Teresa of Avila (autobiography): book review, reflection

June 4, 2023

It must have been 2017 where I first heard of Teresa of Avila. Fr. Bryan Dolejsi mentioned her one weekday at St. Benedict parish (Seattle), calling her a “Doctor of the Church.” “What,” I wondered, “is a Doctor of the Church….and there is a woman recognized as a Doctor of the Church? I must find out who she is!” That led me to a Seattle Public Library copy of Mirabai Starr‘s English translation of the autobiography of this 16th century Spanish mystic.

Now, my own dog-eared and frequently-consulted copy of this book is on my bookshelf. Inside the front cover is a photograph of me with the translator, Mirabai Starr, at her speaking engagement at St. Mark’s Cathedral (Episcopal) in Seattle (yes, Mirabai graciously autographed my copy of the book).

Teresa of Avila’s autobiography – her life, her mystical, contemplative experience – has actively nourished my own prayer life. When I returned to church in 2016, it was a result of a “God moment” (including a broken ankle, long story) in which God gifted me an unanticipated and emotionally nourishing period of contemplative prayer. I didn’t have the vocabulary to talk about the inner state I was experiencing (now, I know to call that period of time “an encounter with God”); Teresa’s autobiography provided me with exquisite articulation about mystical prayer. Since finding and eagerly re-reading this book over time, I’ve heard people refer to the writings of Teresa and her protege (John of the Cross) as poetry-about-prayer. I don’t feel that a “poetry” description gives justice to their writing (accurate perhaps, but the description pales); I prefer to think of the writing of these two Carmelite saints as “the voice of lived experience.”

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages.

You are the Beloved: book review and reflections

June 2, 2023

Somehow, it took me until 2019 to discover the writer and priest Henri Nouwen. In 2019, our pastor at my church had us read one of Henri Nouwen’s books (With Burning Hearts). I was immediately drawn into Nouwen’s way of making a reader feel presently closer to the reality of Christ. I have since read several of Nouwen’s books and brought With Burning Hearts to my prayer group; the book was well received and led to fruitful discussions.

This book, You are the Beloved, is written as 365 daily meditations to walk a reader through a year. Gulp – I read all the meditations in several weeks. The reflections bring us closer toward “Love God, love your neighbor.” God loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. Rather than a one-way phone call in which either God or us is phoning the other (and us feeling like it is a dropped call), God wants a two way relationship in which that relationship is felt, experienced and deepened by both us and God – leading us to also love our neighbor. This reflections in this book cultivate our ability to pick up the phone and engage in such a two-way loving communication with God – and then also with our neighbor.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist and The Books of the Ages.

Yes: Churches as Field Hospitals

June 1, 2023

I am increasingly drawn to Pope Francis referring to church as “a field hospital.”

All of us experience life’s aches and pains. Sometimes, people turn to church in times of need. When churches function best, churches serve people in their greatest need – lifting people above life’s aches and pains, lifting all of us into and/or toward dignity. Christ came to heal.

I was moping this evening, groaning about an emotional ache. “How am I going to fix X problem in my life? I feel miserable, despairing!” I prayed at some point during the day – in the morning, perhaps – asking God to move me toward a solution to this current “miserable ache in my life” (I’ve learned better than to expect what God’s solutions should look like). In the afternoon, I was feeling like there couldn’t possibly be a solution. I’m doomed to misery! Later this evening, a church friend called. She gushed with praise about what I’m doing with A Parish Catechist. Gradually, I began to feel hope as we talked.

When my friend and I got off the phone, I sat and reflected on our phone call. I saw that my “miserable despair” was rooted partially in seeing only my side of the situation about which I’m feeling miserable. Time to go and be nice to the person about whom I feel miserable. Thank you, God, for an answered prayer.

Field Hospital: What are each of us – and our churches – doing to lift up the people around us?

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist.

Photo: Ballintubber Abbey, Ireland.

2018, photo taken by the author.

Feeling blue? Anxious? How do you pray?

May 29, 2023

For many of us, we first conceptualize prayer as mentally talking to God. Mentally speaking in sentences, much like we would talk to a person. Telling God what we want to say, submitting prayer requests (intercessions, our “wish list”), hoping for “an answer.”

Such prayer is certainly one way to initiate a prayer life.

