Kim Burkhardt

Redemption, hope, Lent…..

February 13, 2026

When I had a re-conversion experience in 2016 (that story is told here), I had a profound experience of being loved by God. Love brings about hope.

More recently, in my master’s in theology program we’ve been reading through the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (the Torah/Pentateuch), the four canonical gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. In reading the gospels of Mark and Matthew, I started getting discouraged. I thought, “Such a high degree of righteousness, self-sacrifice, etc. is required to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I’ll never make it.” That discouragement is unnecessary, of course, because it is possible for us to do what’s presented to us – but I wasn’t seeing that. Further, I normally don’t take an interest in the future “Kingdom of Heaven” – I normally take the attitude that “Life is challenging. Forget about later – I need God now.” Then, someone changed my recent perspective yesterday – a reminder that our faith journey is meant to be done in community. We learn and apply charity in community. We learn to be faithful in community. Faith and spirituality are not a “me and God” endeavor – it’s socially about “us together in a faith community.”

What was said yesterday to change my perspective about feeling discouraged (“I’ll never make it to heaven – I’m not up for this righteousness business”)? A priest asked me about my theological studies. I told him, “We are trudging through the ‘who begat who’ in the Old Testament.'” He replied, “That’s important information, actually. You’ll notice that in Jesus’ lineage, it was mostly men who are listed in Genesis. But four of Jesus’ female ancestors are specifically listed.” That had also come up in class….. He reminded me, “All four of those women were pivotal. And, each of them did things that weren’t righteous. Jesus’ ancestors weren’t perfect – we don’t have to be either” [I forget how he worded this – something to the effect of these four women not being righteous].

All four of these women experienced some king of vulnerability. And, each of them did something unrighteous. Without them, there wouldn’t have been the historical lineage that brought us Jesus Christ.

One of the resources we’re using at school, Bible Odyssey, has this to say about these four women: “Tamar, daughter-in-law of Judah, was twice-widowed and childless. In Gen 38, she disguised herself, seduced her father-in-law, and conceived twin sons. Judah accused her of promiscuity, but ultimately even he recognized her as righteous. Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute, who was approached by Israelite spies (Josh 2, 6). By securing their safety she secured a future for herself and her family among the Israelites. Ruth was a Moabite and a childless widow (Ruth 1–4). She provided for herself and her mother-in-law by spending the night with their relative, Boaz, on the threshing floor. They married, and, with him, she carried on the family line. Bathsheba was already married when King David ordered for her to be brought to him. When she conceived David’s child, he had her husband killed and married her. Their first child died, but Bathsheba later ensured a place for herself and her family through their second son, Solomon (2 Sam 11–12; 1 Kgs 1).”

This comes back to what Christ said during his time on earth. “I didn’t come for the righteous. Those who are well don’t need a doctor. I came for sinners – the likes of the tax collectors and the prostitutes.”

Even Jesus’ ancestors did things that we wouldn’t want mentioned in the newspaper if we did those same things today. Yikes – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (Jesus’ ancestors) didn’t just get a current events news story for their actions that would be forgotten in weeks or years. Their activities are in print for all future generations to read! Yet, we got Jesus Christ among their future descendants…..

Hmmm….. As for my earlier comment about “Forget about the future Kingdom of Heaven, I need God now.” We can have good lives today. Christ actually intends for our current social fabric – and our own lives and the lives of the people around us – to better than the difficulties that we often experience. If we truly apply the “Be-Attitudes” that we heard about in the Sunday readings a couple weeks ago, we can each contribute to a better world today.

Ash Wednesday is coming up next week. For Lent this year, I’m going to continue giving up something that I’ve recently started working to give up. I’m giving up continued frustration over a previous life difficulty that I neither caused nor had any control over. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” It’s up to us to contribute to the world we want to live in. It is up to us to do “the heavy lifting.”

What are you giving up for Lent this year? In other words, what have you got to gain this year?

Kim Burkhardt blogs about faith at The Hermitage Within. Thank you for reading this faith blog and for sharing it with your friends. While you are here, please feel welcome to provide support to sustain this blog ($$).

Symbolism in the Gospel of Mark

January 30, 2026

In my Master’s in Theology program, we are reading the Gospel of Mark this week. Mark is thought to have been the first of the four canonical gospels to have been written – probably in about year 70 (the year of the destruction of the temple). The other two synoptic gospels (i.e., similarly fashioned gospels) – Matthew and Luke – are thought to have drawn from Mark.

