Getting to the best in prayer: relational, loving, healing

September 22, 2023

In the mainstream view of the general public, prayer is sometimes reduced to being viewed as “a uni-directional monologue of us making intercessory requests to God when we need something.”

If our human relationships were limited to uni-directional monologues, that would make for very dry relationships (i.e., transactional rather than interactional) – we likely wouldn’t have many engaging connections with people. Likewise, prayer in its’ fullness is also more than a uni-directional monologue. A rich prayer life is relational and interactive: a two-way communication in which we relate with God (with us as the junior communicator), both offering and receiving wide-ranging communication – including our sense of God’s loving presence.

What about prayer and our questions about why God allows suffering in the world? Isn’t prayer about asking God to fix our problems?

God didn’t create the world to be a world in which we suffer. God made us in order to have us to love. Love, by its’ nature, is two-way and interactional. Further, love – by definition – can’t be forced. Since love can’t be forced, we were given the option of whether or not to love God in return. Further, we have the option of whether to live in right relationship with God. Adam and Eve chose to break this right relationship with God by eating of the forbidden fruit. Since then, we humans haven’t always lived in right relationship with God (I’ve heard it argued that the root of sin is selfishness and/or disobedience). Thus, we live in a troubled, broken world.

Gerald May (a physician, psychiatrist, and writer of faith books) looks at the fact of suffering from another perspective on page nine of his faith book Dark Night of the Soul (May’s book is a reflection on John of the Cross’s original book of the same name). His is a perspective that occurred to me in some fashion several years ago: “….suffering does not result from some divine purgation….Instead, suffering arises from the simple circumstances of life itself.” In their book Healing as a Parish Ministry, Leo Thomas and Jan Alkire state – along a similar lines – about faith healing typically not curing natural consequences of what happens in life – that faith healing is often more of about bringing us into the fullness of who God wants us to be (a very healing experience!)

Personally, I don’t view prayer as only being about us bringing our list of problems to “Santa in the sky” to be fixed. Rather, the first focus of prayer is about entering into an ongoing – and interactive – relationship with God. When we let God into our hearts – when we surrender to letting God live within us (“It is no longer I, but God who lives in me,” Galatians 2:20), God can – and does – transform us into the people that God intended us to be. Then, we become better and emotionally/mentally happier people (at best, we experience a “peace that passeth all understanding”), people who contribute good in the world.

What about praying for healing and praying when we feel so challenged in life that we need God regarding our challenges? What about when we are seriously ill?

There absolutely are times when we need God. Ill health, life challenges. Having an active prayer relationship with God all the time – makes an interactive relationship with God more accessible to us much of the time (there are sometimes dry prayer periods). Just as human parents want to hear from their grown kids throughout the year – not just in times of need – God wants to have an ongoing, interactive relationship with us on an ongoing basis.

Sometimes, miraculous healing does occur through prayer. Jesus performed miracles and healed people. We hear stories today of miraculous healing. Other times, we pray in times of illness and we don’t experience direct healing of specific illnesses.

Sometimes there are ‘healing in prayer’ situations in prayer. We hear of medical healings. There are also cases of emotional and mental healing in difficult times.

Yes, there is healing in prayer

God loves us, wants to have a relationship with us and wants to heal us.

In their Healing as a Parish Ministry book (above), Leo Thomas and Jan Alkire quote Verla A. Mooth’s “Forgiveness and Healing” publication when stating on stating on page 43 of their book: “….The miracle of redemption is that God should change us……This transforming love is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us. It can only be a giving and forgiving love.” As such, we become more vibrant and able to live more fully – and, in many ways – healthier lives.

As an example of healing found in prayer, I returned to church in 2016. I returned with a painful neuropathic condition in which a stress response is involved (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome includes hyper-stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system). Prayer very slowly had a calming and healing effect, calming my sympathetic nervous system. I now have periods of being symptom-free from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.

