Absence and Presence: Be Careful Which One You Choose

By Catherine Nagle

Each essay in this collection is related to the hardest choices we all must make in life in dealing with time management, money, family, parents, children, friends, careers, education, marriage, love, divorce, grief, wisdom, and well-being. These pieces are based on my own life experiences over the last forty years and are filled with stories of hope and the consequences of our choices. We must be careful before we act on our feelings. Were not always as smart as we think we are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Apr 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781504378383

Catherine Nagle

Biography About Catherine Nagle: Catherine grew up in Philadelphia with 16 brothers and sisters, reared by loving, old school Italian parents. Catherine's artist father's works graced churches and public buildings; her mother was a full-time homemaker. A professional hairdresser, Catherine worked in various salons while studying the Bible and pursuing spiritual growth through courses, seminars, lectures, and conferences, including the National Theology of the Body Congress. She is also an ambassador of the Society of Emotional Intelligence. The mother of two children and now a grandmother, Catherine lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and son. She is the Author of Imprinted Wisdom.

Book preview

Absence

and Presence

Be Careful Which One You Choose

BY

CATHERINE NAGLE

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Copyright © 2017 BY CATHERINE NAGLE.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

My father was a talented professional artist and, at one time, his magnificent religious paintings hung in the reception room at Saint Martin of Tours Church in Philadelphia. The images in this book are taken from his painting.

www.imprintedwisdom.com

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Website

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-7836-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-7837-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-7838-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017905252

Balboa Press rev. date: 06/05/2017

Table of Contents

A Writer’s Prayer

Can You Hear What’s Calling You?

Something Is Disappearing

That’s Affecting All Of Us!

The Powerful Secret That No One Really Wants to Talk About

Is This an Imposter, or Is It You, God?

My Sorrow Infused Me with Mercy

What Happens When the Light Goes Out?

The Power to Feel More Deeply

What Would Mary Do?

A Utopia: Sex, God, and Marriage

Release Them

A Beautiful Place Without Fear

The Beautiful Red Type That Captured My Heart

How Is Your Own Meeting of Families?

What Happens When We Put Empathy into Practice?

The Good Intentions of Fathers Today, and Yes, Even of Yesterday

God Uses My Hands

The Power of Prayer and Meditation

Religion, Catechism, and Parables

Actors of Love

How to Become the Person You’d Want to Marry

Mother’s Whispers

A Different Kind of Wrong Presence That’s Right

Because I Saw the Difference

The Pain of Absence and Presence

Make Room and the Right Door Will Open for You

The Most Important RSVP from Pope Francis

Somehow, They Knew Better

Shine a Light on Others for Your Own Sake

The Positivity of Givers and Takers

Why Is This Happening to Me?

The Softened Heart

The Responsibility to Sometimes Say No

Listen and Look into Your Heart

Because You Left Me Everything

Everything Will Change for the Better

To Be Loved Is to Discover the Fountain of Wealth

When Passion Ignites Hope

Minimalism is More

One Way To Achieve Abundance Might Just Be To Remind Yourself

Here is Christmas

Another New Year’s Fix

For the Love of All

Learn From Ordinary Saints Who Live Among Us

Why I Pray

Dedication

I dedicate this book with deep appreciation to Arianna Huffington, for my Huffington Post and Thrive Global blog posts. Because of her insightfulness, experiences, humbleness, wisdom, and invitation, I have a voice, and have since received letters from readers for printed copies of my articles, and those requests are what led me to put this book together.

A single individual is enough for hope to exist, and that individual can be you. And then there will be another ‘you,’ and another ‘you,’ and it turns into an ‘us.’ And so, does hope begin when we have an ‘us’? No. Hope began with one ‘you.’ When there is an ‘us,’ there begins a revolution.

- Pope Francis (Source: Ted Talk Conference)

Introduction: I Wrote With My Heart

Oprah Winfrey announced on her TV show that Marrianne Williamson was lecturing on a Spiritual Journey through Oprah’s XM radio. Marianne invited anyone who had had a transformation from pain to peace in their lives to send their essay through Oprah.com. I went on the Oprah website and submitted my letter. This was my first letter I wrote directly from my heart.

To my surprise and delight, my letter was selected from among the thousands and then beautifully read on the show by Marianne. It was a broadcast dedicated to the positive transformation that took place in my life. Marianne gave me the highest compliment and encouragement anyone could hope for. She said how much she loved my story, and how everyone’s life can be transformed by putting these principles into practice. Most importantly, Marianne’s insight gave me hope and courage to write my book, Imprinted Wisdom. She remains one of my greatest teachers to this day.

