Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague
16 min read ⭑
“Even here in what looks like death, we can dig through the ashes and ask ourselves what’s going on and why and what might happen next if we survive.”
Catherine McNiel and Jason Hague are both lovers of vulnerable human story — whether fictional or real. As a chaplain, author, editor and speaker, Catherine’s goal is to find God at work in the ordinary moments of life and help others do the same. A pastor, author and spiritual director, Jason writes and speaks frequently about his faith journey and his experience as a father to a nonspeaking autistic son. Together, the two recently wrote “Mid-Faith Crisis,” which guides readers through suffering and doubt with compassion, pointing them to the only true source of healing: the presence of God.
In today’s interview, you’ll get a closer look at the faith that drives Catherine and Jason individually and the shared vision that compelled them to write “Mid-Faith Crisis.” Read on to learn how karaoke kick-starts Catherine’s playful and reflective creativity, what God has taught Jason through his son’s silence and the resources that fuel each of their walks with Jesus.
QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT
The meals we enjoy are about so much more than the food we eat. So how does a “go-to” meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind your web bio?
Jason: Two of Oregon’s greatest gifts are its natural beauty and its craft beer scene. When you put those two together, you get something special. A few years ago, I discovered a brewery built on holy ground. It’s a Catholic establishment in the town of Mt. Angel, and it sits near the bottom of a hill on the edge of an actual monastery. Whenever I go, I see the monks in the back, happily working on (and blessing!) a new batch of St. Benedict Farmhouse Ale or St. Gabriel Belgian Dubbel.
This is the kind of place I only go to with good friends on a Saturday afternoon, and I want to spend at least a couple of hours there in deep conversation about life and God. I order a Hairshirt IPA and a charcuterie board of fancy meats and cheeses. We sit outside in the sun, gazing over the picturesque hop fields hemmed in by the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. We drink in the setting, the spirits and the conversation. We sip slowly — because why would we want to rush it?
I think I love that place because I grew up in the flat lands of conservative East Texas. We thought beer was inherently wicked and Catholics were inherently weird. But on the scenic grounds of the Benedictine Brewery, with my freshly blessed IPA and assortment of tiny sandwiches, I feel a fresh breeze, and I think it’s the joy of the Lord.
Catherine: Well, now I want to go hang out at Jason’s favorite restaurant. That place sounds amazing!
What would I consider my “go-to”? There’s the Thai place where my sons always talk me into getting takeout when they have a day off. There’s the farm-to-table place where my friend and I sit on the patio and order (the best) cocktails and talk about everything for so long we have to tip two different shifts of servers. Then there’s the place where my husband and I bought a monthly membership so we would have to find time to go to dinner at least once a month (we would never let already-paid money slip away!). And there’s the place I can walk to for amazing Mexican American street food for just a few dollars — and always end up running into people I know from the neighborhood.
What I’m noticing is how much variety there is in a place like Chicagoland (where I live) and how much I enjoy the little traditions I form over time with the people I enjoy the most.
Tim Foster; Unsplash
QUESTION #2: REVEAL
We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity do you love engaging in that also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?
Catherine: When I have spare time, some of my very favorite ways to spend it are kayaking, karaoke or hammock-ing. In addition to these words all having an unusual number of Ks and As, the activities themselves are playful and reflective. Whether I’m singing along to an ’80s ballad in my living room or paddling along a tree-lined lake in perfect stillness, I love to reconnect to life and God and myself with music and nature. I have an annual tradition of going out on a lake the day before my birthday, listening to the song “Goodness of God” and reflecting on all the water “under the bridge,” so to speak. No matter how frustrating or impossible my life might seem at that moment, I always wind up feeling gratitude.
Almost all the writing I do — and much of the work I do as well — is centered around finding God in our actual everyday lives. So I’m always on the lookout for ways to remember that the Creator of all this is still right here, hiding in plain sight.
And I have a pretty extensive list of favorite karaoke songs; I’m always ready to get started if anyone wants to come over and join me.
Jason: I love to get nerdy about the craft of storytelling. My kids do too. We used to play a game when we were driving on the interstate where we would challenge one another: “Nathan, see that red pickup? Who’s driving it and where are they going?” And for the next 60 seconds, a tangled backstory would appear ex nihilo.
This minor obsession has also shaped the way we see Scripture. Last week in church, one of our pastors asked, “What character is the book of Ruth about?” I was running the mic around to get answers from the congregation, and my 16-year-old son, Sam, raised his hand. “The book is really about Naomi. She’s the character who grows the most. She starts out so destitute and bitter and ends up rejoicing.” I knew that’s how he would answer.
