1) Get comfortable with taking the lead in your relationships: Not in a bossy, domineering sort of way, but in a kind, cheerful and confident way.  I say this because women will lose hope and “move on” if a relationship is not going anywhere.  Catholic girls are typically relying on the man to take the initiative.

If you are clear that you want to get married and have discerned thoroughly, it behooves you to get serious about your life direction and relationship goals.  Do this by nudging your relationships forward when it’s time.  Your special lady will love you for it.

2) Put yourself out there: A smart guy can find opportunities in many venues and get the courage to ask for dates.  Even if you are shy at big, in-person social events, I promise you that you can find some good catches online.  If you do not have luck on the Christian sites, what about secular dating sites?  This is a wall that many Catholics are afraid to jump over, but I assure you that Catholic girls are everywhere.

Get involved in your parish if you are in a good location with lots of singles, but ask yourself if there are other parishes in your area with more singles?  What events have more to offer?  Are there opportunities for speed-dating?  Lectures with receptions afterwards?  Volunteer activities?  It depends on the area, so the answers can vary, but if you are creative, you will find some fun options that suit your personality.

3) Get your career and finances in order: A guy with a ton of unmanageable debt is totally unattractive to a woman who wants to have a family.  A man who wants to attract a good wife should have a career path or at least have some sort of plan for how he is going to earn a decent living.  Even if he is not going to be the only breadwinner, this is important, because the woman will not want to enter a situation where she has to “carry” the guy barring temporary crises or severe illnesses that pop up after marriage.

Modern women tend to be multi-talented and capable in a variety of arenas, but she is still the more vulnerable person when it comes to pregnancy.  Be the strong man she needs you to be and get ready to provide some measure of financial security.

4) Take care of your health and appearance: Women will usually prioritize a guy’s personality, heart and words when it’s time to choose a mate, but they do notice appearance when they are closely evaluating between different guys.  If a woman is online and actively dating, she could have a few dates in one week, so try to make the best first impressions that you can.  Exercise, eat well, get your sleep, and buy some new and flattering clothes and shoes.

5) Get to the root of any emotional obstacles: I know guys don’t typically like the touchy feely type of stuff, but really, if you’ve got some buried emotional hurts that are affecting your relationships, it’s to your benefit to deal with them.  You can get the most beautiful, faith-filled woman to date you and lose her through infantile temper tantrums, a reluctance to commit, or abusive behavior.  Nobody is perfect and we are all works in progress, but being the best you can be will strengthen your relationships.

If you’ve read my book, you know that I think frustrated daters can overuse psychotherapy when they want extra support.  Because it is a widely available service, it can become a “one size fits all” approach to life’s challenges.  The results vary widely, depending on the techniques the psychologist uses and the synergy the client has with them.

If you know you really need therapy, good on you for going.  Notwithstanding, I wanted to find something that seemed more effective in helping the average Christian single meet their relationship goals.  I think coaching is it.  Why?  For one thing, coaching doesn’t require diagnostic codes or health insurance, or look for what is wrong with you.

Instead, it’s about looking for what is right with you.  What are your dreams?  How are you going to attain them?  What has held you back?  How are you going to jump over the obstacles and create the future you want?  Coaching fosters a feeling of empowerment.

Coaches use a lot of psychological research to support their approaches.  Specifically, the new area of positive psychology is leveraged extensively, as well as new discoveries in neuroscience.  For example, this article, Happiness Examined, discusses what really makes people happy.  One tip is, “Commit to your goals.  Pick at least one significant goal and devote time and effort to pursuing it.”  How are you doing on your relationship goals?

The Christmas season brought an influx of articles and posts about family.  Normally, “family” is one of those words that evokes that warm, toasty feeling.  When dating, family can cause much anxiety though.

Not only do people assess individuals as spousal material based on their own merits, but they also critique their family background.  My observation is that Catholics can be especially ruthless about placing people on genealogical totem poles.

Daters can be like meatpackers with a label gun.  Divorced parents?  Reject!  The “damaged goods” label gets slapped onto the person.  Other times, it’s a cruel scale exercise.  Married parents?  One coin on this side of the scale.  Functional siblings?  Two more coins.  One bad story?  Immediately subtract one coin and put it on the other side.

I understand how this can occur because unfortunately, I once engaged in pedigree analysis too!  You don’t just marry a person, you marry into a family, and want to look before you leap.  As an observant Catholic, even the most botched union can be difficult to escape.  Looking at a person’s family background can be seen as an additional insurance policy and predictor of the future.

