faith – Page 2 – Spiritual accompaniment

Pondering our spiritual landscape

May 2, 2025

I was born in Colorado (a high-altitude, mountainous geography with some areas dry, flat, and/or farmland areas); I have spent most of my life in North America’s Pacific Northwest. When I periodically drive to Colorado to visit relatives, I am struck by the contrast of the lush geography of where I live and the simple beauty of the semi-arid geography found in parts of Wyoming located between Washington State/B.C./Oregon and Colorado. Wyoming’s dry stretches with layered, red cliffs and “red rocks” particularly attract my imagination.

We sometimes use our physical surroundings as an analogy for reflecting upon our spiritual, emotional, and intellectual lives. I am deeply rooted, for example, in the rainforest-esque rich landscape of where I live and I appreciate the opportunity to take photos such as the one above. I find it appealing to compare such geography to luscious experience of spiritual realms. Yet, arid geographies also have their beauty.

Deserts can be analogous to dry periods in one’s spiritual life. We all experience spiritual deserts at one time or another (sometimes, for long, perplexing, and/or difficult periods!). Finding out way out of such periods can be challenging (listening for the quiet voice of the spirit inviting us out of such deserts can be helpful!). With that said, the beauty – and simplicity – of semi-arid geography can also be an opportunity to focus on our spiritual life without distraction. Rather than being a barren or desolate experience, such times can be fruitful opportunities to clear away the clutter in our faith journeys. Times to focus on simplicity and directness with clarity of vision. What really matters in our lives? What do I need to clear out of my life? When feeling emotionally depleted or spiritually bankrupt, going to dry, arid geography can sometimes help to to cultivate a focused relationship with the divine. Such simplicity draws some people to contemplative prayer and/or to a life in which we focus more on the inner experience of faith and on being of service to other people – the aspects of faith that matter – rather than opting for the avoiding-what-matters (or, avoiding-what-I-don’t-want-to-deal-with) distractions available in more abundant geographies and in cities.

For anyone interested in exploring contemplative prayer, please feel welcome to check out Contemplative Outreach or the writings of mystics (such as Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, or Julian of Norwich). For anyone interested in spirituality in dry geographic locations, I came upon an appealing blog: 11 Sacred Places in New Mexico.

Kim Burkhardt blogs at A Parish Catechis t (and is a member of the Association of Catholic Publishers). Blogging is sustainable via blog readership (i.e. readers/subscribers). If you are a new visitor, it would be great to have you subscribe to follow this blog (thank you!). If you know someone who would like this blog, please share it with them and invite them to subscribe (thank you!).

Living and experiencing faith: it really is about love

April 30, 2025

I grew up in pews every Sunday, four years in parochial school. I believed in God, believed in having a relationship with God, felt a deep, meaningful connection to liturgical ritual (I was the type of child who would notice how much the sanctuary candles had burned down each week and would notice when the shortened candles would be replaced with new candles)….. I later left the pews in my mid-twenties, in part because I couldn’t intellectually accept everything in the Nicene Creed (specifically, the parts that I would later call “biologically implausibilities” – a virgin birth, the ascension….).

Later, a profound reconversion brought me back to the pews (I tell that story here ). It was the type of experience that makes this explanation palpable:

“The Greek Fathers liken man’s encounter with God to the experience of someone walking over the mountains in the mist: he takes a step forward and suddenly finds that he is on the edge of a precipice, with no sold ground beneath his foot but only a bottomless abyss.” Quote: The Orthodox Way (Revised Edition, page 13), Bishop Kallistos Ware

In my reconversion experience and in the time that followed, I deeply experienced that God loves me. I found tremendous value in reading Teresa of Avila’s autobiography and the writings of John of the Cross who “schematized the steps of mystical ascent—a self-communion that in quietude leads the individual from the inharmonious distractions of the world to the sublime peace of reunion between the soul and God.”

Experiencing that God loves us is life-changing. I came to recognize that “we can’t think our way to God.”

Wondering what faith is meant to be about? Whether your faith is on track? Wondering how to engage more deeply in faith?

