"How you can stop worrying and enjoy the single life"

Thanks to a recommendation from a good friend, I recently discovered a fabulous blog written specifically for Catholic singles called "Seraphic Singles: How you can stop worrying and enjoy the single life." I've gotta say, this is the most refreshing and encouraging resource I have found for Catholic singles in a long time. Unlike many Catholic popular writing which simply dismiss the single life as a transitory phase (hopefully brief) that young people are a part of before embarking on their permanent vocation to be either married or religious, the author, Dorothy Cummings, encourages and inspires readers to live life fully as a single. She emphasizes the ways in which God is calling, leading, and working in the lives of singles and ways in which we can respond to these calls.

Sometimes the single life is a phase of preparation for the vocation of marriage or religious life, but it is not simply that. She maintains that God has a purpose for everyone's singleness, and we need to trust in His infinite Providence. I would say that her blog is summed up as "How do I best live the single life and how is God calling me to holiness in this very moment?" This attitude is what she calls being a "Seraphic Single."

She also has excellent, nuanced, and entertaining thoughts on the struggles and idiosyncrasies of the Catholic dating scene. I think that her honest analysis of the plight of searching singles is not only incredibly accurate but also enlightening. I definitely read through several months worth of postings the first day I found her blog. I look forward to reading the rest of the archives as well as reading her new book, "The Closet's all Mine!"

I found one of her recent postings about "The Goodness of Gratitude" to be particularly inspiring, and perhaps you will too. It's a reminder that instead of grasping for things that God doesn't have in store for us at the moment, we need to learn to be grateful for the gifts He has showered us with. Cummings says,

"My list of beatitudes has changed since I married, but my stance of gratitude has not. To choose to live in gratitude is to vote for happiness. It is not the province of married people. There are thousands of married people who have chosen to be miserable. If I set my mind to it, I could make myself miserable by blowing up my husband's occasional cross moods into monstrous injustices, by worrying endlessly about money, and by wailing over my lost academic career...Instead of smiling at the little children I see on the beach, I could weep and wail because they're not mine. But I don't choose to. I don't choose to be miserable. I choose to be happy. Happy rocks my world."