It is true that people are, at least partially, the product of their backgrounds, and everyone prefers to have a positive relationship with their in-laws.  Statistics say that children of in-tact marriages have a better chance at keeping their own marriage together.  They’ve watched two people work things out and probably have better conflict resolution skills as a result.  They may not have as much fear attached to the prospect of getting married and starting a family either.  At the same time, so many parents are divorced today that it is hard to know how each individual child has coped with it.

And that’s the point.  How can you really know how someone has coped with their family “stuff” until you get to know them?  What makes us so dismissive of free will and deterministic when confronted with family dysfunction?

The reality is that family problems can play an important role in your girlfriend or boyfriend’s pain-filled menagerie of issues.  For instance, I dated a child of divorce who still had so much anger against his mother that subsequent relationships with women suffered as a result.  I’d suggest that it wasn’t his family situation that was absolutely insurmountable though, but rather his inability to cope with it and grow beyond his childhood scars.  Disappointing as it was, I had to move on.

At the same time, I am sure we’ve all met children of abuse and all manner of chaos who surprise us by having their emotional equipment and lives in order.  They’ve done their homework and can maintain healthy relationships as a result.

That said, what about the children of in-tact, seemingly harmonious families who still somehow have mega-issues?  Are you going to let them slide through because their family status allowed them to escape the label gun?

The bottom line is that if we are Christian, we should have some respect and admiration for how Christ conducted himself.  Jesus was not someone who turned people away because “Oh, your parents had major issues.”  Or, “Your sibling is nuts.”  I think his behavior shows that these surface things are not a reliable way of determining what is in someone’s heart of hearts.  Give people a chance.

Native American Kateri is a soon-to-be saint who recently entered my life with divine synchronicity.  The whole story is too intricate to share here, but I will tell you that I recently bought this book: Kateri – Native American Saint.  This beautiful book is great for children or anyone who appreciates nice artwork.

On Monday night, I put this precious book in a display case in my office with a drum.  Drums are used in Native American religious ceremonies.  That same day, unbeknownst to me, the news came out about Kateri’s upcoming canonization!

I feel like I know Kateri because of all of the little coincidences that have peppered me over the past few weeks.  In 2011, I became fascinated with Native American culture again.  As a teen, I had turquoise jewelry and Minnetonka thunderbird moccasins.  This year, I re-bought some of those items and got the moccasins as an early Christmas present from my husband.  I even met a real shaman!

This book features a photo of a Kateri Prayer Group, and one of the women is holding a drum.  The drum in this context, for me, symbolizes integration of European and Native American cultural traditions, or at the very least, respect for ancestors who walked American soil before we did.

Why did this canonization take so long?  So many people have chosen this woman to be their patron saint even though her status is “Blessed,” a notch below sainthood.  The campaign for her canonization was passionate.  This book already has her sainted in the title, but included a prayer card for her canonization.  Hence, for the past few weeks, I was confused about her status on the canonization track, and wondered why it was taking so long to certify her holiness.  She died in 1680!

My instinct is that her ancestry and cultural identity caused some hesitation, or suspicion.  The history of Europeans pushing Native Americans off of their land isn’t a story of kindness and compassion, yet Manifest Destiny was still taught by some teachers as if it was an undeniable fact when I was in school.  This 19^th century concept supported the idea that God wanted the European settlers to take over.  Sometimes the push for domination was violent and inhumane, yet under Manifest Destiny, it was justified because the Europeans were be destined to rule.  Thankfully, my parents provided some perspective on this when I got home from school.

Nevertheless, this long history of European settlers arising victorious over many indigenous tribes probably meant that it took a long time for Kateri to get her due.  Even now, comparative religion textbooks often gloss over or completely skip indigenous spiritual customs as if they don’t matter, or are somehow irrelevant to the story of the human race.  Remember that the victors get to write history.  However, if most people on this planet before Christ were not Jewish, it seems like we could learn something about how humans interact with their Creator by studying ancient indigenous traditions.

Kateri was brave.  She accepted Christ even when it was sure to cause problems in her tribe.  Yet, she’s more than just another Catholic saint with a courageous story.  She’s a Native American.  Hopefully, her canonization will show Native Americans that the Church accepts them, and maybe even pave the way for more sincere and meaningful interreligious dialogue with people who still practice ancient traditions.