Love really is the measure what faith is all about. Matthew 22: 34-40: “The greatest commandments are…love the Lord your God….and….love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

Having a loving interactive prayer relationship with God is absolutely part of what makes faith meaningful. An active prayer life is what animates an active faith. “There can be no faith without prayer” and “prayer is the respiration of faith” are quotes I’ve come across that make sense.

In my experience, an interactive prayer life is what subsequently animates faith made visible via “love the Lord your God…and…love your neighbor.”

Wondering about how to have an active prayer life?

The apostles asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Most of us aren’t born knowing how to pray. Thus, the apostle’s question resulted in them being given The Lord’s Prayer.

Rather than prayer being an activity, prayer is a relationship. There’s a faith song with a line “There’s a hunger in our hearts….” Yes, we do live with a hunger. A longing for a relationship with the divine.

There’s an explanation about prayer being a relationship that may be attributed to Fr. Mike Schmidt (i.e., “Bible in a year” podcast). The explanation goes something like this: Prayer is a two-way communication, like a phone call. You wouldn’t call someone, tell them something, then hang up without giving the other person an opportunity to respond. Prayer should be the same way. When we pray, it should be a two-way communication in which we communicate to God and allow God to be tangibly present to us in response.

So, how can we pray? Really, this question asks “how can we have a relationship with God?” Ultimately, there are as many ways to pray are there are people. A few examples of approaches to prayer:

Lectio Divina: Reflectfully reading and praying upon scripture and additional faith reading.
Contemplative prayer: simply being quiet in God’s presence. For more about this style of “Be still and know that I am God” prayer, check out the Contemplative Outreach network.
Attending church. Church services are a form of communal prayer.
Rote prayers (check out examples here of the prayers recited at church).

Beyond prayer – a place where we experience loving God and being loved by God – there is then loving our neighbor. For those of us who are “saints in training” rather than “saints already,” loving our neighbor is learned rather than an auto-pilot activity.

There are endless ways to love the people in our lives. There’s a phrase that may have come from Presbyterians: “Love your neighbor means everybody.” We don’t get to pick and choose who we are to love. We are to love everybody. For many of us, that’s a tall order.

How do we “love everybody?” If you’re like me, you’re not there yet. For starters, loving everybody means we can’t hate anybody. We need to become ever conscious of “how am I going to treat everyone I encounter with love and dignity?” How we achieve that varies depending on the context. “Whatsoever you do for the least of my fellows” – we take care of people who need our assistance. We treat everyone with dignity. We stand tall in being good to the people in our daily lives. There are endless ways to be good to everybody we encounter. For most of us, there are plenty of ways to continually improve at this – a good way to focus on growing in faithfulness.

Easter: Resurrection, surrender, transformation

April 20, 2025

Easter: Christ has risen!

In Christ’s resurrection, we are offered transformation.

We – in and of ourselves – cannot transform ourselves into the fullness of who we are meant to be.

….This is the fourth Lenten season in a row when I have experienced medical challenges – surgeries, etc. This year, I broke my left foot on March 19^th.

After March 19, I continued falling (mishaps with crutches, etc.). In addition to a broken left foot, I subsequently sprained my right foot. Ended up with medical boots on both feet. Then….On the morning of April 6, I fell again (two boots makes navigation difficult). I sent an email to a couple people about this, ending the email with “Anger doesn’t begin to describe…..” One person replied with insightful observations about surrender.

It’s true. I know it’s true – I reach such a point of surrender-to-God in 2016 with a subsequent transformation in 2016 (that surrender involved a homily at an Irish mass and a broken ankle!).

For Christ to truly transform us, we have to surrender ourselves and our greatest difficulties to God.

Surrendering doesn’t just mean some limited-scope prayer to God and “hoping” that something positive will happen. It doesn’t mean we hang onto some aspect of what we supposedly surrender – as if what we surrender still somehow belongs to us. No. True surrender means that we no longer have possession (ownership) or control.

True surrender comes when we surrender our hardest challenges. The challenges we don’t tell people about. Challenges that we somehow feel tied to….. Challenges that are eating away at our very being.

