Molly Wolf is a freelance writer whose Hiding in Plain Sight won the 1998 Catholic Press Association award for the best first book. She lives outside Ottawa, Ontario, and is a single parent. Many of these musings first appeared as weekly essays on the Internet. The theme here is God's intimacies with us — all the strange, surprising, and amazing ways grace unfolds in our lives. Or as Wolf puts it: "God lies in loving, delighted ambush throughout my days, wanting to wrap and weave around and through my entire life. . . . For God is a lover who wants me."

This paperback is organized around the turn of the seasons. Wolf writes lyrically about intimations of death, her black cat, a spider in her face, the trees on her property, a toothache, watching boys stack wood, the liturgy, a woman worn down by poverty, three days of thawing, marching ants, airplanes, and much more.

In the midst of these everyday events, Wolf reads signs of Divine grace. She writes: "God got hands-on with us, starting with the birth we're about to celebrate at Christmas, and we remember and pass on that loving touch through the touch of sacramental rites. God feeds and waters us, body and soul." And then, of course, we extend the loving touch of God to others when we hold the hand of a grieving friend, put our arms around a loved one's waist, or stroke our pet.

This intimacy with God also leads to unity with others: "Your suffering should make me weep, and my joy should make you laugh. One of the worst things we do to ourselves and each other is to erect divisions where none should exist." Molly Wolf brings to vivid, palpable life the Christian abstractions of faith, hope, and charity as she unspools her personal responses to the abundance of God's graces in her life.