If you want to hear more about this exciting news, try this story from a Montreal-based network.

Washington D.C. (Photo: Attilio Bonaccoso)

“You don’t move to Washington, D.C., to get married, you move here for your career.”

Huh?  What?

I spotted this line in a new Washington Post article about the supposed plunging popularity of marriage in the U.S.  If you have not seen the piece – you can find it here.

In general – I think the headline is overly simplistic. In reality, people still want to get married.  Many of them are just delaying the accomplishment of that relationship goal (and in fact, jeopardizing it) by falling into a major modern-day trap: shacking up.

But really, as a third generation Washingtonian, I was most puzzled by the statement above in bold.  D.C. is in my DNA.  The statement has that sound-bite pinch that tends to gloss over the details of real life.

Plenty of people come to town for the social scene and to be among more singles.  The restaurants are awesome, and it’s a good place to meet people and have fun.  D.C. helps people further their career too.  It’s a two-pronged approach.  You get a good job and a nice paycheck, which equals nice cloths, exciting dates, and a great start (or second wind?) to your adult life in general.

This paradigm might be especially beneficial for men, who need good career tracks to be attractive to single women who want a somewhat traditional home life.  They can build a career in D.C. and also have their pick of great date locations.

Guys from less electric parts of the country have told me that D.C. girls tend to be more trendy and educated than the girls back home.  Men may come here for a job – but that doesn’t mean they go blind and forget about falling in love.  They are focused on their career – sure – but they also find D.C. appealing for the “society.”  That’s the silver lining that maybe they weren’t anticipating, but are happy to embrace.

Women, if they don’t get married at a very young age in more rural or central areas of the U.S., can find both social and professional opportunities in D.C.   People marry later on the East Coast than other parts of the country, so a mid-twenties single in downtown D.C. may be perceived differently than they would in other locales.  If their girlfriends are all married up in their hometown, D.C. can provide a new circle of single lady friends, more social activities, and interesting professional options.

Even for D.C.-area natives, singles commonly meet downtown.  When they get married, they move to the burbs.  This is a common pattern, and it just irked me to see that misrepresented in the press.

Happiness and fulfillment, for most people, are about more than a job.  I think people carry their full satchel of hopes and dreams with them when they come to D.C. and try to achieve it all.  Many of them do!

Farnsworth House with bullet holes from the Civil War

We went to the Farnsworth House, a haunted bed and breakfast in Gettysburg, Pa this weekend.  My parents gave us a gift certificate to this place last year for Christmas, and we only just got around to going there.

It was very interesting!  The house was in the middle of some fighting between Union and Confederate soldiers, as demonstrated by the many bullet holes in the brick.  The Confederates ultimately claimed it, so most of the stories are about Confederate soldiers.

The restaurant there was very good.  If you go, try some of the traditional, old-style dishes.  We did and were happy that we stepped outside the box.

We went on a ghost investigation from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. (okay, we turned in early!).  I got a lot of hot spots using a K-II meter in a nearby battlefield, which is now school property.  A hill there was the sight of a lot of violent deaths.  The people who live in the homes nearby will hear screams, call the police, and the police will come to find nobody out there.

I’m no K-II expert, but if my K-II hits were real and not a result of interference from some wiring, I can say that I felt that the soldiers may have been more receptive to particular people (young women?) in the group.  I say that because I got a pretty constant K-II reading in one spot, and then my husband and the tour guide came over, and it temporarily stopped.  Another time, me and another woman were getting hits in the same spot, and two other people came over with their K-IIs and didn’t get anything.

My husband has told me before that guys are more inclined to share how they really feel with a woman, so I wonder if the soldier spirits on the battlefield were following that instinct?  I guess I can see a soldier telling a woman, “Oh, that really hurt!” and maybe trying to be tough in front of a guy.  My guess is that if I walked onto the battlefield dressed as a Civil War nurse, I’d probably get a lot of activity.

When we investigated the house, a woman who was with a man who claimed to be a skeptic got a big jolt.  She was opening a door and it jerked out of her hand and swung open.

My husband had an intense nightmare where Confederate soldiers were trying to break into our room.  While he didn’t think anything disrespectful or try to provoke any spirit activity, he is a total Northerner.  It was not a normal dream, so we’re still trying to unpack it!

I, on the other hand, felt oddly comfortable.  My relatives fought in the war as Confederates and we were in a Confederate house, so I wonder if the spirits decided not to bother me!