When we truly surrender these aspects of our lives to God and allow God to do whatever God wants to do (WE DON’T KNOW WHAT GOD’S GOING TO DO!), true and life-giving transformation of our very selves happens in and through God. Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

It’s Easter, Christ has risen! A great time to surrender to experience transformation offered by the Risen Christ.

Good Friday, Tenebrae, grace, pending resurrection

April 18, 2025

Welcome to Good Friday.

In his book Beyond Tenebrae, author Bradley J. Birzer writes “I am fascinated by the recognition of Tenebrae (…..3 pm on Good Friday)…… The extinguishing of light, candle by candle, the stripping of the altar, the bearing of the books, the departure from the chapel in a deafening silence.” As we move through Holy Week, I am

God’s grace in our lives and the transformation offered us as a result of the resurrection are how I find my being within Christianity. I wrote in a recent post, “We are indeed ‘a resurrection people,’ our redemption is made possible as a result of Christ’s death on the cross. There’s a redemptive joy possible through God’s ability to transfigure us – when we allow God to work in us – that motivates my continued prayer life…..”

As you experience Good Friday today, make it an encounter with Christ rather than just another day. Reflect: what are your plans for the upcoming Easter season (the time between Easter and Pentecost)? This is a great season within the liturgical year to surrender into a transformative relationship with Christ, allowing God to move us more fully into the people we are meant to be. If anyone is pondering whether it’s worth it to surrender into allowing God to transform our very being, just ponder how well one’s inner life and life circumstances are going without surrendering to God being in charge – that should satisfactorily answer whether to turn one’s life over to God. This opportunity to surrender is one in which “I have been Crucified with Christ. It is no longer I, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). We give up any pretense of running our own lives. Acts 17:28: “For it is in God that we live and move and have our being.”

Easter is coming! Alleluia!

We are a resurrection people

March 29, 2025

“We are a resurrection people.”

This statement struck me when I recently started reading the book Guide for Celebrating Holy Week and The Triduum.

This statement resonates with what drives me to share with people about growing in faith.

We are indeed “A resurrection people,” a good phrase to discuss during this Lenten season.

Christ died for our salvation. We don’t celebrate Easter each year for the sole purpose of being mournful about Christ’s death. Yes, we look at Christ’s passion and our own sinful nature during Lent. That’s not all, though. Each Lenten season is an opportunity to celebrate that our redemption is made possible as a result of Christ’s death on the cross. There’s a redemptive joy possible through God’s ability to transfigure us – when we allow God to work in us – that motivates my continued prayer life (prayer is a relationship with God in which we rest in God’s presence and take joy in that transformative relationship, allowing God to turn us into the people we are meant to be. There is, too, everything else that prayer is – bringing all of our life to God, having a back-and-forth relationship). There’s both the opportunity for joy and a responsibility that comes with redemption.

When we fully enter into our Christian faith tradition, we have the opportunity to experience the “already” aspect of the “already but not yet” Kingdom of God. Specifically, Christ’s resurrection inaugurated the Kingdom of God, while, of course, the fullness of this is “yet to come” (as stated by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops: “The tension is often described in terms of “already but not yet”: i.e., we already live in the grace of the kingdom, but it is not yet the completed kingdom.”).

We have the opportunity to really do a deep dive into the fullness of Christianity. In doing so, God will bring us to the fullest measure of joy that we can experience in this life and to be a meaure of goodness in the lives of the people around us. Further, we have a responsibility to do this. Christ didn’t die on the cross so that we would bypass the opportunity to fully experience what we’re being offered.

Actively participating in Christianity provides a multitude of ways to “jump in to a life of faith with both feet.” Being of service, participating in faith development programs at church – there are so many ways to get involved….

Lent Challenge: 1700th Anniversary of Council of Nicea

February 22, 2025

This year, 2025, marks the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea (the photo above shows architecture in Nicea that is still standing, was present in the days of the Council of Nicea).

So, what’s the big deal about that?

The apostles were expecting Jesus’ second coming during their generation. Also, Christ died at a time when the Jews were just starting to supplement their oral tradition with more written texts. Thus, it didn’t occur to the apostles and the early Christian communities to immediately, after Jesus’ death, write down the essentials of Christianity for future generations. Why write down the essentials of Jesus’ faith when Jesus was coming back soon?

