Kathy Izard

Jun 12

11 min read ⭑

“Everyone has a story, and it is in those stories that we find our belonging.”

Kathy Izard is fascinated with the ongoing discovery of ourselves through stories. The mother of four and grandmother of two, Kathy believes in the value of learning through stories intergenerationally. She has authored five books and has raised over $75 million for causes that are close to her heart and her story — housing and mental health.

In this interview, Kathy shares about everything from her love of queso to her experience of the divine while immersed in the wild beauty of nature. She speaks vulnerably of her own experiences with a family member’s battle with mental health, and she shares her take on the benefits of letting people into our messy stories instead of hiding the truth. Keep reading to hear how Kathy listens for the whisper in her heart to lead her forward and how she discovered her own “golden hour.”

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

I was born and raised El Paso, Texas, but for over three decades I have called Charlotte, North Carolina, home. Yet when I think about my favorite food memories, my heart and stomach wander back to that West Texas border city. That is where I found a deep love for flautas with guacamole, chicken enchiladas with green sauce and especially the chile con queso made with local Hatch green chiles at Avila’s restaurant, which was a five-minute drive from my high school. With my best friends, Andrea and Beth, we would head there at least three times a week during our lunch break, piling into a blue convertible Mustang restored by Beth’s dad. Sharing endless bowls of chips and salsa and laughing so hard we choked on our Tab (that was a drink!), we could solve all the world’s problems.

After college, when I moved 1900 miles to North Carolina, I was constantly in search of a place that could replicate that taste of home. Eventually, I found hole-in-the-wall joints that could make a good carnita to satisfy a craving, but it was difficult to find any restaurant with perfect queso. Eventually, my husband and I had four daughters, and I would take them on my search for Mexican food in the South. We finally discovered a café near our home where we, too, could bond over endless bowls of chips and salsa. And even though all four girls were born and raised in NC, my love of Mexican food seems to have been passed down to the next generation. Recently my daughter told me that when she has had a bad day, her husband now understands that he should take her out to their favorite place for chile con queso.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also help you find essential spiritual renewal?

Even though I grew up in the desert, my happy place is the woods. Wyoming to be exact. When I met my husband, we fell in love with each other partly through our shared love of the West — horses, trails, and wide open spaces. We made it a “bucket list” dream that one day we would own something in Montana or Wyoming so we could spend more time there than a one-week vacation once a year. A few years ago, he got diagnosed with a rare disease, so we began thinking about how to stop talking about it and actually do it. We finally made good on that promise, buying a property that looks at the Teton mountains.

Now every summer we spend three to four months in hiking boots on the trails of national parks, fly-fishing on the Snake River, and just standing in wonder at those Grand Tetons. There is something about being up close to majestic mountains that have been here long before you arrived and will be here long after you are gone. It makes you understand how short our time here really is.

Immersed in all that wild beauty and adventure, it is easy to remember this life is a gift. Surrounded by the scent of sage and pine, I have experienced the divine in ways I never have in any church or cathedral. Maybe my favorite part of our time there is all the natural silence. On the river, you can be lulled by the sound of the water hitting the rocks. On the trails, you can be mesmerized by the sight of a moose appearing so quietly that you think it must be a mirage. At night, the stars make no noise yet command your full attention all the same. It makes it easy to listen for whispers and what God might actually be trying to say to you.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?

Growing up, there were lots of expectations for me and my two sisters. Our parents had met in college and were both brilliant Valedictorian-type people, so my uncle predicted their children would have to be geniuses, too. There was a lot of pressure to excel and be the best in everything, not only because our gene pool was so strong but because I didn’t want to upset my mom. As it turned out, she walked that very thin “razor’s edge,” as Somerset Maughan described it, between genius and madness.

She wasn’t diagnosed with bipolar disorder until I was in high school, but she cycled in and out of psychiatric hospitals my entire childhood. We never knew what might tip her emotional scales into mania or contribute to her depression. As a result, I tried very hard not to ever upset her with a bad grade on my report card, much less any adolescent angst. I learned to appear perfect at school and maintain the family lie that everything at home was perfect, too. I also learned that my emotions and feelings would always need to take a backseat to all the care and attention my mom needed. There were good years and bad years, but it took sixteen long years to finally find the right drug combination that would allow my mom to live a more normal life. By that time, we all had collateral damage from the decades of emotional storms.

After finally getting a therapist myself and thousands of pages of writing to heal, I have learned (and continue to learn) how common my story really is. I used to think I was the only one with a dysfunctional childhood and went to great lengths to hide it with all kinds of smoke and mirror perfection. But I have now met too many people with their own mental health circus stories and know it’s so much better to talk about it than to hide it.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

Everyone has a story, and it is in those stories that we find our belonging. When I wrote my first book, it was on one level writing about quitting my job to house the homeless. But I ended up writing about my mom, my childhood, and finding my own way home. It was because I had grown up in a home with a mom who struggled that I could understand those on the streets who struggled. By writing about that, I connected to all kinds of people who listened to their own whispers and the remarkable outcomes that followed.

It turns out those whispers are connecting us to who we were always born to be. That is what I love doing now — writing about people who have listened to that whisper (no matter how wild it seemed) and the extraordinary stories that followed. We all have a story, but not everyone is a storyteller. So through a new book, a podcast, and a Substack, I try to capture and share inspirational stories that will be a bridge into faith for people to listen for their own whispers.