There are many more ways to pray. Prayer is meant to be communication, a relationship. An analogy I heard – and like – compares prayer to a phone call. We wouldn’t just call a person we know, tell them what we want to say, then hang up as if communication were complete. Such phone calls wouldn’t help us sustain relationships with the people in our lives. That approach to prayer wouldn’t produce a full prayer life, either. Communication is relational. Prayer is relational.

God hungers to have a relationship with us – more than “one way phone calls” from us.

God hungers to be present in our lives, to transform our lives. God hungers to share love with us in a relational way in which we feel and experience God’s love for us. In order for this to happen, we need to participate in a two-way relationship with God. Prayer can be a truly interactive, relational activity in which we allow God to transform our lives. More than just a one-way phone call.

There are a myriad of ways pray. Several ways to pray include:

  • Attending church is prayer
  • Rote prayer, prayers of the liturgy: Lord’s Prayer, etc.
  • Psalms (they are always sung!)
  • Lectio Divina (reading faith books reflectively to take in the book’s meaning prayerfully)
  • Talking to God the way we would talk to a person
  • Contemplative Prayer (resting in God’s presence – sitting with God)

Personally, contemplative prayer is the type of prayer I find most meaningful – relationship-building. I have largely given up any “human language” in prayer (except for when I specifically do intercessory prayer); rather, my prayer life mostly consists of “resting in God’s presence.” I’m fortunate – I responded in 2016 to a “nudging of the Holy Spirit” in which I was gifted with a sustained period of feeling God’s presence in prayer. It was a life-transforming period of time; I found my way to Contemplative Outreach Northwest and now I talk to people about the power of God our lives. At present, my morning prayer consists of reflecting on the Anastasis icon above – an iconographic representation of the Harrowing of Hell; the Harrowing of Hell was Christ’s descent into Hell (between his death and resurrection) to free Adam and Eve from the result of The Fall. This particular version of Anastastis iconography is located in the chapel at St. Andrew’s Episcopal parish in Seattle, Washington. I find Anastasis to be a powerful depiction of God’s desire to free us, to transform us. God wants us to experience God’s love for us.

If prayer is unfamiliar to you or “less than what you’d like it to be,” consider taking on “prayer homework.” Pray twice per day for five minutes each time. Try out the various types of prayer listed above to find a style of prayer that you find to be of value. If you’d like to learn more about several types of prayer, my favorite book describing multiple types of prayer can be found here.

“Be still and know that I am God.”   Psalm 46:10

Kim Burkhardt’s blog can be found at A Parish Catechist.

Grieving life’s losses – book review and reflections

May 27, 2023

I recently ordered Beth L. Hewitt’s Grief on the Road to Emmaus.

I read a lot of books; I am finding this one to be a book that is both readable and experiential. Given that I spent years keeping my mind and emotions separate, I now appreciate a book that engages both mind and heart in a life-engaging, reflective manner.

Beth Hewitt observes in this book that not only do we need to grieve the loss of our loved ones who pass on (or move out of our lives, I suppose), we have to grief life’s pathways that don’t go the way we would have preferred. Lost a job? Grieve. Lost a limb? Grieve. Got robbed? Grieve. Got seriously injured in an accident? Grieve. I’ve probably heard this before, but it didn’t sink in. “Just move on” is the motto many of us expect shall get us through life’s challenges. Wrong. We need to grieve. When we don’t grieve, we don’t heal. When we don’t heal, we don’t really move on.

Further, Hewitt’s instructions on how to be present with people who are grieving has application in daily life. If we were to start treating everyone with the approaches described in this book – such as # – life would be less transactional, more interactional.

Something I didn’t know when I ordered this book is that Beth Hewitt wrote this book from a Benedictine view. Wow, added bonus. I am a parishioner at a St. Benedict parish and, as such, have learned some Benedictine lessons from this parish in recent years; this book is complimenting those lessons in helpful and meaningful ways. Loving the book!

Pentecost this Sunday, Living the Church on Earth

May 26, 2023

This Sunday – 50 days after Easter – is Pentecost.

In the year of Christ’s death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ’s Apostles 50 days after Christ’s resurrection (i.e., Pentecost). Pentecost is the anniversary of the Apostles’ new role, with the breath of the Holy Spirit, to be the post-resurrection deliverers of Christ’s message to the people – the day of Christianity’s founding.

I carry this visual representation of Pentecost – the Holy Spirit (represented as a dove) – on my purse (it’s a pin); an ongoing reminder for me to live Church daily. Do I “Love God and love my neighbor” every day? How? What do I do on any given week to spread the message of God’s love in my community? How well I “Love God and love my neighbor” and spread the message of God’s love is my measure of how I help to spread the message of Church – of God’s love for us – in the world.