Storycraft is also a helpful grid as we analyze the movements in our own lives. Are we changing? Are we learning and growing? Are we using what we have to participate in God’s larger story of redemption?
QUESTION #3: CONFESS
Every superhero has a weakness; every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re all broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you confront its power head-on?
Jason: It’s funny how we change in life. In my young adult years, I was a happy and outgoing person who rarely had a bad day. In midlife, I’m an introvert who rather enjoys being by myself and revels in sad music and books. I don’t think that means I’m extra broken (although, maybe?), but in rough seasons, I can easily get lost in the sorrow, forgetting the joy and beauty right in front of me.
I talked a lot about this in my first book, “Aching Joy,” but seven years later, I find I still grapple with it. My family has been through a lot of really hard stuff in recent years, which is why I ended up cowriting “Mid-Faith Crisis,” and sometimes I feel the pull of self-pity. Counseling and spiritual direction have been a boon in those times, but the best cure is connection and community. To sit around a fire with people who love you and to hear them say so — to hear them assure you that, even if you can’t find any hope today, it’s OK because they have enough hope to carry you. There is nothing so healing as that.
Catherine: It’s funny you say that, Jason, because I would describe my young adult years as pretty sad; I was an introvert who would easily get lost in the sorrow of it all. I’m still an introvert, and I do love really sad books and music, but now my friends would probably describe me as tending toward seeing joy and beauty tangled up in the pain and trouble. I definitely cannot shop at the grocery store or walk down the airport terminal without dancing along to the overhead soundtrack.
I think that’s part of why we worked so well together on this book: we’re both realists. We can see the hard and the hope in the realities of life.
In “Mid-Faith Crisis,” I write openly and vulnerably about the hardest (and most formative) season of my life, and that is something I’ve never done before. I’ve gone to great lengths over the years to ensure this part of me stayed unspoken. So I’d say my kryptonite is that story itself, and the hard work of telling it through this book, is how I’m trying to confront it head-on. I’ll be honest, I was not sure I was going to win. But I’ve found life and healing in the process.
My other kryptonite is when I drop something or something falls down. I’m not joking. If a pencil rolls off my desk onto the floor, I can hardly go on. I have to call it a day.
QUESTION #4: FIRE UP
Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?
Jason: My last two years of pastoral work have involved two extracurricular endeavors: one was writing “Mid-Faith Crisis” with Catherine, and the other was taking a two-year course to become a certified spiritual director. Spiritual direction isn’t something a lot of people in my circles (my church is nondenominational and charismatic) are familiar with. I describe it as companionship more than direction. I get to sit with people in the middle of their spiritual questions and confusion and to help them recognize elements of their own story that they might be too close to see for themselves. It’s an honor to hold another person’s pain with them. As a pastor, I always feel the urge to try to end that pain, but that’s not my job in this setting. My job is to help them explore it and to find God’s voice in the middle of it.
In writing “Mid-Faith Crisis,” I realized we were doing something similar: inviting believers who are in a faith crisis to sit down with us and unpack their pain, their disillusionment, their confusion. We aren’t trying to resolve the crisis by offering airtight answers to their doubts. Rather, we invite them to turn into their place of pain and invite God into it.
This convergence has shifted my broader ministry focus as a pastor. I don’t want people to rely on my words to meet with God. Giving a good answer or preaching a good sermon is helpful in its own way, but creating a space where a person can recognize God’s voice in their lives is far more beneficial and more rewarding.
Catherine: I have a few hats that I’m always trying to pile on my head at the same time. I work as an author, editor and speaker, I’m a hospital chaplain, and I’m also almost finished with an M.Div., so I’m currenting working part time at a local church.
I mentioned earlier that my focus (in books, work and life) is on seeing where God is in our everyday lives. Each of these jobs requires me to pay attention to my own life and the people and world around me. In the hospital, I’ll walk into a room and meet someone in crisis for the first time, and they’re often desperately hoping I’ll have helpful insights as they struggle to make sense of things. So whether I’m writing books, meeting someone for lunch or talking to patients in crisis, I love muddling my way through meaning-making conversations with people.
That’s why I’m so excited about “Mid-Faith Crisis.” There are many reasons someone might experience a crisis of faith. It’s a normal developmental stage, for one thing. And so many of us have encountered toxic, unhealthy faith communities or teachings in our lives. But even here in what looks like death, we can dig through the ashes and ask ourselves what’s going on and why and what might happen next if we survive.
