Update on In Spirit and Truth Reading Roundups

Hi friends,

You may have noticed that I haven’t published a Reading Roundup for a while. (Since February, actually.) So, I thought I should explain.

If you’ve been following this blog over the past year, you know how busy I have become with the work of Awake, and you saw the reader poll I put out a few months ago to help me discern the direction of this blog. What I learned from that poll is that many of you really appreciate both the Survivors’ Voices posts and the Reading Roundup, and you would like me to continue both. I agree that both serve an important role in helping us be informed (myself just as much as anyone), and it has been hard for me to think about letting go of either piece.

However, the last few months have been crazy busy with conferences, speaking engagements, travel, training a new employee, illness, and my daughter’s college graduation. I didn’t exactly make a decision to pause the Reading Roundups, I just got so hopelessly behind that I could not get a post up for March, which became April and then May.

I made a promise to myself that this summer I would spend less time working at my computer and more time enjoying the beautiful outdoors here in Wisconsin. So, I think that I need to let go of “catching up” and just put this feature on hold for now. I may come back to it in a few months, or I may set it aside for good. I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to find the right balance for my life, and I appreciate all of you who have encouraged me to take care of myself in the midst of the heavy work I do.

If it’s important to you to continue following the news regarding abuse in the Church, I hope you will find other ways to do so. Setting up a weekly Google alert for the words “Catholic abuse” is one possibility, and the “abuse tracker” feed at Bishop Accountability compiles many of the most important articles (it’s just a long list to wade through). Much of the best investigative journalism on this topic is happening at The Pillar and The Guardian, but there are great articles coming out from many other outlets as well (which is why I created this feature to begin with!).

Thank you for caring about this. It matters.

Peace,
Sara

PS: I will have a Survivors’ Voices post for you later this month, on the topic of isolation. I’m looking forward to hearing what our panelists have to say.