When I sat down this morning to read Mark’s gospel, I saw it with fresh eyes. I previously read the entire Hebrew Bible and New Testament from the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation, but that was well prior to having much biblical instruction. I then took a several-weeks class on Mark perhaps seven or eight years ago. Yet, I am still seeing it anew.

The first chapter of Mark – the beginning of the message of Christ in writing – leads us directly into redemptive symbolism.

Mark begins with a prophetic Hebrew Bible quote from Isaiah: “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ so John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.” (Mark 1:2-5).

So much symbolism to unpack in one short paragraph. Isaiah is part of the Old Testament; the Old Testament foreshadows the New Testament, the New Testament fulfills the Old Testament. The preparer of the way – Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist – is to be “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness” (he was literally in the physical wilderness). Symbolically, when we are not living in relationship with God we are “in the wilderness” – an emotional/psychological/spiritual wilderness…… As an aside, wilderness is still used as a literary device in literature to symbolize being in a fearful or unruly psychological state away from a well-ordered societal environment where we feel safe. Think of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale.

Then, there is Mark 1:9-11: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove upon him. ¹¹And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my Son, the Beloved;^[h] with you I am well pleased.”

The River Jordan is where the Israelites had crossed in the Old Testament from slavery in Egypt and from wandering in the wilderness for 40 years for disobeying God to enter the promised land. In baptism, we are freed from slavery and from life in the wilderness (i.e., from our confused darkness wandering) to enter into the promised land.

Immediately upon Jesus’ baptism, the Gospel of Mark writes, “And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him (Mark 1:12-13).”

Whenever we are provided God’s grace (as in baptism), Satan wishes to tempt us away from living in loving relationship with God. And, again there is the number 40. The Israelites had been sent into the wilderness (the untame place) for disobeying God, Satan tempted Jesus for 40 days. In biblical literature, a period of 40 (40 years, 40 days) is a period of purification and cleansing.

After Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, he began drawing people to God: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:14-15). In subsequent passages, Jesus began healing people and driving out unclean spirits. In other words, drawing us to God and healing us.

Prayers of Praise and Thanksgiving

January 11, 2026

My prayer life in recent years began with a gifted period of contemplative prayer (as told here). Hands-down, my two favorite pray-ers are the contemplative mystics Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross (I still recall being at daily mass one day when Fr. Bryan Dolejsi mentioned Teresa of Avila being a Doctor of the Church. “What?” I wanted to know, “What is a Doctor of the Church and who is Teresa of Avila?” Those questions sent me off on a follow-up inquiry for which I am grateful). I experience joy within contemplative prayer and a movement toward becoming more of the person that God wants me to be.

An additional form of prayer recently entered my daily routine when I enrolled in theological studies. We were told to start daily participation in the morning and evening prayers of Liturgy of the Hours (see my previous post about this daily set of prayers that are prayed collectively by the Universal Church).

I am still finding my way into being consistently prayerful within the set daily structure of Liturgy of the Hours. In my previous post about Liturgy of the Hours, I mentioned being told that Liturgy of the Hours is meant to be a tool for prayer than a a straight jacket dictating how we are to pray (hmm…. I thrive prayerfully within a structured mass, why I am having to find my way within the structured Liturgy of the Hours?). I discussed this recently with a priest I see once a month – he told me to find one phrase in each day’s Liturgy of the Hours that I can grab onto and basically do Lectio Divina with that one phrase……

I recently took note that Liturgy of the Hours (also called “Divine Office”) starts with us asking God to come to our assistance – followed by the Glory Be and an Alelluiah.

Hmmm….. Within contemplative prayer, I experientially appreciate God’s loving presence and appreciate that God is acting to bring about positive change within me. Basically, adoration. A relational experience and receiving. I a starting to see a new opportunity within Liturgy of the Hours – learning a new way of appreciating God via the Glory Be and an Alelluiah. Contemplative adoration is a relationship, while the Glory Be and an Alelluiah are about praising God for God’s own sake. (Life’s not “all about us!!!”). Contemplative prayer and Liturgy of the Hours are complimentary – receiving in one, praising God for God’s own sake in the other. We hear at mass that God has no need of our praise, but that our praise is itself our gift to God.

There a good many ways to praise God. There are songs of praise, a thank you during the day, and – most importantly – thanking God by being of useful service to God’s children. Living a life of faith becomes living a life of gratitude. Alleluiah!

Pondering religious imagination….

January 8, 2026

I was recently given Frank J. Cunningham’s Vesper Time: The Spiritual Practice of Growing Older. Early in the book, he mentions “The Catholic Imagination.”

