It’s a strange thing to write a book. You spend so many waking hours devoted to an idea and vision only you can see, and even then, you can only see it obscurely. Some days, writing comes easy, others it is a total struggle.

And so you labor on and on until finally a decent manuscript becomes visible. You share that. You get feedback. You revise and refine and rinse and repeat ad nauseum, until eventually, due to either exhaustion or deadlines you say, this is as good as it’s going to get. And then you sign off, finish your very final edits, and wait in hope.

The months go by in silence. And then, when it finally gets published, there’s great joy, and then, at least for me, this weird moment where you feel achingly vulnerable. You can’t actually imagine people are reading it, even if they tell you they are. The act of writing was so intimate, so personal, that it’s hard to believe it’s really out there. You also realize that the you who wrote it is different than the you of the present moment. Maybe it’s been months or maybe it’s been years, but you’ve kept growing, and what you wrote is merely a snapshot of your most intimate thought processes and reflections and conclusions of a very intense few months of flurried research and activity.

As such, it’s not your own anymore. It’s out there, and it becomes clear that what you meant to say, what you wrote, and what people eventually read are three very different things.

All that said, I was stunned to learn that Becoming the Good News was named a finalist for the Association of Catholic Publishers “Excellence in Publishing Awards” in the resources in ministry category. As I look at all the other finalists, I am still expecting correction notice any day saying, “Sorry, we made a mistake. We mixed your book up with a different one.”

There are too many people to thank. Suffice to say this was not completed in isolation. It is a work born in the church, of the church, and placed at the service of the church. I also owe much to the “little church” of this website, of the very kind and consoling comments I’ve received from many thoughtful readers over the years, the notes of encouragement and support have truly kept me going.

The biggest thanks, however, goes to the domestic church: my wife, who never stopped believing, never stopped encouraging, and never stopped supporting. And of course, my children, who always waited patiently for dad to finish his writing, so he could get back to the serious (and much more important) work of play.

If you’d like to read the book, you can find it here or wherever fine books are sold (online): https://litpress.org/Products/6858/Becoming-the-Good-News

More information on the Excellence in Publishing awards here: https://www.catholicpublishers.org/news/acp-announces-finalists-for-2024-excellence-in-publishing-awards