For more recent reflections about the fullness of prayer, see my previous post here.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).

Feast Day of Hildegard von Bingen

September 17, 2023

Above: Hildegard’s own artwork of the Trinity

Today – September 17 – is the Feast Day of Hildegard von Bingen: a saint, polymath (a person with significant multiple talents), and Doctor of the Church (Doctors of the Church are saints recognized for having made significant contributions to the Catholic Church).

I have been listening to Hildegard’s music for several years. She lived her life in the region of Germany where my father’s mother’s ancestors later lived and was a Benedictine (I am a parishioner at a St. Benedict parish – another personal reason to like her!).

Hildegard – with her wide-ranging interests, talents, activities, and achievements – is broadly popular across many social strata.

The following summary of Hildegard’s life comes from Wikipedia:

“Hildegard of Bingen… c. 1098 – 17 September 1179)…. was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred mononphony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.”Hildegard of Bingen… c. 1098 – 17 September 1179)…. was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred mononphony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Hildegard’s convent elected her as magistra (mother superior) in 1136. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. Hildegard wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works, as well as letters, hymns, and antiphons for the liturgy. She wrote poems, and supervised miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She is noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.”

A timeline of her achievements is listed here by worldhistory.org .

If you would like to read up on individual saints, Hildegard’s life story provides many interesting facets to read up on.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).

Being a person of faith: more than mental beliefs about religion

September 11, 2023

Photo: Window at Clonmacnoise Monastery, Co. Offaly, Ireland

In his book Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer, Irish poet David G. Benner writes “Too often faith is reduced to beliefs. But cognitive ascent to propositions has very little to do with genuine faith, which is more a posture of the heart than of the mind. Faith in God is leaning with confidence into God. (page 32)”

I spent years “trying to think my way to God.” That doesn’t work. In 2016, I had a re-conversion experience in which I felt God’s love for me; my faith moved into “a posture of the heart” that I had been trying for years to experience (my faith story is told in more detail here.).

So, how does one move from merely “reducing faith to a set of beliefs” to faith that is experienced and lived? A few thoughts:

  • Certainly, a living faith does necessitate religious learning. Who is God? Who are we in relationship to God? What are the precepts of a life of faith? Individual faith traditions provide such instruction. It is then up to us to allow these precepts to move into our being and to incorporate these precepts into our lives (i.e., incorporate these ideas into how we relate to God, relate to other people, and live our lives).
  • Faith is experiential: a relationship with God. Faith becoming experiential involves doses of grace, surrender, prayer, and love. Living faith is made possible through grace given to us by God (in the Christian tradition, this grace is conferred upon us beginning with baptism….and then grace continues to show up at other times when God knocks on our door). Our portion of “doing faith” – what David G. Benner describes as “leaning with confidence into God” – requires surrender and prayer. Surrender is an emotional giving up, ascenting to allow God to take the driver’s seat in our lives. Prayer is where we participate in a relationship with God. Rather than prayer being a uni-directional monologue of us talking at or to God, prayer is relational and interactive. In prayer, we both communicate to God and receive the presence of God (analogy: our relationships with the people in our lives are likewise interactive rather than uni-directional). I write more about prayer here. The fruits of grace, surrender, and prayer become “the fruits of the spirit” listed in Galatians 5:22-23: “”love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
  • We live our faith through how we live. Growing into being a person of faith involves allowing our inner work of faith (grace, surrender, prayer, and resulting love – listed above) to direct our being-ness in the world. A life of faith is absolutely about our own relationship with God, but it is also essentially more than that – life isn’t just about us personally or about our own relationship with God. We are here to be of service to all of God’s children. Everyone is a beloved child of God, our lives are measured to the degree that we move into loving God’s children in thought and deed. Living our faith is about “love God and love your neighbor” (Matthew 22: 36-40) and applyin the precepts of one’s faith tradition (“The Golden Rule,” “Christian charity,” etc.).

