Become the Fire: Joelle Maryn Emerges From the Ashes

The original fire in Joelle Maryn’s life was not a metaphor. When she was six years old, her family suffered a house fire that took the life of her sister. This unspeakable trauma rattled her entire family, but it swallowed her father whole. Alcohol and a lifelong, consuming sense of guilt fueled his poor treatment of others up until his death. As the surviving sister, Maryn was on the receiving end of his abuse, which continued even on his deathbed.

Become the Fire, Maryn’s second book, is part memoir, part exploration of the Catholic faith, and part field guide for healing from tragedy, trauma, and a life lived apart from God. While Maryn exposes unruly, sometimes unimaginable pains, the book itself is an enactment of her conversion to the faith and her “rise from the ashes,” lifted by God’s arms. She neither downplays her tragedies nor saturates the reader in heartbreak. She is not in the business of posturing, pretension, or condemnation. Her writing is elegant and her grace is displayed with admirable humility as she describes the act of forgiving her father, certain that he “was good and was made for good,” but exceptionally lonely in his “immense years of torment.” She is a strong, sympathetic character in her own life story, passionate about “helping others through the fires in their lives” as a way to honor and carry on her sister’s legacy.

Maryn grew up to become an award-winning actress and accomplished model, TV host, beauty entrepreneur, and, at one point, real estate broker. While I won’t spoil the details of her mystical return to God, I will say that it begins with a spiritual rock bottom amidst a material high point. Maryn writes that an outsider looking in might’ve thought she’d had it all–how can one experience such hopelessness while on set in Hollywood for a photoshoot? After crying out to God with a “simple yet desperate plea,” Maryn came to grips with her need for God via what she compares to a near-death experience set decades after the fire that took her sister. The book frequently examines seemingly competing states–lying in bed in one of her multiple sparkling houses while feeling “spiritually homeless,” grappling with self-esteem issues while gracing our television screens and Times Square billboards, accumulating wealth while “experiencing an extreme loss of self.” 

Peeling the veneer off the glamour of her life, Maryn draws us into her transformation with a gentle, sage-like confidence to establish a practical foundation for readers seeking to grow closer to God and build a fulfilling life. She also takes us through her life’s trajectory after her initial conversion experience, showing us not only the moments where she felt carried by God but also those where she felt lost. Leading by example, her experiences offer a sort of blueprint for those of us who experience metaphysical conversion moments and then find ourselves scratching our heads in the aftermath: now what? As Maryn continues to turn toward God, she makes both small and large changes as a mother, businesswoman, and performer, finding that each further turn to Him opens new opportunities for discernment, employment, and emotional wholeness. 

The book’s second part is made up of three interactive sections. Maryn provides questions that encourage the reader to…

1. Find Your Fire: Discern your strengths, weaknesses, gifts, callings, and personality
   
2. Walk Through Fire: Examine your past and current heartaches, tragedies, resentments, and areas where you long for healing and love
   
3. Become the Fire: Consider what you might need to accomplish your goals and achieve your vision–changes to be made, people and saints to draw near to, and prayers to be repeated

The questions are probing, specific, and target our relationship to and identity within God’s will. Straddling a few different genres, Become the Fire is a unique contribution to the Catholic book market. Part 2 is less a guided journal/devotional and more a diagram for discernment that could be used repeatedly for various situations, seemingly inspired by the Examen. Maryn equates healing with wholeness and wholeness with holiness, encouraging us to leave no stone unturned when it comes to reorienting the whole self towards Him. 

The author is the first to admit that the fruits of this reorientation are almost never immediate (and rarely come easily). She illustrates the winding, complex process of spiritual healing with an Ignatian sensibility, frequently referencing St. Ignatius himself and quoting scripture or a saint on nearly every other page. These quotes are blocked off from the primary text. They draw attention to themselves, keeping the faith at the forefront of the reader’s mind, but they also serve to ward off loneliness–a saint’s thoughts or a piece of God’s Word is always waiting to meet you as you contemplate the weighty topics at hand. They slow you down and encourage contemplation. At the end of the book, Maryn again quells our loneliness, offering a prayer for our continued clarity, prosperity, and trust in Him. 

This slim but erudite volume is available on Joelle Maryn’s website. It would make a particularly reflective gift for the women in your life, but it really appeals to any member of the faith. Listen in to our podcast episode with Joelle Maryn and Christina Sabo, founder of Paloma & Fig. Listen to A Resounding Yes! on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! 

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