A Freelance Monkette is a female monk without a religion, a freethinker with a Roman Catholic operating system. Raised in the post-Vatican II 1970s, I was never a “rules” Catholic. Obedience to the Pope, the hierarchy, catechism, not for me. My family was sincere but not zealous and the Church was in its liberal heyday too soon forgotten. Secretly, I imprinted on God and developed a fervent practicing the presence relationship which only deepened until my dark night of the soul which encompassed my undergraduate years. I explored all the major world religions, the philosophy of religion, the psychology of religion, the whole works. I did not find what I was looking for; so I went freelance. I left the Catholic Church only to discover that the Catholic Church had not left me: vestiges of sacramental awareness, ritual, and mysticism remained along with a passionate commitment to social justice. In my bones, I was a monkette and in my head freelance and so the Freelance Monkette was born.

In 2010, I created my first web site, Life of Significant Soil, which is an homage to natural theology and the souls who helped me on my way. In 2011, I wrote GOD-centric in which I share my spiritual journey and thinking. In 2012, I published GOD-centric Interior Spiritual Disciplines in which I apply my GOD-centric philosophy to music, art, prayer, lectio divina, and study. In 2015, I faced the fact that natural evil slays my desire to believe in an always loving, good, and fair God, so I threw in that extra “o” and transitioned from GOD-centric to GOOD-centric and wrote GOOD-centric Exterior Spiritual Disciplines to focus on our living out our ultimate concerns of love, goodness, and fairness through the disciplines of simplicity, service, stewardship, and celebration (and complete the trilogy).

Come join me in my Freelance Monkette celebration of some things Catholic and remember, as I reassured my Mom, all the coolest Catholics were heretics!