Belle Meade welcomes Thomas Curry, a mostly retired physician from Port St. Joe, Florida, to talk about his faith journey and his novel Miss Sally's Son. Raised Methodist, Thomas shares how his wife led him into the Catholic Church and how questions about Thomas Merton's life became the seed of a story about a lawyer searching for his father and his lost faith. It took him thirty years, he admits, to appreciate what he had joined.

What We Talk About:

• Why Thomas enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam War, and how everyone he trained with shipped out to Vietnam while he never did
• How an unanswered question in Thomas Merton's life—a child he fathered before his conversion and never mentioned in his autobiography—inspired Miss Sally's Son
• A priest's challenge to Jack: no one can be a hypocrite before God, and the real reason he won't pray is pride
• Why Thomas and his wife pray the rosary every night, even over FaceTime when they're apart

Resources Mentioned:

• Paloma&Fig
• Miss Sally's Son by Thomas Curry
• The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
• The Catechism in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz

Chapters:

• 00:00: Intro
• 00:30: Welcoming Thomas Curry and opening prayer
• 03:36: Thomas's conversion and his wife's influence
• 07:54: Joining the Army during the Vietnam War
• 12:25: How Thomas Merton inspired Miss Sally's Son
• 21:13: What a novel can do that apologetics can't
• 29:15: The distractions pulling Jack away from faith
• 35:19: Jack's struggle with prayer and pride
• 39:23: Choosing the rosary for Jack's return to faith
• 46:31: Why Augustine's journey mirrors Jack's
• 50:32: Advice for Catholics who see themselves in Jack
• 53:19: Where to find the book and what comes next

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

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