![\"\"](\"https:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/SsxNkkSXmvI\/AAAAAAAAAUA\/vxTCQ_4rlF0\/s1600-h\/IMG_0386.JPG\")
<\/a>As soon as I had published my post summarizing my first seven weeks of Catholic blogging<\/a>, I realized that it was like several Stephen King novels: Hundreds of pages of build-up, then pffft, fizzle\u2014whimper, no bang. Well, here\u2019s the bang that post was missing: As a Catholic these eighteen months, I am happier than I have ever been.<\/p>\nI have written that Catholic women seem happy<\/a>. I have even dared to write that Catholic women are<\/span> happy<\/a>. I have described several happy Catholic men, like Father Barnes <\/a>and Ferde<\/a>, and a very happy Catholic couple, Frank and Carrie<\/a>.<\/p>\n What about me?<\/p>\n See that guy sitting in his stocking feet outside a rented cottage in Ballygaw, County Dingle, last March? That\u2019s me, a year after my conversion to Catholicism, completely at peace, really quite boundlessly happy. Let me count the ways:<\/p>\n I have never belonged to a community where I felt more at home\u2014<\/span><\/span>I have had many advantages in my life and I have belonged to some pretty fine groups of people. Don\u2019t hold it against me. These are just the facts: My family was and is fantastic, grandparents, parents, siblings, in-laws, children, nieces, nephews, the lot. I was a Boy Scout. My parents belonged to several country clubs and sent me to cool summer camps. I attended private schools, including arguably the best boarding school in the world (Exeter) and the best small liberal arts college in America (Amherst). I became part of a world-famous theatrical troupe (\u201cLe Grand David and his own Spectacular Magic Company<\/a>\u201d), where some of my best friends still are active. And for all that, I have never been anywhere, never belonged to any group, where I felt more welcome, more at home, more loved<\/span> than I do every single morning at mass. Or any time I have coffee with Ferde or Father or Ellen or Carol.<\/p>\n I have not experienced this level of intellectual excitement since Exeter\u2014<\/span>I\u2019ve been a Catholic long enough to know what they say about Catholics: We check our brains at the door. Or as one skeptic put it recently: Baaaaaaa! (sheep sound) Well, I\u2019m here to tell you that in these eighteen months (and in the six months of RCIA that preceded my reception into the Church) I have known greater intellectual stimulation and challenge than I have since reading Crime and Punishment <\/span>with Henry Ploegstra or The Hero with a Thousand Faces <\/span>with Rod Marriott, both at Exeter. I can\u2019t possibly list all the books I have read, nay studied, in the past two years, especially when preparing a presentation for Saturday morning men\u2019s group<\/a>. Let me just throw a couple of thousand-pagers at you: Kristin Lavransdatter <\/span><\/a>and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You could take those two masterpieces to a desert island and never miss your mommy.
My marriage has never been better\u2014<\/span><\/span>Katie<\/a> and I celebrate our 25th anniversary next week. (In lieu of gifts, donations can be made to St. Mary Star of the Sea Church<\/a>.) I can guarantee that we will be married for as long as God gives us both the health. We\u2019ve had our ups and downs, mostly ups, but right now . . . I can\u2019t express my gratitude adequately. Psalm 89 from today\u2019s Office says it best: \u201cI will sing for ever of your love, O Lord . . . \u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/6738513599344023043-3109961897089528833?l=yimcatholic.blogspot.com\")
<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"