Katie’s Ground Podcast

Martin Shaw in Keeping Focus spoke about how St. Brendan was visited by the angel Michael in the form of a bird. “It was the sound of God announcing his happiness,” the saint said. (You ever think of what God’s happiness looks like?) Well, that’s what I’m going to do. Tell you how I’ve seen His happiness this week. Saturday o’dark thirty: I see it in the bar of light on our bedroom ceiling. I don’...

The road where I walk has gone from always straightforward, to it depends on how much snow or ice has fallen as to whether I will walk the dogs there. During the snowstorm, as beautiful as the blur of snow falling across the fields was, I avoid the road. And once the snow is cleared, road salt can burn the dogs’ paws. Aiden is so fascinated by those piles of spilled salt he wants to eat it. Now th...

At Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for St. Porphyrios who says, “You won’t become saints by hounding after evil. Ignore evil. Look towards Christ and he will save you” (137). Ignore evil. Maybe I need to stay away from the amateur punditry that passes for Facebook and only serves to jump into my thoughts, shagging them with Facebook’s ideas of what I should think. I can’t bear the fragmentation that co...

Note: The title was generated by CoPilot. These words are mine, all mine. While Omalola was getting an ultrasound and other tests, Bruce and I walked around the L.L. Bean store in Hoffman Estates. Not many people were there, but there was something about the casual, yet elegant, outdoorsy atmosphere that made it easy to strike up conversations with strangers. I gravitated to the shoe department be...

When I walked out one morning, the sun rose as I walked up our road toward home. Its warmth felt like a hand caressing my cheek, as a lover would as he leaned in to kiss me. I’ve felt the horizon drop away as the sun broke the horizon. Omalola walked quietly beside me. I was too tired to take them both down the road. Then an eagle flew twenty feet overhead, wings wide, buoyed by the wind. He flew...

I know I’m posting this on a different day. But I thought you might like to hear about my father. My father overlooking a stream. Photo by Jean Pauley.[/caption] I pushed the cart out of the oil aisle and turned towards the end cap of books. Woodman’s grocery store stocks a few hardbacks that I check out. My eye was drawn to The Storm on Our Shores. I flipped it open and saw it was about how the J...

I named him Aiden because that’s the first name that came to me after I put away the name Jack, because it was a saint’s name that came to mind. St. Aiden was a missionary to Northumberland, preaching the gospel and converting the Anglo Saxons to Christianity in Northumberland. He’s considered the patron of firefighters because his prayer slapped the wind in a different direction and turned a fire...

As I’ve mentioned before I write a response to Martin Shaw’s Beasts and Vines Substack every Sunday morning. His kind response draws these little essays from me. This week I’m going to open up what I wrote. While I listened to Martin Shaw’s Jesus on the River Path I walked across shed leaves, mostly from black walnut and maple trees. We didn’t get much color this year and the leaves went from gree...

Bruce alerted me to the rainbow dropping out of the clouds off to the west. It practically sat on our across-the-field-neighbor’s woods. I snapped a picture as I walked out. Then stood by him and watched to see if there would be enough for an arch. There wasn’t quite, the clouds ending in clear sky. So much about these rainbow sightings speak to me about God’s judgement. How He can’t allow wickedn...

My Take on “The Woman Who Became a Fox” The following is my retelling of Martin Shaw’s story: “The Woman Who Became a Fox”, that was the first story in his The Green Knight course . I have been hesitant to respond because my thoughts are prickly and people don’t always receive prickly thoughts well. Here is a link to a preview of an earlier and different telling if you want to check out his rendit...

“I did not mean to fall in love, but the men with the big machines came up our road to cut the last of the season’s corn.” This line caught the attention of a New York editor with the reputation of buying books from the strength of one line. He looked at the manuscript and commented that I need to format it properly and not use dialogue to convey information. Thank God my work wasn’t ready for him...

Sunday, September 28 Martin Shaw closed out this week’s House of Beasts and Vines essay A Thousand Fires by saying: So here’s to all of us, traveling or stationary, finding a little luminous ground. I don’t mean grandiose especially, just something radiating a low note of soul from it. We get to know the pressure points, the resting-places, the – in Moriarty’s words – seal-holes that are particula...