Faith is more than a set of beliefs – it is how we relate to the divine and live among God’s children. Acts 17:28: “It is in God that we live and move and have our being.”

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).

Hearing God’s voice….in stillness

September 6, 2023

…….It is often in the stillness where we hear – and can respond to – the promptings of God’s voice.

In 1 Kings Chapter 19 (19:11-13), we read: “The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”…..

Jesus also frequently went to quiet desert spaces to pray to his father. Prayed in solitude and stillness.

For us, a relationship with God likewise requires a willingness to “go inward” – to step away from life’s hustle and bustle encouraged by our outwardly-focused society and sit in stillness. Stillness is uncomfortable for some. Pausing to go inward isn’t always comfortable – we bump up against our own inner tumult. Yet, prayer can get us through such tumult.

When we find a relationship with God – an interactive, two-way interaction rather than a one-way monologue of intercessory prayers from us directed to God (we wouldn’t relate to the people in our lives exclusively via uni-directional monologues!) – there comes a discovery that God sits with us in prayer. God’s felt presence in our lives can – and does – provide “peace that passeth all understanding.”

We also experience a relationship with God by being of service to others – by working to improve the lives of other people (Jesus told his apostles that the greatest commandments are “Love God and love your neighbor” – Matthew 22: 36-40 ). Mother Teresa lived this in the streets of Calcutta. Richard Rohr focuses on the need for both rest in God’s presence and the need to be active in the world through his Center for Action and Contemplation.

Wondering about how to go about stillness and prayer? Start praying. If you’re not praying yet, start praying twice per day for five minutes each time. Sit in stillness – go with whatever comes in that stillness and “become comfortable” with whatever comes in that stillness. Find someone with whom to discuss what you experience in stillness. Wondering how to pray, how to move deeper in prayer? Consider:

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).

Ponderings on self-revealing love

September 2, 2023

Yikes.

I am reading David G. Benner’s book, Opening to God, Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer. Early in the book, he writes “Genuine prayer always begins in the heart and is offered by act of opening our self as we turn toward God in faith” (page 18). “Growth in prayer is learning to open more and more of our selves to God” (page 19). Benner also goes on to write on the following page, “….God is ever reaching out in self-revealing love….”

Yikes…..the passage “God is ever reaching out in self-revealing love” hit me like a ton if bricks. In the context of prayer, I began experiencing God’s love via prayer in October, 2016 [I tell of how I “heard the words” growing up that “Jesus loves us,” but I heard it much like children in the Charlie Brown movies heard their teacher’s voice as “wah…wah…wah” – words that we don’t actually take in. It wasn’t until October, 2016 that I actually experienced – in prayer – that God loves me. Experiencing that God loves us sure gets a person’s attention!]. Yet, reading Benner’s passage last night about “self-revealing love” got my attention in quite another way.

We are meant to have rich relationships with both God and each other. Christ indicated that the greatest commandments are to “Love God and love your neighbor” ((Matthew 22:36-40)….. Add to that “self-revealing love” – insight toward a solution for a particular and vexing challenge. Many first-world countries are experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness” (see the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 report on the “Epidemic of Loneliness“). I myself have spent much of my life feeling varying degrees of social isolation – the awkward introvert, feeling like the ignored, boring, and lonely social wallflower who senses a wall between me and the world. Why waste time making this self-revelation? Because we’ve all got room to grow and because showing our own experience is part of the poetry of sharing the human experience…..

Related to the topic of social isolation, the idea of “self-revealing love” isn’t just suppose to be God’s self-revelations to us. As we are to “love God and love our neighbor,” how many of us engage in self-revealing love with one another? Frankly, I don’t do that well – if at all. When I read Benner’s passage about God’s self-revealing love to us in prayer, I moved from “God provides us with self-revealing love” to the emotional weight of thinking – by extension – “We humans should self-revealing as part of ‘love one another.’ I don’t do that. I don’t self-reveal nearly enough.” No wonder I’m boring and lonely. I come across as a blank slate in which people aren’t able to see who lives under my skin. I then immediately and easily thought of people who engage in self-revealing love in their social and family interactions. We all want to be around those people!

