CWG Book Blast! Victoria Ryan’s “I’m Listening: Praying With Art and Story”
This month, the Catholic Writers’ Guild is touring Victoria Ryan’s book, “I’m Listening: Praying with Art and Story.” It is a CWG Seal of Approval recipient! A unique meditation that engages your “right brain” attributes of color, emotion, and imagination to discover God’s fingerprints all over your daily life.
Summary:
This book brings you a unique approach to meditation and contemplation: prayers prompted by religious art, symbolism, and the story of a little sheep’s dark night of the soul. A guided reflection that lasts 40 days, it’s ideal not only for Lent, but for any time you feel called to a personal retreat. I’m Listening is personal: it targets your feelings, your impressions, your experience–your relationship with God. Includes an Introduction, 21 religious art images in color, bible verses, and questions for reflection.
Excerpt:
[Image of a French holy card] Jesus is shown as the Good Shepherd. We know this because His halo, a circle with three triangle insets, is a design artists reserved for depicting God. His blue cloak symbolizes truth; the gold under-color indicates something of value… But the Shepherd doesn’t use His rod to free the sheep from its entanglement. Instead, He holds back a branch to make an alternate solution visible to him… The Shepherd’s rescue response has changed. The sheep is in crisis… Crises involve change. What change is your current crisis requiring of you?
Website: www.victoriaryanbooks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VictoriaRyanBooks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VictoriaRyanbk / @victoriaryanbk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriaryan1252/ / @victoriaryan
Bio:
Victoria, a retired speech-language pathologist, MS-CCC/SLP, has published under Abbey Press, CareNotes, and major national magazines. Her three children’s books have been translated into twelve languages and her adult novel was a finalist for the 2012 Tuscany Prize for Catholic Fiction. A speaker and podcaster (The Pope of Ohio), she is a catechist for 6th and 7th graders. She and her husband live in Ohio where they raised their six sons and enjoy eleven grandchildren. One fun fact about Victoria: she is the seventh of fourteen children.
Buy Link:
https://bit.ly/VRyanImListening
Tweet:
In Victoria Ryan’s book “I’m Listening: Praying With Art & Story,” Love using the color and symbolism of holy cards when praying and be glad to know what the spiritual dark night of the soul means. https://bit.ly/VRyanImListening
Michael Fraley
Michael Fraley has been editing and posting the CWG Book Blast since 2016. He's adapted the Arthurian portion of Geoffrey of Monmouth's “Histories of the Kings of Britain” to the comic page, has worked in book illustration, graphic design, and has also served as a newspaper columnist. In 2019 the story of his conversion to Catholicism was told in Nancy Ward's book Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story. His primary area of study is in the Jewish roots of the Church, with an emphasis on the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle of James. He holds a MA in theology from St. Joseph's College of Maine and a BFA in fine art from Indiana University. He can be reached at michael@michaelfraley.com