Stretches of sunny days passed this fall and I wondered when our neighbor would drop our hay. Then he rolled onto our field, he and his son, running up and down cutting an abundant third cutting. We weren’t afraid rain would ruin it like it did another neighbor’s field when their hay guy cut it the day before pouring rain was forecast. I’d offered them the whole third cutting because we had enough...

I thought I’d try to imagine Sarah’s life with Abraham from her perspective. I’ve been taking a course on the Book of Jubilees, a series of oral traditions compiled around 150 BC that expand the story of Genesis. Abraham scattering crows comes from there. And in another class we were challenged to find a biblical story and try our hand at the horror genre. I fell in love with my brother when I saw...

I walk out and the soybeans are fattening from patches barely turning yellow, to big swathes of yellow that remind me of the slow changing color where gray horses fade from dark steel to white. One day the corn is green and the next it’s withered, drying rapidly on these dry days. A few leaves are turning. The door between seasons is swinging open. I wake up to ominous darkness like there’s a stor...

This Sunday, September 7, 2025, happens to be my mother’s death day. Forty-four years ago, she gave birth to her death on Labor day. The night before, I’d dreamed of a city dropping down to the headlands, where I used to sing hymns while cantering my horse. I had released her. It’s also the day after Omalola’s third birthday. Every Sunday, I listen to Martin Shaw’s stories while I do chores. Often...

I started this essay awhile ago but never posted it. I needed something to offer, that I didn’t have to pull out of whole cloth for this week. It’s funny how days that are open are easy to fritter. It might not be all bad to write a rough plan for the next day. At any rate this is the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman found in Matthew 15: 21 – 28. This was written without the help of AI excep...

Martin Shaw in Live as Large As Homer challenged us to listen for God’s call. Not just listen but have our eyes wide open to a sight as startling as Moses’ burning bush. He says, What habitual task – our tending of the sheep – may keep us from the vivid signs God gives us? The holy terror of his arrival? – he was afraid to look upon his face. Do we keep our lives uncluttered enough to avoid distra...

The Boone County Fair marks the end of summer and the beginning of school. When I was teaching at NIU, I felt pressure to finish my syllabus during fair week. Hell week, a week of meetings busting with jostling between colleagues--would follow. The social dynamics of our work group were not happy, even though our boss picked parks for our meetings. Since I've retired, I've nearly forgotten how hor...

Because there was so much pain and so much grief around the time my brother died—I was abandoned by my extended family, mostly because I lived here and they lived there--I somehow got onto the idea of blessing my enemy. To grab onto this and start practicing it was in itself a grace. Here is a piece I wrote and sent off to This I Believe. They did not air it, though it is on their website . God bl...

WNIJ Perspective: It's Time for More Research on This Rare Disease When Amy Anderson stumbled, she heard a loud pop. Her ankle had completely folded over. She’d torn her peroneal tendon in her foot. The intense pain was immediate. She went nine months of misdiagnoses before she was finally diagnosed with CRPS, complex regional pain syndrome. Then she needed six months of desensitization therapy be...

A gentleman on Facebook asked me to say how I know Christianity is true. My post questioning God about King Saul prompted his questions and our conversation. Eric is particularly incensed by verses like: Numbers 31: 1-3 “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the sons of Israel; afterward you will be gathered to your people.” So Moses spoke to the people, sayin...

Clover has nearly reached up to Morgen’s bridle. She can drop her nose and snatch a purple flower. About a month ago, the field was newly shorn, nearly down to dirt. We’ve gotten out before noon the last two days to try to beat the heat. Hesitantly I want to say I think I found the fun, and may drive her down the road, looking for apples on a tree, a mile away. Driving her has given me the motivat...

Despite road noises, the air itself was quiet when I walked out. Everything was washed gray, the sky, the air, the distant trees and farms. As I turned the corner by our mailbox, I saw several cobwebs spread like mini blankets on the ground. I spoke to the birds—grackles, kildeer, red wing blackbirds. As I turned toward the sun I could face him, cloaked in the clouds, and thought about how God did...

July 3, 2025 Last week Friday, I dreamed thousands of books had to be moved “yesterday” because my time at school was done. Their spines were all kinds of colors, some bright some dull. I had furniture to move too with no room in the car, and no time left. My parents hovered in the background. I don’t get warm feelings when they show up in dreams. I woke utterly exhausted. I woke utterly exhausted...