Kathleen Deyer Bolduc
Author/Speaker

Kathleen Deyer Bolduc is a nationally recognized author and speaker in the field of disability ministry, concentrating on disability’s impact on the family system, and ways in which churches can become more welcoming of families that live with disability. Her books include His Name is Joel: Searching for God in a Son’s Disability (Bridge Resources, Louisville, KY, 1999) and A Place Called Acceptance: Ministry with Families of Children with Disabilities (Bridge Resources, Louisville, KY, 2001). Kathy holds a master’s degree in religious studies from the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio. One of the first recipients of The Patrick Henry Writing Scholarship at Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana, she has also served as Vice-President of The Writing Academy, a national Christian writer’s group. Kathy has been an active lay leader in the Presbyterian Church, USA for over 25 years. She served for 18 months as a member of the Local Voices Panel of The Cincinnati Enquirer. Her articles have appeared in The Cincinnati Enquirer, Family Ministry: Empowering Through Faith, The Journal of Religion, Disability and Health, Quaker Life, Youth!, DreamWeaver, and Fellowship in Prayer.

Kathy’s passions include searching for God in the everyday, sharing lessons learned in 21 years of living with Joel, spending time with family and friends, contemplative prayer, quarterly retreats at the Monastery of St. Clare, bird- watching, long walks in the park, writing fiction, and reading a good novel at bedtime.

Kathy is working on a sequel to His Name is Joel, entitled Autism and Alleluias: Lessons from an Unlikely Teacher. She is close to finishing a young adult novel, tentatively entitled True North. Go to “What’s New” to read excerpts from each.

Kathy can be reached at kbolduc@cinci.rr.com



The Birthing Room
 I sit in my study to pray, surrounded by much of what I love, encircled by possessions that tell a story of who I am. Lighting a candle I sink into a wing-back chair to sip a cup of coffee, think, read, journal, and pray. Only the tapping of my lab's claws on the kitchen floor and the whir of the refrigerator punctuate the silence.

Bookshelves reach from floor to ceiling on the wall to my right. Each shelf houses a distinct portion of my life. Pieces of my childhood and adolescence are here: the entire set of Beatrix Potter, sized just right for tiny hands. Charlotte's Web. The Borrowers. A Wrinkle in Time. My years as an English Lit major: English Romantic Writers. The Collected Works of William Shakespeare. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. My role as parent: Your Child's Self Esteem. Effective Parenting. Between Parent and Child. My life as a writer: Fiction Writer's Workshop. Writing on the Right Side of the Brain. Writing Down the Bones.

In front of me sits my desk and computer. It is here I do my writing, the work I love the most. The forging of words that make sense out of hazy thoughts and connections out of chaos. The communication of ideas half-hidden in my heart, taking shape and form as they relay themselves from mind to fingers. How I love the mysteriousness of the writing process.

Pictures of the people I love most adorn the shelves above the desk. My husband Wally, rakishly handsome in tux and bow tie on our 15th anniversary cruise. Our eldest, Matt, third grade, showing off his new Bible. Justin, eight, perched on his birthday bike, right arm in a cast, broken in a kamikaze dive from the backyard swing. Joel smiles his shy half-smile from a tiny jeweled frame. My favorite sits center stage: Matt, Justin and Joel sitting side by side, the three of them leaning forward, arms on knees. Joel sits in the middle, knees crossed, hands folded like Matt's, right arm resting on Justin's knee. Gazing at this picture I imagine Joel a typical boy, the birth not traumatic, his brain not damaged after all. I take a deep breath, thinking what might have been, and let it out, still thankful for what is.

To the left of the chair in which I sit is a wicker table scattered with books I'm presently reading. The Bible. Richard Foster's Prayer. The Art of Theological Reflection. My leather bound journal. Light streams in the double window beyond the table, illuminating rose-colored walls and cabbage roses woven in the carpet. Tie-back curtains with bedspread fringe remind me of my mother-in-law, and the fun we once had decorating our homes together.

I love this room. It is the place I do the work of reflecting on who I am, on whose I am, on what the events of life might mean. In a way it is a birthing room, as I venture daily into the danger and mystery of who I might yet become. It is here that the disparate connects, that meaning is made, that co-creation moves beyond possibility to reality.

The photograph of Joel and Kathy is courtesy of The Cincinnati Enquirer.