I am intrigued by the phrase. I happened across the phrase once before and immediately recognized that yes, there is a “Catholic Imagination.”

When I first encountered the phrase “A/The Catholic imagination,” I recalled an experience circa 2011. In 2011, I was trying to discuss a matter with a couple of non-Catholics (they were both lovely, well-meaning people). We went in circles, got nowhere. They were trying one mental and verbal approach to exploring the matter at hand, I recognized that I was clearly approaching the subject very differently. At the time, I could recognize a difference in approaches, but I couldn’t articulate the contours of either approach. When I later “happened across” the phrase “The Catholic imagination,” I instantly recognized that my involvement in the above-mentioned discussion (2011) was attempting to frame the topic via a Catholic imagination while the other two parties were employing a secular approach. Even though I was a lapsed Catholic at the time, “The Catholic Imagination” had so thoroughly infused my thinking while growing up that it stayed with me even when I was away from church.

Google’s AI effectively synthesizes several credible-source descriptions of “The Catholic imagination”: “The Catholic imagination is a worldview seeing God’s presence in the physical world, viewing earthly life, objects, and experiences as channels of grace, rooted in the belief that Jesus’s humanity makes the sacred accessible through the material. It’s a sacramental perspective, finding deeper meaning and spiritual significance in everyday things, stories, and rituals, encompassing themes of sin, redemption, and ultimate hope through a framework of divine providence and the ‘complex of opposites’ (light/dark, good/evil).”

For those who live within – and/or were raised within – a particular faith tradition, do you recognize your tradition’s “style of imagination?” Do you see that “style of imagination” infusing how you see and interact with the people and events around you? Religious imagination truly exerts a powerful influence on how we live in the world – from how we interpret meaning within events, themes, etc. to how we communicate and interact with the people in our lives. It’s easy enough to know whether or not we bring explicitly-stated religious ideas into our daily life (“I believe that God is present in my life,” “I am religiously accountable for my behavior,” etc.). It’s another matter to recognize perhaps more implicitly-incorporated ideas – a ritualized pattern of looking at daily patterns in our lives or bringing a “complex of opposites” perspective into seeing the events in our lives that might not be shared by neighbors or co-workers (good/evil, light/dark, etc.).

Hmmm…… It might be interesting to undertake psychological studies contrasting people with a particular religious imagination to to people without such a perspective. For example, is there a distinct psychological roadmap to learning life’s “shades of gray” for individuals with a “complex of opposites” worldview? Maybe such studies have already been done?

Book Review: The Music of Silence

January 6, 2026

I somehow keep encountering Benedictine spirituality. The first monastery I ever visited was Westminster Abbey in Mission, B.C. [I was four and had just recently been baptized. My parents decided we would visit Westminster Abbey where we attended a Latin mass ( a lot to take in for a post-Vatican II four-year-old who was still new to attending mass….)]. In 2016, I joined St. Benedict parish in Seattle. Since 2016, I have read several books on contemplative spirituality written by Benedictines. I give people copies of The Tradition of Catholic Prayer from the Benedictine St. Meinrad Monastery. I am now enrolled in a Master’s in Theology at a Benedictine university (St. Martin’s University) ….And so it goes….

Most recently, I came upon – and ordered a copy of – The Music of Silence: Entering the Sacred Space of Monastic Experience. When the book arrived, I was both surprised and not surprised that the authors are O.S.B. – of the Order of St. Benedict.

This book is proving to be everything I hoped for. Goodreads (the Internet Movie Database – IMDB – of published books) describes this book simply: The Music of Silence is “[a] collection of meditations describes the sacred nature of the monastic chant, the qualities of faith, and the peace-inducing properties of silence and listening.”

A vibrant faith life must – by definition – include both an outward life of service and an inner stillness in which we encounter God’s presence. The Music of Silence is among the written music articulating an inner environment of nurturing a personally-enriching stillness and encountering God’s presence.

Much to my gleeful surprise, this book comes with a CD of Gregorian chant (yes, I still buy and listen to CDs….). While I have occasionally listened to Gregorian chant over the years, I am now finding a richer receptivity for such chant. Perhaps my local library has CDs of Gregorian chant…..