Marianne Williamson also gave me the confidence because she felt my message was that important and powerful to broadcast in length on the radio. So I had to learn more about writing because I believed I had an important message to share. I soon joined and became a member of the wonderful Red Room Writer’s Society and started my first blog. Soon after I started writing a book, and became a contributor to the Huffington Post, and more recently to Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global. I now want to share with all those angels on earth who encouraged me to let them know that they were the ones who pushed me forward.

Here’s what Marianne Williamson said about my essay: Oh, Wow! I love that essay that I just read because Catherine Nagle went from a life of pain to a life of peace. Her life transformed, and so will yours, and so will mine! So will all of our lives transform from those places where they’re not quite where they could be, to be everything that they might be….

—Marianne Williamson, reading Catherine Nagle’s letter Spiritual Journey on Oprah and Friends Satellite XM Radio on June 4, 2008:

The following is my entire letter:

At the age of twenty-six, I faced a traumatic month that forever changed my life. First I lost my husband to cancer after a year-long battle. We had already lost our home, which we had to sell to pay for his trip to Mexico in search of a cure. If I didn’t feel completely alone at that point, imagine my devastation when my beloved mother died in her sleep only a month later. All I knew was that the two people I held dearest were suddenly gone. I was homeless, with a five-yearold daughter depending on me to take care of us.

During that awful time, I struggled and prayed. At last, after living for a time with various friends and family members, I was able to afford our own apartment and things were starting to look up. I had faith that God would make it work, and I carried my Bible with me everywhere I went. And although I was physically healthy, I was broken in spirit, so much so that I was afraid I wouldn’t survive. In fact, I prayed that I’d live long enough to see my daughter grow up.

Five years later, I had remarried, having met a wonderful man who was an airplane pilot. But he his business led him to travel out of town frequently. Despite being frustrated about with my husband’s absences, I refused to uproot my daughter again by breaking up the marriage. Instead, I stayed busy working, taking care of my daughter, and reading the Bible, along with every other spiritual book I could get my hands on, and this gave me some peace.

Things came to a head one unforgettable night, when my husband was out of town and my daughter wasn’t home. I lay in bed, crying out in my heart to God, What am I doing wrong? What am I not seeing? I’ve been trying to live by the rules, the Commandments. And that’s when I heard a voice inside saying to me, You are doing this yourself!

I was shocked by this realization, but I knew without a doubt that it was true: I was bringing my sorrow with me everywhere I went. And if my life was going to get better, that was the first thing I had to change. It wasn’t easy to undo forty years of listening to the wrong messages in my mind, but in time it became easier. Somehow, as if guided by unseen hands, I was led to every book I needed to read. Somehow, what I’d heard that fateful night became clear in these books, and I found the solution to my life-long mystery. And it helped me to change my life.

From that day on, and for the twenty years since, my life has continued to blossom—once I learned to leave my sorrow behind. Today I have an amazing twelve-year-old son; a beautiful, well-balanced adult daughter; a super son-in-law; and two wonderful grandchildren; and my fantastic husband, who turned out to be my soulmate.

Fortunately, I’d learned a valuable secret on my journey, and that is this: To be happy in this life, you must give whatever it is you want for yourself to everyone else. Give them in the spirit of love and compassion, give in the spirit of health and wealth, and give in the spirit of joy—without exception. Pass no judgments and always give thanks to God for everything in your life. Do this and you will get back whatever you give to others, all in God’s perfect order. Having practiced this way of life for so many years, today my spirit is full of love and joy. And in that same spirit, I want to gratefully share how the power of prayer, reading, and reflection, can transform each of our lives … if we only we put them into action.

A Writer’s Prayer

The Word is light and ardor, darkness and reproof. Fiery, icy, comforting, reproving, disconcerting, cutting asunder, striking to the joining place of bone and marrow, it works a strange surgery of the spirit.

– Daniel Berrigan Source:

Daniel: Under the Siege of the Divine

Have you taken notice to the pleasure and the strain in writing words? To me, the pleasure to connect in the deepest part of your soul with another seems like the closest thing to God. And it’s so important to be clear when choosing words so that others can understand what we feel.

Writing a book and blogging have become within reach of most everyone these days. But as an author, I confess that I hesitate to publish even a modest comment without an echo of reference from scripture or from a saintly teacher who points to the same path. And it’s no coincidence how quickly the perfect scripture or quote appears to support whatever point I’m trying to make!

Only then am I comforted that this inspiration is from God and not my ego, and I feel more