Everyday Annunciations: On Learning to Say Yes

Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Sept. 2024, 126 p.

Brief description: A spiritual guidebook and memoir for navigating life’s challenges, with a call to trust in God’s grace and say “yes.”

How are we to understand the surprises life brings, the events and upsets that challenge what we believe about ourselves and our purpose? In Everyday Annunciations, Susan Swetnam encourages readers to imagine how their own upheavals might function as “everyday annunciations”—invitations to partner creatively with God in new ways.

Reflecting on six Renaissance paintings depicting Mary’s response to her own annunciation, Swetnam unflinchingly acknowledges the difficulty of regrouping when life changes radically.  Drawing on Mary’s example, wisdom figures both historical and contemporary, Scripture, and powerful personal narrative, Everyday Annunciations offers constructive hope for those struggling to find a way forward when life catches them by surprise.

From the reviews:

“Susan Swetnam helps us be on the lookout for the tiny ‘annunciations’ that punctuate—and occasionally puncture—our lives.  Stepping into paintings of the annunciation, she gives us ways to explore our own reactions and emotions when we find ourselves facing a call to change course in unexpected ways. As someone on the cusp of retirement, and who works with young people as they imagine their futures, I appreciated the many lenses Swetnam offers us to see the new seeds God might be sowing.” Michelle Francl-Donnay, author of Prayer, Biblical Wisdom for Seeking God and a contributor to Give Us This Day.

“Susan Swetnam enters a labyryth of grieving when she’s widowed at fifty-one, and through her skillful writing brings the reader along every step of the way.  This intensely personal experience offers hope to many who endure incalculable loss.  Her stepping stones are Renaissance paintings that depict the Annunciation, the ultimate ‘yes’ to an unknown script.  The author is brutally honest about the shock of interrupting and imagined life’s trajectory, and luminously clear about how Mary’s path might accompany.  After twenty years, tragedy turns to treasure and desert to garden.  Lucky the reader who sets t come along for the transformation.” Kathy Coffey, contributor to Give Us This Day.

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Knitting as a Spiritual Path: Exploring a Wiser, Kinder, More Meaningful Life, One Stitch at a Time

From the reviewers:

“Knitters who pursue their craft with intention and love often feel a connection to others—around the world and throughout time.  These thought-provoking essays and enquiries add valuable depth to this experience of physical, psychological, and spiritual connection.”

“Weaving words into passages as deftly as an accomplished knitter weaves her yarn, Susan Swetnam gathers threads from the world’s great contemplative traditions to fashion a spiritual guidebook for knitters.”

“If the pandemic years have taught us anything, it is the importance of patience, perseverance, and taking time for the things that bring true joy to our lives—spiritual practices knitters have long known.  Give it to those who are avid knitters; but give it also to yourself.”

Publisher’s Description:

     For true practitioners of the art, knitting is a spiritual path for those who yearn to grow in a deeper self-knowledge, connection, and sense of purpose.  Knitting as a Spiritual Path builds on now-familiar ideas about “lessons learned” to explore in more depth how the craft can support knitters’ ongoing lifelong exploration of the mysteries within and beyond us.  Rather than mission-accomplished-style goals for the here-and now” (eg., “knitting teaches patience”), it deals with the never-ending, open-ended aspects of spiritual development, where each unfolding beckons us further along.

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National Catholic Book Award Winner, 2019 Best Book, Parish Life Category

From the reviewers:

“a caretaker’s gold mine”

“a very touching experience; a great read”

“Susan Swetnam has done a masterful job of weaving together art, music, literature, theology, and personal experience as she shares the development of her own vocation as a massage therapist.  Her stories of encountering and literally touching the aged and dying will help patients and providers embrace mortality and discover a new, spiritual perspective”

“I wish I’d had access to this book when I was taking care of my mother.  It would have helped me see the work in a whole new, sustaining light”

Publisher’s Description:

As our lifespans continue to grow longer, millions of people every year spend time caring for the elderly and dying—some as professionals, some as volunteers, some through their loving but demanding care for parents, spouses, or other family members or friends.

                In her book In the Mystery’s Shadow, Susan Swetnam draws on her experience serving thousands of ill and dying clients, often in hospice programs, as a certified massage therapist—and also on her experience of caring for her own husband, who died young of cancer.  She explains how this sometimes difficult work offers not just the fulfillment of giving comfort to people who need it, but also moments of breathtaking wonder, moments that hint at the untold complexity of being human and affirm our sacred connections with each other.  She writes of the hard lessons caregivers learn about themselves, while at the same time knowing the strange and humbling sense of being used in the service of God’s love. Insightfully connecting end-of-life care with the liturgical year, Swetnam invites those who care for the sick and dying, whether professional or volunteer, to stay awake to the sacred implications of their labor.”