At any rate, people talk to angels and people who have become saints, so I don’t see any problem with recognizing that individuals on the other side can still communicate and make their presence known.

St. Therese

Today is the Feast Day of St. Therese, my patron saint.  So, I thought I would pay tribute to her and tell you how she has inserted herself into my life!

In 1999, I was preparing to enter the Catholic Church for Easter 2000.  I saw a Novena for St. Therese in September 1999, and thought, “Why not?  I’ll try it.”  I remember trying really hard to say it every day.  Then, before the novena was even over, I heard that her relics were coming to the U.S. for the first time.  And – surprise, surprise – they were coming to the National Shrine, which was nearby.

I told the priest who was preparing me to enter the Church and he said, “Well, I guess we know who your patron saint is!”  It was pretty clear to us that she chose me, which I think is pretty neat.  I never really got into the process of going through a book of saints and choosing one – one chose me!  And even when I started to think about other saints, they didn’t really hold my attention for long.  I knew it was Therese.

During that whole time period, I was really busy with college and sometimes had convert angst.  It seems like most people enter the Church with someone, like a fiancé or spouse, by their side.  I was alone.  During one of the entry rites, I remember seeing a shower of flower petals out the window I was facing.  That was beautiful and it certainly made me think the Little Flower was checking on me.

After my conversion, I spent about two years with the Secular Carmelites and considered becoming a Carmelite nun.  Obviously, that didn’t happen, but I will always love Carmelite spirituality.

I heard about a priest who advised a young dater not to bother praying to St. Therese for a spouse.  For some reason, he didn’t think she was the saint for marriage requests.  Well – I don’t think St. Therese liked hearing that, because my husband proposed on September 29th.  Therese died on the 30^th, so I think she was saying, “Hello Amy!  It’s okay that you didn’t become a Carmelite – I am still helping you.”

As someone who has been blessed by this saint’s attention, I encourage you to ask her for help on anything you want!

Me and Fr. Elias Carr in Austria about seven years ago. This is what my secular sisterhood phase looked like!

Chapter 12 of my book is Secular Sisterhood.  It is my term for women who get stuck in the in-between vocations discernment rut.  Usually, they don’t know what’s going on…but it can seem obvious to others.  Now you have visual evidence of my own experience as a “secular sister.”  I think it was about seven years ago.

Here I am with Fr. Elias Carr of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in Austria while on a pilgrimage.  The female counterpart to a canon is a canoness.  If you gave me a veil in this picture, I would be a Canoness Regular of St. Augustine.  You can read more about the Canons here, but for now, I want to re-visit one of my favorite topics, which is the secular sisterhood.

Choosing a vocation is an important focus for Catholic singles.  The Catholic singles scene has some issues though.  One is that it is so easy for pious people to passively choose to remain single….and possibly get praised for it!  But, they commonly end up cranky and miserable in the end, especially when they don’t analyze and accept the likely consequences of their actions and attitudes.

Devout women can get stuck in a “nun-like” phase if they are not astute and self-aware.  It might sound good on the surface…but something is missing.

Psychologically, the secular sister mindset can go like this, “Well, I don’t think I’m called to the convent, although that would be cool, so it’s probably marriage, but if I can’t find a perfect man, I’ll just stay with Jesus and live a nun-like existence.”  In other words, I’ll sit on this fence.

It’s not a proactive, positive way of thinking.  It’s not even really full discernment of marriage.  You aren’t carrying a compass that is pointed in the marriage direction for sure.  The approach is passive, fear-based, rigid, and unrelenting in perfectionism.  Extreme caution and distrust for the world and other people can lead to stagnation.  At the time this photo was taken, I lacked confidence…and well, FAITH!

Thankfully, I realized that….and Fr. Elias was a good person to chat with as I tried to unscramble myself.

The male equivalent to a secular sister is a “Dabbler.”  You can read about them on pages 101-102 of the book.  Fr. Elias told me that he has met plenty of Dabblers!  The phenomenon is real.

By the way, if this blog post could have a soundtrack, it would be “Sitting on a Fence” by the Rolling Stones.

The message came soon after I talked with Joe Patch IV of Spirit & Truth Live on Radio Maria (Fridays at 2:00 p.m. EST). Joe and I had a pre-chat before the live show and agreed that we had to encourage Catholic women to be prudent about their education and income earning skills. It’s an important point that does not get credence in many devout circles.