Christianity: “A Path”

January 1, 2026

In her book Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, Cynthia Bourgeault tells a story about centering prayer guru Thomas Keating when he was the abbot of St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spenser, Massachusetts. “A few miles down the road from the abbey, a former Catholic retreat house had closed down and had been sold to a Buddhist group. When the facility reopened as the Insight Meditation Center….teaching the path of Vipassana…. suddenly the monks at St. Joseph’s began to notice an increase of people, almost inevitably young people, stopping by the monastery guest house asking for directions about how to get to the Insight Meditation Center! Dismayed but intrigued, Keating began to engage some of these young pilgrims in dialogue. What was it they were seeking at the Insight Meditation Center? To which the response nearly always came, in the vernacular of the Sixties, ‘A path, man! We’re seeking a Path!’ Discovering that the vast majority of these seekers had been raised as Christians, he asked the sixty-four-dollar question – ‘So, why don’t you search for a path within your own tradition?’ To which he received the genuinely astonished answer: ‘Christianity has a path?’ St. Joseph Monastery’s response was to develop the technique of Centering Prayer (which Keating then popularized when he was at Snowmass, Colorado) to help people in today’s modern context find Christianity’s long tradition of contemplative prayer.

It seems today – in the 2020’s – that there still seems to be a frequent lack of recognition that Christianity has “a path.”

What of that path? How do we get onto that “path?”

I tell some of my own journey to that path here. Having grown up Catholic and then having left for twenty years, I had a profound re-conversion experience in 2016. That re-conversion experience began when I attended a Friday evening mass for social reasons, vowing that “I wasn’t going to return to Catholicism” – a gift of God’s presence proved me wrong!

In the period following that Friday evening mass, I was graced with an unexpected period of contemplative prayer – I simply rested in God’s presence as I experienced God loving me. Emotional healing from a challenging period began as I reconnectws with God and church, God-via-church-and-prayer.

In the years since the autumn of 2016, I have slowly discovered Christianity’s “path.” Surrender to allowing God’s presence to work in our lives. “Love God and love your neighbor” (Matthew 22::36-40) (I often find it easier to love God “who is love” than to love sometimes-challenging people, while some people find it easier to “love the people we can see” than to love the God we can’t see). Accept that God’s will for us is “a narrow path” that’s hard to follow, but ultimately freeing. “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24) [Jesus goes on to say that this task is impossible for humans alone, but that all things are possible in God} [This “passing through the eye of a needle is said to be a metaphor referring to a “narrow entrance” at Jerusalem’s gate whereby a camel would have to kneel at night to pass through the narrow passage when the city’s gate had been closed for the night for security.]. Participate in having the parts of ourselves that aren’t in alignment with God’s will for us slowly “cut away” (God is the principal actor in this “cutting away,” but we can participate in allowing this process to unfold and doing what we can). As we grow in all of these things, we learn of “It is no longer I, but God who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We start encountering the Catholic “both/and” of having a taste of “heaven on earth” (i.e., heaven later, but we get a taste of it now); In thinking about heaven, I tell people that “I need God now.” In living God’s will for us, there’s freedom, joy, peace among people.

God loves us. And, yes, Christianity has “a path.”

Book Review: Bourgeault’s Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening

December 24, 2025

Book: Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening — Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening

I have been hearing for several years – mostly through Contemplative Outreach Northwest – about Episcopalian priest Cynthia Bourgeault. She is known for her active, thoughtful leadership within contemplative/mystical Christianity.

I finally got around to reading one of her books: Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening.

I am “beyond thrilled” to have come upon this book.

In 2016, I was gifted with a sustained period of contemplative prayer during which I had a solid sense of God loving me. This was “a gift I didn’t see coming.” The outline of that story is told here. A challenge I encountered was that I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate my experience to people. A real challenge – I was experiencing something profoundly meaningful, but I had no means to talk to people about it (I’ve since seen a couple of other people wander into churches with a similar scenario – each time, a make an effort to “walk with them,” encouraging them as best I can along their journey…..). In time, through church attendance and involvement in Contemplative Outreach Northwest, I started grappling my way toward being more able to discuss the “outer contours” of my experience. A respected friend (who also happens to be Episcopalian, like Cynthia Bourgeault) pointed out that each of us has a different prayer relationship with God and that the best we can hope for is to find a few people with whom can share some basic aspects of our prayer experience in relating to God.

Then, I read Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening.

Actually, I skipped through several “how to” reflection portions of the book – that was information I didn’t need.

Early portions of the book, though, grabbed my attention. When Cynthia Bourgeault encountered “centering prayer” (i.e., how to learn to do contemplative prayer) groups as a priest, she said she immediately grasped the concept based on having grown up attending a Quaker school. I have periodically read about Quaker spirituality – this intrigued me.

Then, I got to later chapters of the book.