Thus, It took several decades for the gospels to start to be written. The earliest church didn’t have the New Testament that we have today….

So, by the year 325, any number of things were being said to be Christian teachings that were theologically “all over the map.” The Council of Nicea (the council happened in the then-community of Nicea, in what is now Turkey) was called by the Roman Emperor Constantine to definitively settle “What we believe.” Bishops from both the Eastern and Western churches met over the summer to hammer out “What we believe” [between approximately 250 – 318 bishops attended. Bishops traveled to Nicea from across the Mediterranean, North Africa, Asia, Jerusalem, etc. without the benefits of automobiles or airplanes, though they did have ship travel).

Among the matters that came out of that Council was the Nicene Creed.

Today, 1,700 years later, we recite either the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed at every mass. That’s our big deal about the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea.

Have you taken time to reflect on our Creed? If we were to read the Creed with strictly modern sensibilities, there’s enough to give just about anyone heartburn. Jesus was born of a virgin? Physically rose from the dead?

I grew up believing in having a personal relationship with a monotheistic deity and I loved church ritual. I struggled with what I would later call “biological implausibilities” (virgin birth, the Assumption, etc.). It took me decades to work through these “implausibilities.” Now that I am largely on the other side of working through these matters, I have a faith that is richer and deeper. It turns out that developing a maturing faith requires that we really figure out how we personally relate to our Catholic faith.

1700 years into the Creed, have you reflected on the Creed? For Lent this year, maybe try writing a line-by-line explanation of what the Creed means (Lent starts on March 5^th this year) If you’d like resources to assist with this Lenten project, a book that I read in college might prove helpful – a book by Fr. John A. Hardon called ”Pocket Catholic Catechism.”

Book Review: Preaching the Just Word (Burghardt)

January 21, 2025

I recently stumbled upon this book, Preaching the Just Word by Walter J. Burghardt, S.J. (i.e., a Jesuit). I took an immediate interest in the book because of the author’s name. My last name is Burkhardt. I found out a couple years ago that my paternal grandfather was actually born Burghardt, he started spelling his name with a K instead of G in high school or in his early 20’s – possibly to differentiate himself from his father and/or siblings because there had been multiple levels of “falling out” within the family…. So when I found this book and learned that there had been a prominent theologian named Burghardt (not a common name!), I hoped that I might be distantly related to the author! As it turns out, Walter Burghardt’s parents came to the New York area directly from Poland or Austria in the early 1900’s, whereas my Burghardt relatives moved from Germany to a German enclave in Russia’s Volga River region in the late 1700’s before migrating to the U.S.’s midwest farming region…. So, any unlikely biological connection between me and this book’s author would be very remote. Yet, I decided to read this book.

I am finding this book to be a worthwhile read already, just a few pages in. I’ve always been attracted to the inner mystical aspects of faith (my story is told here). In recent years, I’ve pondered how to attract people to exploring the inner aspects of faith (such as contemplative prayer) in an era that encourages people to live a frenetically outer life and ignore or avoid inward reflection (i.e., “who wants to go inward when this ultimately requires us work through the inner emotional challenges that are an inherent to being human?”). An inner, prayerful relationship with God is necessary to fully and vibrantly being a person of faith – and joyous (“a peace that passeth all understanding!”). Yet, Walter J. Burghardt rightly points out at the beginning of this book that a solely inward faith is wrongly individualistic (a modern-day form of selfishness). A “faith” that is solely focused on a personal relationship with God isn’t fully faith – this would merely be naval-gazing.

Burghardt explains that the ultimate point of the Christian life on earth is to love one another as we love ourselves. We are called to take care of one another in a radically self-sacrificing manner. We are called to live as part of an interwoven web of caring, socially connected to one another.

There’s a balance for each of us to be a person of faith: a joy-filled inner prayer life in which God nurtures a personal relationship with us combined with the necessary and just manifestations of this inward prayerful relationship: we become the people God intends us to be and we radically love and serve the people around us.

From darkness to light

January 13, 2025

In the words of (Cardinal) Timothy Radcliffe, “We are all radically incomplete.”

