everyday holiness – Be as One

Recently I posted a review for my monthly column on Catholicmom.com that was a sheer pleasure to write. For years I have longed for my lifelong friend from high school to write a book. Overcoming many odds (some of which you will find out about in the following review), Reg has finally done it, assembling her many award-winning columns into a collection. If you think that holiness is just for long-dead saints, read on.

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How in the world could a book titled Do Bad Guys Wear Socks? inspire to live out my faith?

Written by M. Regina Cram, Do Bad Guys Wear Socks? Living the Gospel in Everyday Life is a collection of her award-winning columns from the Catholic Transcript (of the diocese of Hartford, CT) and the Hartford Courant. Cram’s candor, laced with humor and free of self-indulgence and melodrama, makes this book a breath of fresh air.

I must insert a disclaimer here: Reg Cram is a lifelong friend but I had no idea she could write like this. The book grabbed me in an instant and never let go.

Click here to read the rest of the review.

Click to Tweet & Share: Book Review: Everyday Holiness: Blunt, Funny, Poignant – “Do Bad Guys Wear Socks?” by M. Regina Cram http://wp.me/p2D9hg-pA

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I have known M. Regina Cram since high school. Her family is like my second family. The same is true for my husband. He came to know Reg first while I was friendly with her older sister Ginny first. We have all been through a lot of weddings, funerals, tragedies and births together. And all throughout those years we sang together, going through the meticulous journal of songs that Reg and Ginny kept.

I’ve known that Reg has written a regular monthly column for the Catholic Transcript, the official newspaper for the Hartford, CT diocese. Secretly I dreamed of her writing a book. And she finally did! It’s called Do Bad Guys Wear Socks? Living the Gospel in Everyday Life. I’m taking my time reading it because it is so enjoyable and someday soon I will review the book and feature an interview with Reg.

In the meantime, here’s a taste of what this book offers, from her current column in the Catholic Transcript:

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Six words. That’s all. Six simple words, but each time I uttered them, my throat tightened and my eyes burned.

“Tierney and Andrew live in Newtown.”

These six words brought me to tears many times that first week after a shooter massacred 26 people in an elementary school in Newtown, also killing his mother and, at the end, himself. Our daughter Tierney and her husband Andrew settled in Newtown after their wedding a year ago. Andrew grew up there. His family lives in town. His brother went to school with the gunman.

A few days after the shootings, I came across a familiar Bible verse. “For God so loved the world that he sent his only son . . . ”

In the light of the shootings, the verse rankled me. I mean, seriously? God loves the whole world? Everyone? He loves a man who slaughtered 20 babies and the educators who tried to protect them? Jesus died for someone like that?

You can read the article in its entirety here.

I also wrote something about Newtown which you can read here. I wish now I too had included the killer.

Click to Tweet & Share: Mercy for the merciless – a guest column by my good friend, M. Regina Cram http://wp.me/p2D9hg-nu

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