Publications

I am excited to be able to announce the coming publication of my book which is coming out this summer.  This book offers a synthesis of eight pathways leading deeper meaning and joy. The book is entitled, The Road to Joy: Eight Pathways of Psychospiritual Transformation. Each of the eight chapters highlights one of the eight pathways from a psychological and spiritual perspective and ends with practical action steps to better foster more joyful living. Given the global pandemic we are still struggling through, this book may offer some light and hope in these challenging days we have been going through.

For some time, I have longed to better understand how we grow and change as human beings and follow our better angels, not our worst instincts. I invite you to join me on this journey as I share insights gleaned from personal lived experience, psychological research, teaching, and clinical work that speak to these pathways leading to more passionate joyful living. This book is about how we can grow to be our best selves despite life’s many challenges and hardships. 

This book relies on many inspiring people of who have influenced my thinking over the years, spiritual writers like Thomas Merton, Joan Chittister, the Dali Lama, Bishop Desmund Tutu, St. Ignatius of Loyola, and Henri Nouwen. From the psychological realm, I have drawn on such wisdom figures as Carl Jung, Donald Winnicott, Erik Erikson among others. While my writing is informed by my own Christian-Catholic faith, I will be drawing as well from the major spiritual and mystical traditions including Christian, Jewish, Buddhist and Islamic sources to highlight the universal dimensions of these eight pathways to discovering true joy.  I hope these larger truths may be of some interest to persons who may be searching for deeper meaning from a psychospiritual perspective.

The audience for this book is wide and varied. First, this book is for anyone desiring to discover their deepest calling and to embrace life more fully. I endeavor to speak words of comfort, encouragement and hope to people who struggle with physical, mental and emotional challenges. I write for those many men and women in recovery from various addictions that have found new life in twelve-step programs as well as those still captive to active addiction. In my experience, so many youths today are disillusioned and alienated from political and religious structures today that they perceive have failed them. So, for the many young people today deeply committed to a world where they seek to build peace over violence, unity amidst diversity and bridges over walls, this book is for you. 

I am writing as well for the many clients and students that have honored me in openly sharing their struggles, hopes and fears through these many years. This writing is for the students and mentors at Catholic Theological Union, to the Institute of Religious Formation, Hesburgh sabbatical program and our own Institute for Sexuality Studies students who I have been privileged to get to know over these past sixteen years. I have learned so much from their own redemptive stories of growth and transformation. Finally, if you are a seeker of growth, desiring more authentic living, this book is for you. It may be of special interest to those many persons entrusted in their work and pastoral ministry to guide and mentor others along the path of psychospiritual growth, such as teachers, pastoral counselors, religious formators and pastoral ministers.