Friday, March 8, 2024

Sixteen Candles

On March 8, 2024, I celebrate anniversary number 16 of my womanatwell blog. In my youth I had vague ideas of wanting to be a writer, but couldn’t put together what to write about, unlike so many writers who started making up stories at a young age. On the other hand, a load of life experiences can be helpful to feed the writing fires, and I have had plenty of those.

My parents stressed education and I had always liked animals, especially horses, so I thought I might like to be a veterinarian. Nothing stopped my progress and I indeed graduated in that field and practiced for several years. But in the meantime, I had experienced several very difficult personal situations and spent quite a few years searching for some kind of grounding. I thank the Lord that I eventually came back to my Christian religion. This experience made me aware of how likely it is that others may be in the same condition I had been, and it led me to learn more about theology, the study of God and religion, and evangelization, which is proclaiming the Truth.

As I try to explain aspects of my life, God is at the top of importance, and of course human relationships are a major part. But for interests, theology and evangelization are main categories, you could say. One result of my early theological study was writing the booklet called Heaven’s Passport. It’s small enough to produce on my own printer and I have distributed it in various places. Once I started my blog, I added the booklet digitally, offering it for free. Though the term “theology” sounds heavily academic, my booklet describes various facets of Christianity in what I think to be an understandable way.

Womanatwell has not had a lot of traffic like some, and I don’t have any other media sites. When I’ve commented on a few other websites, I have noticed an increase in visits here. I’ve mostly been happy doing the blog and am glad for an outlet for my writing.

When I started the blog, my overall desire to evangelize could probably be further categorized to three of my general interests: women’s issues; Latin America; and Creationism (which started in the form of Intelligent Design Theory).

I still am interested in women’s place in the Catholic Church, which is probably why I have posted so many links to the current project of Pope Francis, the Bishop’s Synod on Synodality. During this process, women have had a chance to express what they think and feel in a much freer atmosphere than previously. As I expected, many say that Catholic women need a much larger role in decision making and influence. I could write much more about this subject, but have found it is even more of a hot-button issue for me than the other ones and I know there are many very capable women out there working to improve this situation. I have made some comments along the way but have mostly felt it better to let cooler heads prevail.

My concern for problems in Latin America was expressed in a creative way in one of my fictional books, Unto Others. I care about people there, many of whom have such a hard life, and in real life I sponsored children from Colombia and El Salvador for some time through Christian agencies. I was able to make a few trips to Mexico and one to El Salvador, and I’m grateful I had these opportunities.

However, a person can only do so much, and I feel I was pulled toward the evolution controversy in order to use my gifts, at least for a time, to the best effect. As years passed, I shifted attention from the first two subjects much more into the scientific improbability of evolution. I figured my academic degrees in animal science and veterinary medicine would come in useful for this subject, and they certainly did. I even gave a few presentations to groups, although not everyone I approached would have me. The science can be difficult, but as in Heaven’s Passport, I have tried to explain the topics as simply as possible. I wrote two non-fiction booklets about Creation Biology and a fictional book, Biotech Swirl, to provide relevant information and perspective. They are all included on my blog.

But that time to study and promote Creationism came to a close and I wanted to focus more specifically again on theology, which includes studying philosophy as well. I have a certificate in theology (one year of college), but know that there is so much more to learn. I have worked on theology itself for the past few years, reading St. Thomas Aquinas and other authors, and have learned a great deal on my own. However, once again I’m feeling some kind of shift coming which may draw my attention elsewhere.

In the Book of James in the Bible, it warns against announcing what we will do today or tomorrow since we have no idea what will happen in the future. Instead we should say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15, NIV). In other words, we should always keep our eyes on the Lord, since situations can change in surprising ways. I’ve had a tendency to project whether I’m going to write more or not on the blog, but at this point I need to say, “I want to do what the Lord wills for me.”

The first book I wrote, Mission Faithful, was printed before I started the blog. I suspected it would not be accepted by a publishing house, so I self-published it. The story is about a secret group of Christians who pray together about various situations, seeking God’s direction for their actions.

In a way I feel like I’ve come full circle, because this first book still sticks with me. Though I’m not a member of a secret prayer group, or any prayer group at the moment for that matter, I want to pray to discern God’s will for my path from here.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Catholic Women's Webinar

The World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations (WUCWO) is starting a webinar series about Synodality in the Catholic Church called “School for Synodality,” February 27-29, 2024. The First Session of the Synodal Assembly 2021-2024 resulted in a synthesis document to which I previously linked (a direct link to the document is HERE). The WUCWO school will focus especially on Section 9 of the document, which concerns the role of Catholic women in the Church. The link to the website for registration is HERE.  

I’m sorry this post is so late but I only noticed this announcement today, Feb. 27, 2024, on the Vatican News site (and as far as I know today is when it first showed up). The first two days of the webinar are in Spanish and French respectively. The February 29 presentation is in English. I hope you can still register and watch if you are interested.


Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Synod Groups Formed

As I still try to catch up with my various activities from a very busy 2023, I’ll just add a short post to keep my blog presence alive for another month.

