Author: Carrie Sue Barnes

Carrie Sue Barnes is a fiction author and blogger who fell in love with creative writing as a grade schooler in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She resides now in Wisconsin with her family, often pulling her love for the Midwest into her writing. Carrie Sue's debut novel, The Hidden Legacy, was released in 2018 by Bold Vision Books to strong reviews. Since then, she has published several short stories and continues to write short fiction and faith-inspired reflections on this site. Carrie Sue loves reading, kayaking, hugging her children and friends, rewatching The Office, and connecting with readers in person and on social media.
Faith, Personal Reflection

Faith Comes With the Morning

Carrie Sue Barnes

I know the common phrase is “joy comes with the morning,” but I think mornings are capable of variety. Or rather grace is capable of variety, especially in the morning.

Last night brought on a little bit of a breakdown. The mental efforts of teaching RCIA last night and sorting out what each individual needs as they prepare to enter the Church, piled onto tiredness from a string of late nights, piled onto the 14 more classes to write, piled onto the manuscript synopsis I have yet to complete, piled onto the fact that I haven’t written any new pages in the new novel in several weeks, piled onto a little loneliness and a little “what the heck are you doing with my life, Lord?”… the layers set me up for a rough night. I just wanted to pull myself out. Remembering the shape of my life a few years ago, when I was still too new to the area and my church community to be very involved in anything, I had nothing to stop me from filling my hours with writing and reading and adequate hours of sleep. And I was happy; I was grateful. My spirit came alive in an entirely new way as I wrote my first book. I thought it would last. I thought, “this is what God had in store for me and I had no idea until now.”

That life ebbed until it is all but gone and I’m left asking myself why I let it happen. Was it my own doing? Or did God ask me to sacrifice for the sake of serving in His Church? I don’t know the answer. I fell asleep praying for renewed faith in God’s directing hand. I awoke with the same questions on my mind but a seedling of bolstered faith taking hold beneath the troubled surface.

But you, LORD, are a shield around me;
my glory, you keep my head high.
Whenever I cried out to the LORD,
I was answered from the holy mountain.
Whenever I lay down and slept,
the LORD preserved me to rise again.
Psalm 3:4-6
Catholicism, Photography

Autumn at the Basilica at Holy Hill

Carrie Sue Barnes

Last Sunday I took my passengers and myself on a detour on our drive home from Kenosha. These are pictures from Holy Hill, the Basilica of Our Lady, Help of Christians. It’s not too far north of Milwaukee. Gorgeous sacred place. The day was so particularly beautiful, I’d have liked to stay all afternoon! I took some pics of the scenery and outside of the basilica, as well as a few inside but not many. I walked the outdoor Stations of the Cross rather quickly (must plan a time to return and pray them mediatively) and took photos just of the details that really struck me at the moment.

Catholicism

The Pope Gets It

Carrie Sue Barnes

Adding to my appreciation of Pope Benedict XVI (which is already at a significant level), this is from an address he gave after a recent piano concert.

“This concert has, once again, permitted us to taste the beauty of music, a spiritual and therefore universal language, a vehicle so importantly suited to understanding and union between persons and peoples. Music is a part of all cultures and, we might say, accompanies every human experience, from pain to pleasure, from hatred to love, from sadness to joy, from death to life. We see how, over the course of the centuries and millennia, music has always been used to give a form to that which we are not able to speak in words, because it awakens emotions that are difficult to communicate otherwise. So it is not by chance that every civilization has placed such importance and value on music in its various forms and expressions.

Music, great music, gives the spirit repose, awakens profound sentiments and almost naturally invites us to lift up our mind and heart to God in every situation, whether joyous or sad, of human existence. Music can become prayer.”

You can read the whole address here.

Intentionality

Day One

Carrie Sue Barnes

This is day one.

I absolutely love mornings. I don’t always immediately love them. Those first moments as I become aware of the radio waking me from dreams and the chill of the air outside the blankets reaches my conciousness are not always my favorite times. But I get past those initial upleasentries and I greet the morning gladly. And on occasion, I love the morning from the start. By some miracle I realize that this day is new; I know from the moment I wake that the day has the potential to be a really good day. Aren’t mornings wonderful for that? New chances. New light. New.

For some reason, this is one of those ‘love it from the start’ mornings. Don’t ask me why. It’s cold. It’s raining. I have an overwhelming to-do list and not nearly enough hours in the day to accomplish it all. Yesterday could have been better. Tomorrow won’t be much different. But today… I don’t know. There is nothing stopping me from making today Day One of beginning to live how I’ve intended to start living for far too long. I mean, really, why shouldn’t today be that day? Why shouldn’t today be the day I start the daily prayer time I’ve gotten out of the habit of having, and reading for more time than I watch television, and skipping any regrettable unhealthy meals or snacks, and getting back to the gym at least 4 days a week, and letting go of the attachment that I’ve needed to let go of for so very long.

“An unexamined life is not worth living.” (Socrates)