Read, Write, and Pray with Leticia Ochoa Adams and Catherine Ricketts: Part Two
As we engage more deeply with the ancient streams of art and faith, how they inform one another, and how all of this can create profound new possibilities for belonging, we need ways to respond. The Spiritual Direction for Writers Read, Write, & Pray series uses themes and excerpts from various books, essays, and articles to help you respond to writing by a specific author.
I have not worked with Leticia Ochoa Adams or Catherine Ricketts to create this series, but I did host them for an online conversation in November 2022, which informed how I designed this particular Read, Write, & Pray series. You don’t need to own a copy of their books to complete this series, but you should definitely buy their books anyway! You can buy Leticia’s first book here. And Cat’s first book will be out in 2024.
I’m excited to invite you to explore their work in meaningful ways. I hope Read, Write, & Pray with Leticia Ochoa Adams and Catherine Ricketts helps you make space to notice God’s presence in your life and creative work. I hope it gives you opportunities to discover how making art and engaging with art help you belong to yourself, others, God, and the world.
Parts One and Two of Read, Write, & Pray with Leticia Ochoa Adams and Catherine Ricketts are available to the public at spiritualdirectionforwriters.com. Parts Three and Four are exclusive resources for those who registered for the Spiritual Direction for Writers Conversation Series with Leticia and Cat in November 2022.
Learn more about Read, Write, & Pray here.
Additional Read, Write, & Pray Resources:
Read, Write, & Pray with Leticia Ochoa Adams and Catherine Ricketts Part One
Read, Write, & Pray with The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
Read, Write, & Pray with The Great Belonging by Charlotte Donlon
Read, Write, & Pray with Leticia Ochoa Adams and Catherine Ricketts: Part Two
READ
“My Brother Beside Me” by Catherine Ricketts
WRITE
For at least 10 minutes, pray, journal, take notes, or begin a new poem, essay, or story about the last time you saw someone you love or like or hate. The person can still be living. Include as many sensory details as you can. Don’t worry about perfecting this. It can be a list of bullet points.
PRAY
Use these words from “My Brother Beside Me” as a prayer prompt. Sit in silence or do some journaling prayer in response to this excerpt.
“Lately, wordless communion feels like the only sensible way to relate to God, precisely because it doesn’t aim to be sensible. I sit in silence. I try to connect to God’s presence with me. I am a Quaker in search of the inner light, a mystic in contemplation, a Greek repeating the Jesus Prayer until I slip beneath the words into God’s wordless company. These practices seem more concerned with the mysteries exchanged in the private chamber of the heart, to the tick of an eternal clock, between the soul and its patient creator, than with outward signs that assure the saved of their place in heaven.”
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Catherine Ricketts is an essayist and songwriter. Her nonfiction on the arts, grief, joy, and spirituality appears in the Kenyon Review Online, the Ploughshares blog, The Christian Century, Image, The Millions, Paste, and NPR-affiliate The Key. She studied writing at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MFA in nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University.
Concurrent with her writing, she has supported the work of other practicing artists as a live arts presenter, having held jobs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia’s FringeArts, and the public radio station WXPN.
Her first book, a work of literary nonfiction on motherhood and artistic practice, is forthcoming from Broadleaf Books in 2024. Find her on Instagram at @bycatherinericketts, where she runs an Instagram Live interview series called the Mother/Artist Lunch/Break, or stay in touch via her newsletter at www.catherinedanaricketts.com.
Charlotte Donlon helps her readers and clients notice how they belong to themselves, others, God, and the world. Charlotte is a writer, a spiritual director for writers, and the founder of Spiritual Direction for Writers™ and Parenting with Art™. She is also the founder and host of the Our Faith in Writing podcast and website. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Curator, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, The Millions, Mockingbird, and elsewhere. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Seattle Pacific University where she studied creative nonfiction with Paula Huston and Lauren F. Winner. She holds a certificate in spiritual direction from Selah Center for Spiritual Formation. Her first book is The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other. She is currently writing her next book, Spiritual Direction for Writers, which will be published by Eerdmans in 2024.