The Master List for Which No One is Asking

(But it's my birthday, so I'm giving it to you anyhow)

I am not a teacher of master classes. I don’t have that kind of confidence. I don’t know how anyone does. But, today, on my forty-eighth birthday, I thought I would lighten things up a bit (because gosh, the newsletters have been heavy as of late), and do something a little different from the usual in-depth reflection on one particular aspect of the Faith. Instead, I want to offer you a mini-masterclass—or, more accurately, a mini masterlist—about the fundamental truths I have learned over the past 48 years. We’ll call it, “Things Emily Stimpson Chapman Knows.”

I recognize this is not a masterclass that I could market to millions. No one is exactly clamoring for this knowledge. And it is pretty limited in scope. Somehow, the older I get, the less I seem to know. Twenty-eight-year-old Emily was vastly more certain about her opinions than forty-eight-year-old Emily. If you had asked Emily of 20 years ago to teach a masterclass, she would have filmed a whole video series for you, with twelve, hour-long episodes, including ones on modesty and liturgical music, the evils of recessed lighting and the Republicans chances at the polls next November. She was full of opinions on all those things and happy to share them with everyone. Forty-eight-year-old Emily is older and wiser and knows better than to talk about liturgical music and politics online. She also has fewer opinions in general. Too many have gotten dashed up against the realities of life and the complications of the human heart.

That’s a good thing, though. For me and for you. First, who has time to sit through twelve hours of classes? Second, having fewer opinions makes the opinions I do have better opinions—more measured, more tried, more rooted in experience. (At least that’s what I tell myself.) Either way, these are some of the guiding principles of my life. They are not just about the faith. But they’re all informed by it. And they are all things that I know to be true or believe to be true with all my heart. Some are fairly trivial. Some are of vital importance. But I would stake my life on all of them. And so, today, I’ll share them with you. More specifically, I’ll share 48 of them, one for every candle on my cake tonight.

Before I do that, though, I want you to know how incredibly grateful I am that you are here, reading these words. When Ellie unexpectedly joined our family in 2021, and I found myself with three little ones under the age of three, I had no idea how I could both care for my children and continue to do the work our budget desperately needed me to do. Meeting deadlines for Catholic institutions and publishers had become impossible. But you helped me find a way.

By becoming a full subscriber to this Substack you made it possible for me to be with my children and for me to both do the writing my family needed me to do and that Chris and I believed God was asking me to do. You’ve also made the growth of this newsletter possible. Almost 10,000 people every week now read the free editions, which you and a relatively small number of others underwrite. That means almost 10,000 people are studying Pope Benedict’s encyclicals and learning more about the Faith. And among those 10,000 people, are men and women who write me weekly, thanking me for them and telling me how much these newsletters have helped them grow in their faith and draw closer to Christ. Those thanks go to you, too. Because without you, this newsletter wouldn’t exist.

So God bless you and keep you and with no further weepy thanks (because I am weeping), here is my mini, mini Masterclass.

48 Things Emily Stimpson Chapman Knows

1. The only way to make a martini properly cold is to put the glass in the freezer first.

2. The fun of wearing heels in your twenties and dainty ballet flats in your thirties is not worth the foot pain in your forties.

3. Freedom can be scary. But we can’t love God without it.

4. Someone disagreeing with you is not the same thing as someone persecuting you.

5. Your brokenness doesn’t make you special; it makes you human.

6. If the Church doesn’t say something is a moral issue, it’s foolish to make it a moral issue.