QUESTION #5: BOOST
Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?
Catherine: I find the creativity in thinking, pondering, writing and wrestling ideas inherently invigorating. When we first meet God in Genesis, he’s busy creating, after all! And I find interacting with other people, wrestling through that meaning-making like I described before, such a beautiful and sacred process. So even when it’s hard or painful — and sometimes especially in the clarity that comes with realities that are starkly broken and false — I find grace and God woven in all these things.
At the hospital, I spend a lot of time noticing that so many humans spend their life’s energy breaking people down, destroying, and as a result, so many others are spending their energy healing, trying to build people back up. That’s how I know it’s God: if we are wrestling in a direction that leads to life, not death — even if it’s a long, meandering road, and we can’t always tell.
Jason: Most people know me less as a spiritual writer and more as an autism dad. My blog and my first book, “Aching Joy,” were all about my relationship with my non-speaking autistic son, Jack. There have been so many times when I’ve been with him and felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to pay attention to what God was saying. Those moments changed me and found their way into my speaking and writing.
Case in point: two years ago, I was in town with him one afternoon (he was 17 at the time), and we had a couple of hours to kill. I was suddenly impressed that I needed to take him to Buffalo Wild Wings. That was odd because I had never taken him there before. But it felt urgent, and I couldn’t shake it, so we went over to B-Dubs and ordered him some fries and soda.
Hardly anyone else was there, and there was no noise. Even the dozens of TVs were muted. I was watching the captions of SportsCenter, and Jack was listening to Disney Songs with his big blue headphones. It was so nice. To an outsider, we probably looked like we were ignoring one another. But we weren’t. We were enjoying one another’s company in the way we had learned to. And I wanted to tell him how nice it was just to be with him, but I knew that would spoil the moment, so I sat in silence.
Then something occurred to me: I realized I was OK with the silence. For most of Jack’s life, that hadn’t been the case. I was never OK with his silence. More than anything in the world, I wanted to hear his voice. But that was starting to change. I was letting go. And I heard what I think was the gentle whisper of the Spirit saying something like this: “Presence is greater than language.”
That was a profound lesson for me, and it showed up in my next sermon and in my book. I won’t spoil it by telling you what happened next, but let’s just say it was the beginning of something utterly shocking — and probably miraculous. You’ll have to read the last chapter of “Mid-Faith Crisis.”
QUESTION #6: inspire
Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So, let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you in this season?
Catherine: Jason and I end every chapter of “Mid-Faith Crisis” with a short practical section because when your faith has been shaken to its core, it’s often very painful to continue practicing the same spiritual exercises and disciplines you learned from the people or systems you’re trying to recover from. I’m probably sounding like a broken record, but for me, the foundation of my practice is remembering that God is love and God is here. So I use breath prayers (and the singing and dancing I’ve mentioned above) to remember that God is not frowning at us, not hiding from us, but right here. And we are loved with an everlasting love.
Jason and I wrote about the complications of practicing faith in community. For me especially, this can be terrifying and very challenging, given what I’ve experienced. But we write about how a community that is not perfect but also is not toxic can carry you to God when you cannot find a way to carry yourself.
Jason: I’m with Catherine. Remembering and experiencing the very real presence of God is paramount. But getting my mind to slow down and shut up so I can actually experience that presence is a real struggle for me. Henri Nouwen describes how I often feel: “The moment when you want to pray … everything returns: the bitterness, the hate, the jealousy, the disappointment and the desire for revenge. … You clutch them in your hands as if they were treasures you didn’t want to let go … as if, in giving it up, you would lose your very self.”
The only way through, for me, is the discipline of silence. I have to quiet myself and let those anxieties bounce around me until they know they’ve been heard, so to speak. Then, I can give them to God and receive the peace he promised me.
QUESTION #7: FOCUS
Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed reality and your heart?
Jason: I read Dr. Sandra Richter’s book “The Epic of Eden” early in my years as a pastor. The book reinvigorated my love for the Scriptures and reshaped my conception of true redemption. I have quoted it so many times in sermons that I suspect my people roll their eyes, but I don’t care. It’s a brilliant book.
Another book I fell in love with in early adulthood is C.S. Lewis’ little-known masterpiece “Till We Have Faces.” It’s a novel that retells the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, featuring a lead character who loves poorly, hides her shame behind a veil and blames the gods for her lifetime of pain. Every time I return to this book, I find more beauty. It continues to influence the way I think about love, selfishness and honesty with God.