Most remarkable to me is how far back stories go. Little things we think are not important become imprinted on our hearts at an early age and then become part of the much larger story. I thought having a mom with bipolar disorder was the worst, most shameful thing. Yet it became the reason I connected to a community of people who wanted to do something about mental health treatment in Charlotte — and we did! Because mental health had been part of my own story, it changed what I was willing to do about it.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

Recently on my podcast, I interviewed a physician named Jane, and we were talking about this idea. Jane also has a very deep faith and runs a foundation that helps families suffering with pediatric cancers. When she hears a whisper that feels a little too wild to listen to, she said she has to pause and ask herself (and her husband), “Is this idea God, or is this just crazy Jane?”

I ask myself that question a lot, and I think that is how I came to write about this idea of whispers. When we hear that little voice inside nudging us to do something that feels unexpected, inconvenient, and even uncomfortable, like help a stranger or write a book, it’s easy to ignore. It may even be suggesting we do something for which we feel completely unqualified — like quit my job to house those experiencing homelessness. The kind of whisper I’m talking about is one that is difficult to ignore because it is insistent. It rises from inside your soul and slips not only into your dreams but into your every waking hour. It stubbornly persists, quietly demanding your attention. This kind of true soul whisper eventually becomes so insistent you have to decide: Do you spend the rest of your life listening to it or keep pretending you never heard it?

When my heart speaks, I now try to take good notes. Those whispers are what lead us to ourselves, to each other, and to our own truest story.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

Finding quiet so that I can listen for those whispers, discern what they are saying, and then act upon them is my daily practice. When I am in Wyoming, those long walks in the woods are the perfect place to connect. But I can’t always be in a national park so I have learned to take time each morning to dwell in the still place between dark and dawn.

Without setting an alarm, I try to wake up early, between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning. Sometimes when I am falling asleep, I even think about the time I want to see on the clock like 5:55 or 6:11, and I have become pretty good at that method of waking up. It helps not to start the day with a noise blaring at me. I then make my way to my kitchen in the dark, still not turning on the lights, and make my tea (and feed my dog). I take the tea upstairs into my writing nook where I sit each morning in the same chair facing the same window with the same blanket in my lap. I try to create a comfy little sanctuary for myself — all still in the dark, turning on no lights. Sometimes I light a candle, but the important part is to stay in that thin space between waking and dreaming, keeping my mind calm before all the worries of my “to-do list” flood my brain. It is what a writing teacher once told me was finding my “golden hour.”

For the next thirty minutes, or however long I can take, I capture my conscious and unconscious thoughts, trying to have a divine dialogue. Some mornings there is a flow to the writing, and other times I grab a book from my shelf of favorites: Barbara Brown Taylor, Richard Rohr, Frederick Buechner, Lucille Clifton. In their words, I try to find mine. In listening for whispers, I try to keep becoming who I was always born to be.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?

Looking back at my own story, I think there were two things that really changed the game and changed my heart. First, when I was in my forties, I was having this underlying restlessness that what I was doing with my life wasn’t what I was meant to be doing, but I couldn’t figure out how to change it. So I started reading a lot — those inspirational nonfiction authors I mentioned before like Barbara Brown Taylor. Her book Altars in the World was a game changer for me to begin understanding I could find God in a lot of places I never imagined — for example, the soup kitchen where I had been volunteering for ten years. I always knew that when I was there, I felt a little closer to who I wanted to be.

That idea of getting proximate to a problem was the second game changer. When I was with people experiencing homelessness, I began to understand the struggle outside my bubble of a life. I began to be in relationship with people and really see what the issues were and how they might be solved. Once I could really see the problem, I could not unsee it. Then the question became this: what was I willing to do about it? Being proximate to a problem, being in relationship with people, changed what I was willing to do about it. It changed who I became. But really I believe now, it just led me back to who I was created to be.

We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times—times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.

The world is a tough place right now, and we could all use a blessing. I love John O’Donohue’s book To Bless the Space Between Us, especially the last two stanzas of his blessing called “Morning Offering.” It is a mantra I could put on repeat every day:

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

For the past three years, I have been exploring different creative outlets like painting, and I even took a two-day portrait workshop with live models. I have been playing with teaching myself encaustic painting, which is working with hot wax, because I love the dreamlike quality of the finished works. I have an idea to someday publish a book that is both written words and paintings.

The ethereal quality of encaustic paintings is a lot like whispers. You see but you don’t see. You hear but you don’t hear. You have to listen and pay attention to what you are being called to next. I love the idea of being called to the idea of a book I can’t quite imagine what it looks like, yet I somehow know it will be. That is pretty much the same metaphor for our lives. We are called into things we couldn’t possibly imagine for ourselves, yet, at the same time, they are exactly what we were always meant to do.

Lucille Clifton wrote, “In the bigger scheme of things, the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that’s a whole different thing.”

I’m excited about the constant and ongoing discovery of who we are meant to be.

Kathy describes the practice of getting “proximate to a problem.” For her, this meant being in close relationships with people experiencing homelessness. The proximity to the problem caused her to see ideas in a new way and challenged her to be willing to come up with solutions for the needs of people around her. Spend some time in prayer listening for whispers that might lead you to move closer to a problem that is on your heart. How is the Lord leading you to respond? How can paying attention to those whispers lead you toward the truth about who you were created to be?

Kathy Izard is the author of five books who has helped raise over $75 million for innovations in housing and mental health in Charlotte. As the mom of four daughters and grandmother to two grandsons, Kathy believes in the power of intergenerational reading to discuss big topics. Her new titles Grace Heard a Whisper and Trust the Whisper (June 2024) can be read together to explore the idea of a calling and living a purpose-filled life. Kathy’s work has been featured on NPR and the Today Show inspiring people to be changemakers in their communities.

Justin Camp