Twenty Something / Christina Capecchi

The Seagull on the Chapel: New book offers rare gift of shared delight

In the end, after two days of breathless anticipation, the white smoke shared the stage with a seagull.

The whole world was abuzz. An American pope! A seagull! With so many eyes trained on the same chimney, the bird had appeared in exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment, amusing spectators across the globe.

Eric A. Clayton, a Catholic father of two, remembers the scene outside the Sistine Chapel fondly. “How rare in this moment in time that we can all see something delightful for us to smile at?” he said. “It is rare—a real gift, a real grace.”

As politics immediately entered the discussion—which way would Pope Leo XIV lean? How would he compare with Pope Francis?—the seagull became a source of levity and unity.

“To come to this moment from different places and have this universalizing experience is really beautiful,” said Eric, 37, a writer who is a member of Nativity Parish in Timonium, Md. “It speaks to our God, who desires to bind us together.”

A couple of days later, Eric was waiting for a haircut when his friend Shannon texted him. The children’s book on Mary they had co-written had just been released, and they were in celebration mode. A friend had told Shannon that the story of the papal seagull would make a good children’s book.

“What do you think?” Shannon asked. “Should we give it a go?”

Soon, the two friends were brainstorming background stories for the seagull.

Their rapid-fire text exchange turned into a shared Google document, with one writer noodling it—playing around with new lines, tracking changes, adding questions—then passing the baton. They established a premise near and dear to Eric’s heart: that the seagull, who yearned to be as special as a dove, lands in a sacred moment and is deemed worthy of God’s love.

“We all need to be reminded that God delights in us, and we’re beloved,” said Eric, who works as deputy director of communications at the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.

That message profoundly touched Eric when his first spiritual director, a beloved Jesuit priest at his college, told him that as a sophomore.

“I was awed,” Eric said. “He assigned the Scripture where Jesus was baptized. ‘I want you to pray with this and imagine God saying those words to you: “You are my beloved.” ’ I go back to that all the time. It’s foundational in my spiritual life. It underpins all my writing. Man, if people knew God delighted in them—onward and upward!”

It’s still sinking in for Eric—as is learning to accept who he is and who he isn’t.

“It’s a constant challenge,” Eric said. “There’s always more you could be doing. There’s always more success you could be reaching.”

But Eric is learning to embrace his unique and God-given path, like the seagull in his new book, The Seagull on the Chapel. Paraclete Press timed its release to mark the one-year anniversary of Pope Leo’s election. It was co-written by Shannon K. Evans and richly illustrated by Angela Edmonds, a former Disney artist.

Celebrating one year of Pope Leo comes naturally to Eric. “God provided the pope we need right now,” he said. “The humble way with which he reminds us of our shared call to live the Gospel is inspiring.”

Meanwhile, Eric will keep hammering away on his laptop—e-mailing ideas to himself, mapping out the next book, finding fresh ways to express God’s love. The imaginative prayer used in Ignatian spirituality is “inherent to creativity” and a springboard for storytelling. To really make it effective, Eric tries to limit his use of social media and ground himself in prayer. It helps him embrace who he is today rather than chase a more ideal, future version of himself.

“There’s this false image of ourselves that is always ‘beyond’—after we’ve sold more books, made more money, done more push-ups,” he said. “But we are already God’s beloved. We can delight in who we are.”
 

(Christina Capecchi is a freelance writer from Grey Cloud Island, Minn.) †