Jesus in the sacrificial love of these and other

Seuss characters. They taught me about suffering, love, forgiveness, hope and purpose. In imaginative worlds and with enchanting characters, Seuss guided me beyond the text, drawing me into the landscape of the stories, encouraging me to go and grow beyond myself. Even though I was young, Seuss communicated import ant instructions to me about living a moral life. Char ity and friendship with God weren’t named but were prominently expressed in the characters and stories of the Grinch, Thidwick and Horton.

PUPIL BECOMES TEACHER

Fast-forward 16 years. I became a teacher, found my self employed at the very school I had attended and one of my first stops was the school library. I searched for those

“There is no one alive who is you-erthan you!”

Reflects that each person is a unique, unrepeatable creation.

Dr. Seuss books, and there I found the friends who had accompanied me during my childhood. The Grinch, Hor ton and Thidwick were still there! I literally embraced these books and have now shared them with my students for 30 years.

During my second year of teaching I joined an RCIA program, preparing to enter the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. As I was being catechized in the faith, I be gan to make connections between Seuss’s stories and the Christian faith. I was teaching in a public school, so I had to be mindful of maintaining a secular approach to the stories in the classroom. Yet, I was able to guide students to see Seuss’s characters as models of good friendship, self-gift and living rightly.

After 10 years in a public school, I was blessed to become a second-grade teacher at a Catholic school. Now I could more freely use Seuss’s stories to nurture and inform my students’ moral imaginations, making connec tions between the stories and their faith journeys. After

In the words of Dr. Seuss

my school added a theology of the body curriculum, I be came the dedicated TOB teacher for grades K–5. I help the children discover that every person is made in the image and likeness of God, that we are his, and that he sees, knows and loves each one of us. Students learn that we are all unique gifts from God, called to share ourselves as a gift to others.

I’m convinced our children are in great need of this teaching today. They must be fortified with the truth of their identity, prepared to live lives of virtue. As some one who loves children’s literature, I have experienced and witnessed good stories helping children engage body, mind and soul with the situations of the characters. They unite themselves with fictional beings’ thoughts, feelings and actions. This cultivates their moral imaginations, not unlike the parables and stories Jesus used in an effort to guide and form his disciples and followers. Christ’s para bles likewise show us how to live, directing us to a deeper relationship with God and others, elevating our moral imaginations toward virtue and grace.

THE GRINCH fi NDS LOVE

Each December I guide my students on a journey through “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” a story about the terribly cranky, grumpy, lonely Grinch. No one knows the reason for the Grinch’s bitter disposition.

Seuss suggests that there is a lack of love in the Grinch’s heart. Theology of the body helps us understand that the lack of giving and receiving love renders one not whole. We are incomplete when we do not love. We experience spiritual poverty, confusion and emptiness. We desire

In the words of Dr. Seuss

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Upholds the dignity and value of all human life— including in the womb.

what we lack. In the Grinch’s case, he lacked love and the happiness borne from being in relationship with the Trinitarian God, who is love.

My students, inspired by good stories, easily un derstand this and instinctively relate fiction to real life. And they discover plenty of meaning in the story of the Grinch. I have even had children joyfully exclaim that the Whos’ feast reminds them of Mass! Seuss shows the Whos shar ing a meal (Eucha rist) at a large table with candles, plates and a chalice (the altar), while the communi ty gathers to express their gratitude for all they had been given through singing (active participation in the celebration).

By the end of the story, the children can tie the Grinch’s transformation to the Whos’ love and forgiveness. The Whos model virtu ous deeds, and students have offered profound responses when I ask the simple question: “How did

the Whos’ unconditional love and forgiveness affect the Grinch?” With gentle, soft whispers, and wonder and awe in their eyes, they share many thoughts, including this favorite of mine: “Wow! Now he looks like love! That wreath behind his head looks like a halo!”

Children are incredibly open and insightful, and I have seen them link this to their own experiences of the Sacrament of Reconcilia tion. This story helps my students realize that living rightly—like the Whos—or converting to do good—like the Grinch—can lead us to “look like love.”

In my TOB classes the children learn that we grow in holiness and likeness of God when we choose to give and receive love. They hear repeatedly: We are made by Love, to love and for love. Dr. Seuss brilliantly shows this in the story of the Grinch. Love brings unity and wholeness to his being. The Grinch chooses to do good and participate more fully

illustrations, I once had a second grader shout: “This just blew my mind!” and it was such a beautiful moment.

When young children see and feel the true, good and beautiful—through stories—they are inspired to live the two great commandments given by Jesus: love God; love others. I see it again and again in my students, and this is certainly a good thing.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE

Several years ago there was an outcry against some of the illustrations in Dr. Seuss’ books. His stories, like those of most authors, were informed by his life expe riences and the time and place in which he lived. In the many decades since Seuss’s first publications, our culture has made many strides toward greater awareness, sensi tivity and understanding of discrimination and stereo typing. Dr. Seuss himself, in the late 1980s, revisited his earlier books in an effort to address and make changes to dated stereotypes.

in the Whos’ community of friendship after experienc ing the gift of charity. Receiving the gift, he recognizes he is created with dignity and worth; he is lovable. The Grinch demonstrates self-love as he rapidly races down the mountain on his sled, returning to Who-ville with love in his heart. He even begins to look like them, growing in their likeness. As I pointed this out in the

Despite some cultural shortcoming in his whimsical tales, I am a firm believer in not discarding his stories. Many of Seuss’s tales are examples of noble stories that elevate the imagination to consider who we are and how we are to live. In that process, we can do and be better, which is exactly what Dr. Seuss wanted to inspire through his work.

Vickie Geckle writes from Cincinnati, Ohio where she loves being a wife and mom first and a teacher second. She is nourished by her Catholic faith and pumpkin everything! She earned her Masters in Theology from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology. Be sure to check out the Embodied blog (embodiedmag.org/blog) to find Vickie’s sugges tions of other children’s books that reflect TOB.

In the words of Dr. Seuss “Can’t they understand that the Grinch in my story is the Hero of Christmas? Sure … he starts out as a villain, but it’s not how you start out that counts. It’s what you are at the finish.”

Highlights the importance of lifelong conversion/transformation.

Wonderfully made

PHOTOS BY RISING KITES (@RISING.KITES)

LORD, you have probed me, you know me:

you know when I sit and stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. You sift through my travels and my rest; with all my ways you are familiar.

Even before a word is on my tongue, LORD, you know it all.

Behind and before you encircle me and rest your hand upon me…

You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you know. My bones are not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me unformed; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be.

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