Do you celebrate Pentecost? How?

Kim Burkhardt blogs about faith at A Parish Catechist.

Faith and (re)growth: Mt. St. Helen’s anniversary

May 18, 2023

For those of us who lived close enough to Mt. St. Helens to hear its’ powerful explosion on Sunday, May 18, 1980, today’s anniversary evokes memories (it wasn’t heard within the closest proximity).

While news of the event joined the explosion’s ash in the travelling the world, those of us who lived in some measure of close proximity were living in in real trepidation. I lived in the county of another nearby volcano (Mt. Baker); we were hearing from seismologists about what would happen to us if Mt. Baker – which was “overdue to blow” – followed in Mt. St. Helen’s footsteps (Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Baker are in the same chain of active volcanoes).

When Mt. St. Helen’s blew at 8:32 am on Sunday, May 18, 1980, our family was heading into church for Sunday morning services. My mother responded to the sound by saying, “That sounded like a canon being shot on Sehome Hill” (Bellingham, Washington). I replied, “I bet it was Mt. St. Helens” (the world had been waiting for the mountain to blow). We found out later that morning that I was correct. In the days and weeks that followed, there was local and international news coverage of the momentous event. I still remember hearing about the hermit who refused to evacuate from Mt. St. Helens and therefore died in the explosion.

In the years since 1980, the volcano has been an active field of exploration for scientists. In the days and months after the explosion, immediate study of the volcano was international news. In the years since, scientists have been amazed at how quickly life – vegetation, the return of animal life – has literally bloomed on the comparatively calm mountain.

What about us? In 1980, the date of Pentecost came a week after Mt. St. Helen’s “blew.” I don’t recall our pastor’s homily (sermon) that week; I now reflect in the possibility that the homily spoke in analogy about death and rebirth; the death and devastation caused when Mt. St. Helen’s blew, the measurable trepidation we had been experiencing in Washington State about the explosion, Christ’s death and our opportunity for new life; Pentecost and the birth of Christianity.

As a contemplative, I ponder what happens below the surface. Volcanoes explode outwardly as a result of the geological forces at work inside and underneath the mountain’s surface. Likewise, the outward fruits of our faith – visible faith, our degree of “peace that passeth all understanding,” how well we love our neighbor – are a product of our internal workings, our internal relationship with our God. The mystic John of the Cross spoke of the Dark Night of the Soul; a time of quiet when change sometimes happens imperceptibly even to ourselves rather than necessarily a reference to darkness meaning difficulty within our soul. Certainly, our transitions during a dark night of the soul can move us out of times of personal darkness, but our transition toward God from our own fallen state doesn’t always have to be akin to a volcanic explosion.

For all of us, though, there is a question. How willing are we to engage with the machinations of our internal emotional state that “lie beneath the surface” to let God transform us into a new creation? Some people prefer outward distractions….. I have personally mucked around beneath the surface and was given a grace that led to letting God change me; that change continues and I’m becoming happier for it.

Today on the anniversary of the Mt. St. Helen’s explosion, we have decades of knowledge that new life has blossomed on the mountain.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist.

Fear rather than faith, whereas perfect love casts out fear

May 10, 2023

I have observed that fear exists too often in the lives of individuals, inhibiting the full and joyous expression of who God intends for us to be.

Fears are expressed in a myriad of forms:

  • Afraid of being alone
  • Fear of giving up being single
  • Fear of not having enough…….(money, love, etc.)
  • Afraid of not being enough
  • Fear of trying something new
  • Afraid of confrontation
  • Fear of failing
  • Ad infinitum

Further, how often do we not trust God in matters we fear? Too often. In such cases, we allow our fears to be bigger than our perception of God. In essence, we perceive whatever we fear to be bigger than God’s power to work in our life. We give our fears a bigger presence in our lives than the room we make for God.

God is all powerful and all loving. Perfect love casts out fear.

Truly believing that God is all powerful and all loving requires us to give up any notion of control…..to truly surrender to God’s loving care.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechist.

Do you see God’s love for the people you dislike?

May 8, 2023

Every person alive is a child of God.

When we disagree with someone – or dislike what they do – how often we look at them as a child of God? How often, rather, do we look at them – and engage with them – with the sentiment expressed in this photo of my cat (Mr. Zip)?

Every one of us is a beloved child of God. This fact can permeate how we interact with each person we encounter.