A public example of a self-revealing individual – who self-reveals as an act of love – is the priest and popular author Henri Nouwen. Nouwen was willing to self-disclose in his popular books that he spent years struggling with self-doubt and conflictedness about his sexuality. What a “self-revealing love” gift to share with readers (I – as a reader – was moved when I read that. “Wow! We don’t often hear priests talk about their inner experience regarding their sexuality….”). This wasn’t just self-revelation: it was self-revelation in a vulnerable sort of way that helps lay readers see their own humanity in a respected faith leader. It seems to me that this was one of the aspects of lovingness that makes Nouwen’s writings so well read (there’s a quote on the Henri Nouwen Society website from a reader who mentions Nouwen’s willingness to live vulnerably).

Self-revelations in our social interactions add a level of depth to our relationships with one another and can – should – be part of how we love. Of course, there are appropriate parameters – what time we brush our teeth, etc. can border on the ridiculous; I’m referring to self-disclosing those aspects of ourselves that make us human. Some of the people I know who are most appreciated in their social circles are people who both love the people around them and make themselves transparent with gusto. For those of us either don’t self-disclose or love (or both) with gusto, there’s a challenge in learning how to do so! One prayer that is consistently useful and that could help with this topic is one that allows God to turn me into a better human (it’s a form of surrender): “God turn me into the person you want me to be. Help! You’re going to change me better than I can!”

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them so they can subscribe (thank you!).

Book Review: Opening to God (David G. Benner)

September 1, 2023

I was hooked when I read the back cover of David Benner’s Opening to God: Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer.

I read these excerpts from the book’s back cover as poetry describing the best I have experienced in prayer: “Prayer is not just communication with God: it is communion with God. As we open ourselves to him, God does the spiritual work of transformation in us…….discover openness to God as the essence of prayer…..Move beyond words [in prayer] to become not merely someone who prays, but someone whose entire life is prayer in union with God.”

Okay, I haven’t yet gotten to living as “someone whose entire life is prayer,” but my prayer life has joyously moved beyond “words communicated to God” to prayer being a relationship – without the need for human language” (as I mention in several previous blog posts such as this one). In my case, such prayer was given to me as a grace.

I started reading this book last night. Happily, the book is living up to the book’s description – a descriptive book about the dynamics of prayer being a meaningful relationship with God. A worthwhile read about what prayer can be and is meant to be.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them so they can subscribe (thank you!).

Interested in the contours of your inner faith journey?

August 29, 2023

As an introvert and as one easily drawn to religious ritual, the contours of the inward journey – both my journey and the journeys of other people – have always been of interest to me. Do you also take an interest in the experience of the inner faith journey?

Some people, I hear, avoid their inner experience. The human condition inherently includes challenges – including dark corners within our individual psyches and the uncomfortable emotional debris we acquire from bumping up against life’s difficulties. Thus, some people prefer to focus outwardly so as to avoid the darkness and difficulties that lie within. Some societies encourage an outward-focused, extroverted existence.

Yet, our inner journeys are ever so remarkable and worth engaging in! Any darkness that is avoided doesn’t go away by ignoring it. One has to engage with it, sort through it, walk through it. “Wrestle one’s demons,” if you will. Engaging with one’s inner experience can lead to healing from life’s ragged edges, to a more fruitful wholeness, and to the amazing relationship with God that God wants to have with us – a journey that is very worth the trip.