Finally, the poetry of Malcolm Guite has been a real gift. He’s an English priest, theologian and artist of the highest order who has written and edited books of poetry that correspond to the church calendar, among other things. His book “David’s Crown,” which provides a poem for every Psalm, is a wonderful gift I return to when I am struggling to engage the words of Scripture.
Catherine: I know Jason already mentioned C.S. Lewis’ novel “Till We Have Faces,” but I can’t resist listing that myself (this is fair because we first became friends upon discovering we shared the same top two novels). And I’ll add Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” There’s just a balance Lewis strikes in these two books that doesn’t shy away from the trouble and suffering in this world — deep, life-destroying trouble — and he doesn’t shy away from the fact that this same trouble resides within all of us. But amid all that, there’s something more. Something generative and wonderful, joyful even, musical and alive. And while we will never fully grasp it or hold it in our hands, we can keep chasing it.
Since you asked about the “full sweep” of my faith, I’ll continue reaching back to the deep tracks and pull out the song “My Lips Will Praise You” by Twila Paris. Her earnest reach toward a lovely and loving God kept my body and heart reaching decades ago when I really didn’t have it in me.
We all have things we cling to to survive or even thrive in our fast-paced, techno-driven world. How have you been successful in harnessing technology to aid in your spiritual growth?
Catherine: I think the jury is still out on whether or not I’ve been successful in harnessing technology to aid in my spiritual growth. But two things come to mind: Lectio Divina apps (like Lectio 365, among others) and, if you can believe it, social media.
I appreciate how easily I can tap on a button and have today’s Scripture reading read over me while I brush my teeth or walk to the car. Some days, this feels like a gift.
And on social media, I can connect to countless fellow humans and all their thoughts, feelings and ideas, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. As I’ve mentioned, this always feels sacred and generative to me, even when it’s a train wreck on the surface. Our core desires and motivations are so on display on social media, maybe especially where we are most deeply unaware of them ourselves.
Jason: I’m going to mention Lectio 365 as well. It’s a brilliant app that helps me slow down and pray alongside thousands of other believers.
But my favorite way to engage technology in a helpful way is by using my e-ink tablet. The screen looks like a Kindle screen, which means there is no color, and the refresh speed is slow. It’s a nerdy, low-tech-looking device that is perfect for reading, journaling and writing without the distractions and dopamine hits. It’s my favorite thing.
QUESTION #8: dream
God’s continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?
Catherine: What a great question! “Mid-Faith Crisis” is my fourth book (depending on how you count, it could also be my sixth), and I think I have a few more in me to write. As I eventually finish up my M.Div., and as my children begin moving into their adult seasons, I’m looking forward to seeing what the road ahead might look like. But it’s hard to tell from here. Whatever it is, I hope to stay curious, learning and exploring and wrestling ideas and meaning with people I care about. And more karaoke, kayaks and hammocks, for sure.
Jason: I’m always looking for ways to tell stories and to help people find theirs. So I’m excited to utilize spiritual direction more and more in my pastoral ministry. I also have a couple of fiction projects that I want to launch out into the world when I get the chance, but it might be a while because I’m working on my master’s in theology. All things in their time, I hope.
While God is a God of joy and delight, he never tells us to ignore the pain and suffering we experience and see around us. Quite the contrary — we’re told to bring all that pain to God.
Psalm 62:8 (ESV) says, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”
The Hebrew word for “pour out” in this verse also means “to gush,” “to dump,” “to shed” and “to throw.” When we bring our hurts and suffering to God, we don’t have to worry about toning it down with polished prayers and pleasantries. We can let it gush out before him, letting every detail hang out in the open, holding nothing back — as we trust in him.
Catherine McNiel is a chaplain, author, editor and speaker searching for the creative, redemptive work of God in our ordinary lives. She lives in the Chicagoland area with her husband, three children and one enormous garden. Catherine holds an M.A. in Human Service Counseling and is finishing a Master of Divinity at North Park Theological Seminary. Her previous books include Fearing Bravely, All Shall Be Well and Long Days of Small Things, which was an ECPA finalist for New Author.
Jason Hague is a pastor, spiritual director and author living in Oregon’s beautiful Willamette Valley. He is the co-author of Mid-Faith Crisis and the author of Aching Joy: Following God Through the Land of Unanswered Prayer. Jason has written extensively on the subject of the Christian faith and autism, special needs families and his own spiritual journey toward hope for his nonspeaking autistic son. His writing has appeared in Christianity Today, Focus on the Family and Fathom. He and his wife have five children.