Further developments have recently taken place concerning the second session of the Catholic Bishops’ Synod of Synodality (16th Ordinary General Assembly).

In December, a document was distributed to bishops world-wide to help them continue the process of synodality. An article describes it at Vatican News HERE.

Just announced, Pope Francis, along with setting the dates of Oct. 2 to Oct. 27 2024 for the second session, is creating study groups to explore themes from the first session of the Synod. More details can be found at Vatican News HERE


Wednesday, January 31, 2024

HNY 2024!

A very belated Happy New Year 2024 to all! 

I'm still catching up. Last year was a very busy one for me, with a lot of traveling to relatives at different times and places. They were for the important life passages of a significant birthday and a wedding as well as two surgeries. The relatives all live hundreds of miles away and I drove all of it since I dislike flying and didn’t want to rent cars or depend on others at the destinations. It was worth it, but I’m hoping I’m home more this year. I’m grateful to friends who oversaw my home while I was gone.

I’ve started a few resolutions this year, one of which is to cut out TV almost totally. I still have a connection, and there might be a few things I’ll want to see, but daily hours are out. After only a few weeks, instead of missing being entertained (which was getting more questionable by the year), I very much like my extra free time. I think I’m already a little more productive because of it, and hope to stay that way.

In fact, another resolution was to get some of my notebooks in more order and that is pretty much done, for the time being anyway. I’m so glad to feel more organized. We had a big snowstorm in the middle of January, so that helped to keep me home and working on these books, along with a lot of shoveling. I thank the electric company for keeping at least our part of the state in electricity.

I don’t have much more to add right now. I wanted to get a post in for January, and am just squeaking by. Last month I brought my husband’s blog to an end. Even though he passed away several years ago, I felt people were still referring to it for a while, but I felt the time had come. But I hope to keep mine going for a while. It may be rather sparse for now, but it is still a nice outlet for my writing, and perhaps I’ll pick up speed again some day.

Friday, December 15, 2023

Memories

I am giving notice that I plan to remove the blog Muskegon Memories (muskegonmemories) within the next few weeks. It was the blog of my husband, Thomas Carlson. He loved the history of Muskegon and posted many, many pictures and stories of this Michigan city. Tom passed away in 2017 and his last post in the blog was over 10 years ago. I had left it up for persons interested in Muskegon history. I believe they referred to it for some time.

Tom had helped the Lakeshore Museum Center to scan historical pictures of Muskegon, and now their archive center is the place to go for information and photos on this subject. Their website starts with this paragraph:


The Muskegon County Archive & Collection of the Lakeshore Museum Center contains around 58,000 items pertinent to the natural and cultural history of Muskegon County. Our changing exhibits cover a variety of themes and we welcome research inquiries on Muskegon history topics.


The link to the Archive Center is HERE. I know Tom would be happy to have you take a look at their collection.


Thanks for the wonderful memories, Tom!

Kay Carlson


Friday, November 3, 2023

Synod Synthesis 2023

I am pleased to say that the Synthesis Report of the Vatican Bishops’ Synod on Synodality is available at the Synod website HERE. The meetings were officially the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, First Session.

The report is the culmination of many meetings initiated by Pope Francis, from local to world levels, to determine how the Catholic Church can best unite to do the mission assigned by our Lord, Jesus Christ.


The report lists existing convergences and problems, and gives proposals for moving forward. After a full year of further reflection and some experimentation of how these proposals play out, the synod will reconvene for the second session in 2024 for more analysis.


Monday, October 9, 2023

Synod at Vatican News

I have found that ongoing news of the current Bishops’ Vatican Synod on Synodality is as well found on the Vatican News website (link HERE) as the Synod website. Vatican News is "the news portal 9f the Holy See," and you can read more about it HERE. The main page of the Vatican News is a collection of many happenings, but streaming is possible for live synod events from there. For articles, using the same website, go to the heading of “Vatican” for the synod (although that also has other news). You can move from page to page at the bottom to catch up with what has been going on since the Bishops' Synod on Synodality opening on Oct. 4. The link for the "Vatican" page of Vatican News is HERE.

The news is mostly in the form of briefings given by Paolo Ruffini, President of the Commission for Information of the Synodal Assembly, although sometimes he is accompanied by other participants. Pope Francis had said before the synod began that he wanted an atmosphere of prayer during the proceedings which he felt would not be maintained if the press were physically present.

Still, Catholic websites for news and blogs have been watching the synod, as I have, and making comments along the way. A Google search for “Synod on Synodality” brings many results, as probably would other browsers. A variety of opinions about the meetings come from various worldviews.

At one of the synod’s briefings, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, president of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (Secam), was asked about “so-called LGBT” issues (article HERE). I liked his answer: “On the LGBT issue, the Lord Himself through collective discernment will show us the direction.”

Though the Catholic Church has had a long, ongoing journey, Cardinal Besungu expresses the idea the pope is trying to get across concerning all the current issues with which Christians are grappling. The present walk of synodality is an attempt to include all Catholic Church members in seeking direction from the Holy Spirit, the Lord, for where we go from here.