A number of ponderings are offered below from writers, quotes, and books about engaging with our inward faith experience:

Treading into the Spiritual Depths: The (not depressing!) Dark Night of the Soul

Teresa of Avila and her protege John of the Cross – 16th-century Spaniards – are my two favorite mystics. In his book Dark Night of the Soul, John of the Cross writes about how the sometimes unviewable-to-us aspects of our inner faith journey are part of where God works within us to transform us (rather than this title being about a depressive view on things!). Attentiveness to our inner journey can allow us to at least a glimpse of when this (at least somewhat) unviewable aspect of our spiritual growth is being wrought within us – particularly if we have an active relationship with God in prayer (I write about such prayer here).

Gerald May’s book of the same title speaks to this idea about “The Dark Night of the Soul”: “May emphasises that the dark night is not necessarily a time of suffering and near despair, but a time of deep transition, a search for new orientation when things are clouded and full of mystery. The dark gives depth, dimension and fullness to the spiritual life.”

Is there joy in the inner experience?

Absolutely. Irish writer John O’Donohue articulates this well: “I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”

Prayer is also where we inwardly have a personal relationship with God via prayer. When such a relationship is an active one, it can be amazing and fruitful. I sometimes write about the particulars of an active prayer life; please feel welcome to read one such blog posting here.

The Inner Journey and Walking

I’m known for walking. All over town. Friends started something of a “Where’s Waldo” conversation about where they see me pop up around town (they were entertained by this conversation!). “I – or we – saw Kim walking ‘over here,’ at ‘X intersection’ or at ‘Y location….'” As a result of people knowing that I walk, a friend gave me a book called Wanderers: A history of women walking and a book by Thich Nhat Hanh called How to walk. I loved both books. Walking, as discussed by these books, is a time when some people – myself included – ponder. It turns out that a search on Goodreads for books titled “Women who walk leads to a long listing of relevant books. There is even a network called Women Who Walk.

Enjoy the inner journey!

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them so they can subscribe (thank you!).

Loving our neighbor as a measure of our faith

August 26, 2023

When Christ was asked which of the commandments is greatest, he indicated, “Love God and love your neighbor” ((Matthew 22:36-40).

Further, he said in 1 John 4:20: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (Yet, we also must contend with Matthew 10:37…”Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” The lesson here seems to be that we have to put God first….then everything else falls into place.)

Every person alive is a beloved child of God. Each of us is made in God’s image. Thus, loving God inherently requires loving each of God’s children who is made in God’s image – a spiritual fact as well as a faith lesson meant to instruct us on living well with the people around us.

At daily mass this last Thursday (August 24, the feast day for St. Bartholomew the apostle), the priest reflected in his homily about loving one another and about us all being children of God. It all sounded great. I found myself wishing that I could take credit for having written the homily/reflection! Then (fast forward a couple of days), I was walking around a local lake this morning with a friend and a friend of hers. While conversing, I grumbled about various people – and/or groups of people – in less than charitable terms. Yikes. Part of “the human condition” is that most of us have “room for improvement” in how we live our lives.

When we disagree with someone – or dislike how they behave – how often do we look at them as a beloved child of God? How often, rather, do we look at them – and engage with them – with the sentiment expressed in the photo of my cat shown below? Given that there’s at least a flicker of God’s image in the people we dislike the most, how can we dare treat them negatively and say that we “love God?” Yikes (again!) – I can see ample opportunities for my own improvement in this regard (“double yikes” to the times when I’ve said, “At least God loves that easy-to-dislike person, somebody’s got to…”)…. This question of how we treat people applies both individually and collectively – societies also too often deteriorate into disruptive and divisive us-versus-them mentalities that don’t achieve anything positive.

This fact that every one of us is a beloved child of God can and should permeate how we interact with each person we encounter. There’s a bumper sticker that reads, “Love your neighbor means everybody.” Part of a determined discipline to continually live better is to be ever better toward others than we are naturally inclined to be.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them so they can subscribe (thank you!).

Book Review: Daily strengths for daily needs

August 25, 2023

Thank you to A Parish Catechist friend Karen Chartier for this book review. Much appreciated!