While God’s faith path for us within Christianity is a very different realm than the secular study of human psychology, Cynthia Bourgeault has artfully drawn from both in this book to discuss how we experience changes within our inner realm when Christ changes us via contemplative prayer. Of course, Bourgeault discusses within the book the very real differences between “doing Christianity” and “doing psychology.” I am currently reflecting – with an inner joy – upon Bourgeault’s artful communication within the later chapters of this book. It’s as if she put our inner human experience to poetry (I can’t take credit for this statement – I once heard someone else use this analogy in another context). In the next few weeks, I expect to be able to start talking more actively to people – based on this book – about my own inner changes and experience wrought by contemplative prayer.

And, I will be reading more of Cynthia Bourgeault’s books.

(For any reader who is interested, Teresa of Avila’s autobiography is also of tremendous interest regarding contemplative prayer.)

Advent and Christmas: Being Present to One Another

December 23, 2025

I visited a friend yesterday. She’s terminally ill and is aware that “this is probably her last Christmas.” She and I have a storied bond. Our mothers were friends since they were four years old. Then, our mothers brought her and I into the world three days apart. Now that she’s entering the final phase of her life, I’ve thought of something said two or three years ago by another friend – a triplet (two identical sisters and a third fraternal sister). One of the identicals was dying, the other identical said “I don’t know how to do this” (i.e., how to be “alone” – she’s never “not had” her identical). In my own measured way, I understand – I’ve never “not had” the friend who was born three days before me.

I was lying awake in the early hours of this morning, unable to sleep and pondering yesterday’s visit. These ponderings relate to a host of other recent ponderings – there’s a lot to unpack. Bottom line, being present in people’s lives matters.

Yesterday – for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere – was the first day after the Winter Solstice. The day after the shortest day of the year. Yesterday had a brief more amount more of daylight that the day before.

When we are truly present in each other’s lives, that presence matters. Being consciously present brings light and joy into people’s lives.

During this morning’s 2:00 am hour, I laid awake in bed listening to my cat’s breath (she finally sleeps with me, two years after I adopted her). I thought of the times when either someone has been present in my life or when I have been present in someone’s life. All of us remember such moments in our lives. We can all bring to mind stories of people who have present to us and times we have been present for someone else.

There’s a Christmas lesson here.

Christ came into the world to be present with humanity. We celebrate this every Christmas (for those interested in liturgical seasons, since we celebrate Jesus’ birthday on December 25 we celebrate Jesus’s conception – the Feast of the Anunciation – nine months earlier on March 25. Further, we celebrate the Feast Day of John the Baptist – who “leapt in his mother’s womb” when Mary came to visit his pregnant mother – on June 24).

We are called by our faith to be present in people’s lives and to bring positivity where we can:

Churches are present in the community by providing social services (soup kitchens, food banks, etc.). We are all called to meet the needs in our communities through active volunteerism.
One of my friends has taken on leading a grief and loss support group – a great service.
We can all find ways to communicate the message of God’s loving presence. Through our baptism, we are called to be “priests, prophets, and kings.”

When I tell stories about being present to other people I become animated (at other times, I am occasionally told that my conversational tone is rather flat or monotone!). I am seeing that other people’s willingness to be present in my life and me being present to other people has been integral to the times when my life has been most transformed.

Please don’t get the idea that I always to do a great job of being present in other people’s lives. This blog post came to be because I am seeing the poignancy – both from being present and from having people be present with me – of how being present transforms lives. All of us have someone with whom we can be present. During this Advent and Christmas season, we can all share the joy of Christ’s love.

Integrating ourselves into our faith

December 11, 2025

Sometimes, multiple threads weave themselves into our awareness such that we come to recognize each thread as belonging to one tapestry.

Such has happened in reference to several books I’ve come across in recent years.

Several years ago, a comment someone made about “stages of faith” led me to James Fowler’s book of that title (Stages of Faith). I learned in that book about the developmental faith stages we progress through as we age and (hopefully!) mature. I come back to that book occasionally.

Since then, I have come across faith-related books such as The Deeply Formed Life and a book called Integral Spirituality (there are actually several books with that phrase part of their titles). While I haven’t yet read those two books, I brought them home to at least ponder their titles and/or topics. This led me to a phrase within Catholicism called Integral Human Development – the full development of each person.

I considered these books and topics as I explored how to fully bring together what then seemed to be disparate (compartmentalized) aspects of my life and the experience of living as a person of faith.

Truly, being a person of faith must mean what I will call “integral faith development.”

