Introducing my newest writer's assistant...

It's a late announcement, as I've been mostly avoiding the internet as much as possible these days--to avoid the craziness and focus on soaking up all my time with this little beauty:

Here's my little gnome, Léonie Jane, when she was only two days old (two weeks ago!):

She's named for Servant of God Léonie Martin (St. Therese's trouble-making sister, who Mark and I have always had a devotion to) and St. Jane Frances de Chantal, a saint I only got to know better this past year, but who has been my mentor through the anxieties of miscarriage, pregnancy, labor, and the crazy world my baby was born into.

I did say Fridays would be for poetry around here, but perhaps this beautiful quote from St. Jane Frances is near enough to poetry. As I rest here and praise God for this newest, miraculous gift of a child--even while fighting against anxieties about viruses and loneliness and the inability to attend Mass and receive the Eucharist--I find Jane's word particularly resonant:

"We must be as satisfied to be powerless, idle and still before God, and dried up and barren when He permits it, as to be full of life, enjoying His presence with ease and devotion. The whole matter of our union with God consists in being content either way."