When I came through an ultra-orthodox diocese as a young 20-something, the “pro-family” messaging often skirted the issue of women securing their futures. Nobody wanted to sound like a feminist, minimize the needs of young children, or to question the trustworthiness of male family members.

Life is unpredictable though. Is it smart not to prepare women for basic survival? Why is it that in some Catholic communities, a child-like, ingénue helplessness is framed as a badge of honor?

I think it’s critical to look reality squarely in the face and puncture ideals that can lead to personal tragedies.

We know that not every man is going to stay committed to his wife and children. It’s not a new story! We can kick, scream, and protest as much as we want, yet, the risks remain. Things can go wrong even with the best intentions and planning. What if a guy turns out to be a violent abuser and you have to leave?

It is impossible to ever completely control another person, even if that person is a spouse. Complete confidence in your husband right now can devolve over time too.

If thinking about your husband leaving or abusing you is either too troubling or far-fetched to entertain, what about illnesses and accidents? What if your husband is killed through an on-the-job mishap? What if he gets in a car crash and is permanently disabled? What if an illness takes him early? How is the family going to survive? Tragic things happen to good people every day. Nobody knows why – but it’s best to be prepared.

Even if a woman intends to spend the majority of her life as a homemaker, it’s wise to have what Joe called an “insurance policy.” Have a back-up plan.

A woman who is proactive about evaluating her talents and strengths should be able to select a specialty to her liking. In this day and age, possible back-up plans are extensive.  Not every career field requires expensive degrees, and not every workplace fosters an extremely aggressive culture that would challenge a gentle woman who is full of maternal instinct and compassion. Some jobs can be done from home in a “mompreneurial” fashion.

If one back-up plan seems too cumbersome, find another one that suits you better. We’re all different, and one size won’t fit all. Remember that having skills does not mean that you always have to use them either.

Another thing to keep in mind is that education for the sake of education is not always wasteful. A well-educated woman is beautiful and her intelligence will enrich her marriage, relationships, and ability to support her children through their schooling. Even if she doesn’t constantly use her degree, she will have the academic background, critical thinking skills, and piece of paper, to help her open doors if she needs to in the event of an unforeseen crisis.

As women who live in the modern world, we need to think about how to feed ourselves and our children in worst case scenarios. What’s our plan? In the old days, it was all about being born into the right family, marrying the right man, or getting plugged into the right charity if poverty struck. For all of the negatives we face in society these days, we have more opportunities than ever to build strong safety nets.

I’m sure you heard the news that Borders is going out of business.  I subscribe to Publisher’s Weekly updates, and for the past few months, I’ve gotten constant messages about the store chain’s demise.  Eventually, I got so sick of reading about it that I stopped opening the messages.  That said, I don’t know all of the gory details, but….we did go to our local Borders today to check out the pickings and it was educational.

Educational?  Yeah – go to your local Borders armed with an iPhone or Blackberry.  Browse the aisles.  You’ll find titles that you never knew existed.  But, wait…it’s only 10 percent off?  20 percent off?  30 percent off?  Check the title online and 90 percent of the time, it will be cheaper on Amazon.  If you have any self-control or interest in keeping to your budget, you’ll send yourself an email note about the book or add it to your wishlist, and order it later for half the price.  It’s sad, but true.  Unless it’s a last minute gift, or you need something for a train or plane ride, it’s hard to justify the extra expense unless you are simply in a mood to treat yourself.

I bought the things that were 40 percent off, like timeless greeting cards and magazines that I may want to write for.  I am a complete bibliophile, but still couldn’t bring myself to buy the books because they seemed overpriced, or not steeply discounted enough for me to run around like a kid in a candy store.

As an author, I know that the higher prices are probably better for me in the end.  So while one side of me wants consumers to pay the steeper price tag so I can earn a penny for my blood, sweat, and tears, the other side of me is still the savvy consumer.  Talk about internal conflict!  I’m sure the prices will come down as Borders liquidates, but my initial experience told me a lot about the changing marketplace.

While I always will love the books I can hold in my hands, I have a feeling that e-books are also changing the environment.  When I was studying for my library science degree, nobody thought they were going to take off, but now?  I’ve heard publishing insiders swear that e-books still aren’t taking a big chunk out of the marketplace and that it’s all hype, but my personal experience says otherwise.  Some readers are really into their Kindles, etc.  Put it this way – I’m glad my title is available as an e-book.  Right now it’s on the Kindle bestseller list for books in Catholicism – go figure!