I’m sad about the little house, but quite sure that you will put those lessons in sustainable living and house construction to good use someday! May it be soon!

Sadly,I will not be moving in to the little house. Due to some unforeseen personal circumstances, I have to put it up for sale before it is finished. However, I was able to start the process with some energy efficient features, and of course, will use all I learned about the environment and healthy living no matter where I make my home.

Thank you for your response to my story. I believe you and I were confirmed exactly one year apart.

Thank you so much for this heartfelt story! I bet a lot of people can relate to it in one way or another, whether they’re Catholic or not, because you’re talking not only about Catholicism but about the way that JK’s very personal, heartfelt, dignified faith serves as an example that can reassure a lot of people that it’s OK to be a thoughtful person of faith, even as many on the Right insist that to have faith, you have to surrender your brain, and many on the Left insist that — to have faith, you have to surrender your brain.

My own journey has been different — I’ve twice converted to a religion other than the one I was born into, with Catholicism being the 2nd and, I expect, final one. While I wouldn’t have changed religions just because of admiring a Catholic (there were many factors leading me to Catholicism, including a certain lifelong interest and the fact that my mother and brother had become Catholic a few years earlier and I’d been attending their church off and on), it’s definitely true that when, at times in the RCIA process, I wondered whether I would really fit into this whole scene or whether I would be driven up the wall by issues about gays and women and so forth, I was comforted by thinking that if JK could navigate Church politics and feel at home with this faith and not lose himself, then surely I could find my way as well. Actually, issues that sometimes threw me were more than just women and gays, but it would take a lot of text to explain — I guess I can just say that in many ways I felt that this path was intuitively just right for me, but at times I would be turned off by what seemed like small-minded “versions” of Catholicism that I saw some people espousing and practicing (I live in Ann Arbor, home of Tom Monaghan’s Ave Maria empire-building efforts). I was comforted then to think that clearly I wasn’t the only one who thought Catholicism could be this kind of broad-minded progressive faith that embraces the world and retains a fundamental respect for other point of view. And yes, I got confirmation of that from lots of Catholics in my immediate personal life, but still, JK’s example was definitely one touchstone when I needed quick reassurance that small-mindedness is not at all what it’s about. I was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic at Easter 2006 — Kerryvisionary came up from Boston to attend, which was awesome — and I’ve had countless moments of joy and not one moment of regret since then.

Anyway, thanks again for sharing this.