Book Review: Daily Strengths for Daily Needs

Mary W. Tileston

The Family Inspirational Library

Copyright 1928

Mary Tileston’s book Daily Strengths for Daily Needs offers a compilation of quotes from thoughtful, spiritual thinkers throughout the ages, from those found in the Bible to R.W. Emerson, to Marcus Antoninus, to George Elliot, to St. Frances de Sales — and scores of others.

Published first in 1884, it remains pertinent to the present. ‘In these days of great emotion and radical changes, we need the steady, persistent and refreshing inspiration of spiritual thoughts, which, entering the texture of our life in the morning, will guide and refresh us through the day, or, in the evening, give a sense of confidence and peace.’ opens the preface, and both the need and the outcomes outlined are relevant.

I was given this book by a friend and have been inspired by it throughout the year. I highly recommend it. Below are examples of quotes of Tileson’s book.

The one who will be found in trial capable of great acts of love, is ever the one who is always doing considerate small ones.          F. W. Robertson

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace.                   R. W. Emerson

We may, if we choose, make the worst of one another.  Everyone has his weak points; everyone has his faults; we may make the worst of these; we may fix our attention constantly upon these.  But we may also make the best of one another.  We may forgive, even as we hope to be forgiven…By loving whatever is loveable in those around us, love will flow back from them to us, and life will become a pleasure instead of a pain; and earth will become like heaven; and we shall become not unworthy followers of Him whose name is Love.                      A. P. Stanley

Book Reviewer: Karen Chartier

Applying “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7)

August 22, 2023

“God loves a cheerful giver.” This passage from 2 Corinthians 9:7 was read at church recently. I know the pastor who read the passage and discussed it in his homily (sermon). He is one of the happiest people I know. He is also a cheerful giver.

Some Bible passages are clearly meant to instruct us on how to live well and contribute to a healthy, vibrant, well-functioning society. This is one such passage.

When Christ was asked which of the commandments is greatest, he indicated, “Love God and love your neighbor” ((Matthew 22:36-40). Being a cheerful giver absolutely falls within “love your neighbor.”

We can give in all kinds of ways: time, talent, and treasure. How one person can give sometimes looks different than how the next person gives. One person may be able to contribute more financially to a nonprofit organization while another person may have more time to volunteer – both types of giving are needed. As an introvert, I find that my “social giving” happens best in one-on-one conversations – listening attentively to the socially modest or withdrawn person who may be otherwise overlooked in social situations. Gregarious extroverts, on the other hand, can be more effective as an MC to raise money at a nonprofit’s fundraiser (asking me to MC an event wouldn’t achieve much!). Being attentive to what individuals and communities need is – inherently – step one of being a cheerful giver. We can only give attentively and usefully when we make a point of noticing what others need. We then step up and give as we can; preferably, to the point of being stretched ourselves (a person I know often says, “There’s always enough when we all give what we can”). Giving is most thoughtful when we give more than an amount that is easy to give – whether it be time, talent, or treasure.

Part of “the human condition” is that most of us have “room for improvement” in how we live our lives. Part of a determined discipline to continually live better is to continually give more than we are naturally inclined to do. Most of us can give more – whether giving more out of our pocket book or by making more time to listen to someone, help someone with a project, or volunteering with a social service agency. There’s also the matter of giving “cheerfully.” The more cheerful we can become as givers, the better the world becomes (there’s the adage of leaving the world better than the way we found it!).

The fruit of cheerfully contributing to other people’s well-being multiples itself in all kinds of ways. Cheerful giving results in people’s and community’s needs being more fully met. It contributes to socially positive communities in which people get along well. Being a cheerful giver also takes our attention off of ourselves – which, when done rightfully – adds to our own happiness as a “cheerful by-product” of contributing to the well-being of the people and communities around us.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages. If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog post, please share it with them (thank you!).