To truly be people of faith, we can’t be “church people” on Sunday morning, work people during the week (Monday to Friday, 9:00 – 5:00 – or whenever we work), athletes at the gym or the beach, etc.

Being a person of faith means that our faith must integrate into every aspect of our lives. And, every aspect of our lives must integrate into our faith.

This doesn’t mean that everyone who goes to church should give up their job, their athletic activities, etc. to become “church ladies.”

It means that we can’t compartmentalize our Sunday morning pew from the rest of our lives.

When I first read James Fowler’s Stages of Faith, I came to recognize that the various aspects of my own human development had developed at different rates. I did well academically in school – my mental development was great! The development of my social, emotional, and career aspects were “all over the map” in terms of development. My faith development? I had been away from church for twenty years and had left my faith development in a high school phase. Yikes! I don’t think I’m alone in this. I am calling this a “mountain peaks” approach to “non-integrated human development.” I was born in a mountainous geographic region and now live in another region where we have mountain peaks, several snow-capped (inactive) volcanoes, and an ocean – I notice each mountain peak within a mountain range being a different height. When we live our lives in such a way that each aspect of our development – emotions, mental development, social development, faith development – is in a different age-phase, we are living with differing developmental “mountain peaks” within who we are. Such a non-integrated way of living doesn’t result in personal health, well-being, or maturity. When I recognized that the then-segmented aspects of myself had been developing at different rates, I set out to bring the various aspects of myself into developmental alignment. I reviewed various models of faith and psychological development and “mapped out” which of my own mountain peaks were at higher and lower levels of development. I gave myself a couple of years to bring the lower mountain peaks up to approximately the same age-level of development as the higher peaks. The end result? A more content and more functional self.

However, there’s more to this than just a well-developed and well-rounded self. While the outcome I described in the previous paragraph is absolutely beneficial, the pew we sit in at church doesn’t exist solely to be a self-help pew. Sitting in a pew on Sunday and being a person of faith is about “love God and love your neighbor,” fully growing into a relationship with God, allowing God to turn us into the people God wants us to be, being present and lovingly impactful in the lives of God’s children (we are all God’s children – including the driver who smashed up your car, the politician you don’t like, the bully at your child’s school, the operator who accidentally dropped your call, the relative you dislike, etc. and etc.).

We can’t fully live into being a person of faith by compartmentalizing each part of our lives. We have to bring our lives into our faith – our joys, our successes, our athletic activities, our family events, our recent car accident, our difficult boss, etc. We have to bring our faith into all aspects of our lives – finding ways to talk about being a person of faith in the community (even if we live in a secular city), into driving and the crows we hate (I confessed in the confessional once that my irritation with heavy traffic was resulting in angry irritation directed at crows who were in the roadway. I learned to pray the Hail Mary while driving…..), etc.

We are people of faith when we integrate all aspects of our lives. We grow into living the Gospels in our lives.

Entering Advent, Entering Light

December 1, 2025

The life of faith turns our ideas upside down.

As we entered a new church year this past weekend, we moved out of the liturgical color of green. When I sit at traffic light and see the light turn green, I – in my impatience – start talking to the driver ahead of me: “Okay, driver who hasn’t instantly accelerated (thereby slowing down my effort to get where I’m going), green means take your foot off your brake and put your foot on the accelerator. Green means go.”

Instead of getting the green light to go full speed ahead during Lent, we shift into purple.

“Great,” we might be tempted to say. “Purple is the color for royalty. We shift into royal gear.”

Not so fast. During Advent, we are invited to slow down. Further, it is not us who is the royalty.

On the first Sunday of Advent, we heard in the second reading – Romans 13: 11-14 – to waken from our sleep. We heard to throw off the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light. We heard in the Gospel that we know neither the day nor the hour when Christ will return. We await in watchfulness.

For all this upside-downness, turning to Christ and Christ’s royal return really does turn our life upside-down. A right-side-up, as we discover.

“For it is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me”- Galatians 2:20. When we let Christ live in us, he transforms our very being (during this time of both waiting and living anew during the Catholic both/and!). We become a new creation. The light of Christ – during this darkest time of the geographic year (for those of us in the Northern hemisphere) – transforms our very being.

We are a week past Christ the King. It is Christ who is the royalty. We, as servants, must learn to serve. The more we learn to live in faith’s juxtapositions, the more God leads us into the fullness of life that God intends for us. (Also, the people who know me and who read this blog remind me occasionally that I sometimes grow into the concepts I write about slower than I write about them. Humility is good for us!)