Social media often feels like a battlefield: everyone has to pick a side, everyone has to be an expert, and there’s little room for the words, ‘I don’t know.’

Faith, however, begins with mystery and with questions.

I don’t have answers to those questions. I’m not a theologian or a priest. I’m not launching Rosary in Hand to teach as an authority. I’m here because I’m still learning my faith, and I want to walk openly through that process. This is a place where doubt, questions, and discovery are all welcome.

In recovery from a mental health crisis, I found it extremely challenging to talk about the way that I feel. I have never had a problem discussion how I think, in fact, I have always taken great enjoyment and pride in it. Faith sits somewhere at the intersection, and I find my faith very challenging to talk about. It is my hope that through Rosary in Hand, I can encourage others to explore the faith and be more comfortable in talking about it; without fear of being shut down, chastised or overburdened.

One of the key features of my mental health recovery has been coming to terms with the disconnect between the way I thought the World worked and what was being reflected back to me. And it is a World that is extremely easy to be drawn in to.

Scrolling offers us instant gratification; likes, shares, and constant stimulation. But Fulton Sheen once said, ‘The Rosary is the best therapy for these distraught, unhappy, fearful, and frustrated souls, precisely because it involves the simultaneous use of three powers: the physical, the vocal, and the spiritual.’

In other words, what social media distorts, the Rosary can heal: turning distraction into focus, vice into virtue.

My hope is that Rosary in Hand can become a space where we learn together. A space where it’s fine to admit what we don’t yet know, but where we can also practice a discipline that reshapes us daily. I want to share my own journey of conversion; because I believe others are searching too.

Through my other projects, Beads in Mission and Upper Room, I hope to both spread the rosary to Global communities in need and provide a space for men suffering with mental health and addiction challenges to come together.

I am starting from nothing. I have no contacts in the community, I have limited resources. I understand little of social media. The plan is ambitious, possibly even attempting to do too much, too soon.

But it is, I am convinced, something that I am supposed to do.

So I come to you, earnestly; to share my journey and my reflections in the hope that they reach the people that they are meant to.

~DM