In our incompleteness, each of us have areas of darkness. The fact, though, that all of us are radically incomplete provides comfort – we aren’t alone in experiencing the human condition (in Radcliffe’s statement that we are all radically incomplete, he immediately goes on to say “And we need each other”).

It is in the embrace of God’s love for us that we move from darkness to light.

It is because of all of this – such compelling aspects of our human experience (darkness, love, light) – that there are repeating threads of “from darkness to light” within the Christian faith tradition.

We celebrate the redeemer’s birth at the darkest time of the year (northern hemisphere) – the earthly appearance of the one who provides us with hope and light through the Resurrection (the Risen Christ).

We are now into January: each day is lighter and longer than the previous day. Joyousness. This is how I choose to look at the daily time of darkness and contrasting light at this time of year. In contrast, I met a person several years ago (2013?) who talked about – and focused on – “how short and dark the days are from October through February” (an accurate but dreary assessment!). I, on the other hand, choose to start counting in November who many weeks and then days there are until days start getting lighter and longer (i.e., counting toward the Winter Solstice). Then, I take joy each day after the solstice in having more light that day.

Days are getting longer now – for those of us in the northern hemisphere. When I drive to work in the early hours of the morning, I see the Seattle skyline in contrast to the night sky – a lovely image. I recently made a point of taking the photo of this Seattle skyline shown here before it gets too light in the early morning to take such a photo. In the midst of my dark drive to work, though, I also feel the joy of increasing light and God’s love for us.

A loving relationship with God does bring us from the darkest corners of our human experience to hope and love. Personally, I find the experience of this loving relationship in the stillness and deep surrender of contemplative prayer. And in being good to other people.

Monasteries of the Spirit (poetic ponderings)

January 8, 2025

Last year, I composed a poetic pondering about our human experience of faith. That blog post as well received, so I’m trying another poetic pondering with a look toward our personal faith engagement. (Note: I took the photo above at the centuries-old Clonmacnoise monastic ruins in Western Ireland.)

Monasteries of the Spirit

Monasteries of the Spirit are:

Grace-filled spaces, a place of rest and nourishment
Environments where we can encounter God’s love

Monasteries of the Spirit are also a space of last year’s poetic ponderings:

We move – seemingly unaware of the mechanics our own locomotion – through journeys of the soul prompted by the Holy Spirit
We sing with joy and weightlessness toward the upper mountain heights of God’s love
We wonder when happening upon liminal places

How do we be seek out Monasteries of the Spirit? Through an engaged faith journey:

Regular engaged participation in one’s faith tradition.

An active prayer life with attentiveness to – and surrender to – promptings of the Holy Spirit. These promptings nudge us toward an inner relationship with God through prayer.

May your faith journey be wonder-filled.

What Christians Believe

December 26, 2024

A woman I know started telling her co-workers that she attends church. She hadn’t told her co-workers about this in the two years she’d been working at her job. Her co-workers were surprised that a surprisingly normal and intelligent person such as her attends church. “So,” her co-workers would ask her, “Are you one of those Christians who believes that the Earth is only 3,000 – 6,000 years old?” and other such questions. “No,” she would reply, “Of course not.” She would point out in these conversations that The Big Bang Theory was formulated by a Catholic priest…..

So, what DO Christians believe? While some aspects of this question varies from one denomination to another, Christian leadership did come together in the year 325 in Nicea (a then-Greek city in what is now Iznek, Turkey) to specify precisely what Christian do believe. (I learned recently that ruins of some of the local Nicean architecture that existed at the time of the council in 325 still exists – I’d love to visit and see the remains of the architecture).

Christianity grew out of a historically oral tradition and Jesus’s followers thought in the decades following his death and resurrection that he was going to return in their lifetimes; thus, no one started writing what is now The New Testament for several decades. While it would be tempting to think now – 2,000 years later – that Christian belief in its’ current state has been statically known and accepted since the time Christ was alive, there was a lack of established Orthodoxy in the early days of Christianity. Thus, the need in the year 325 to communicate clearly what the Christian Church believes.

Join A Parish Catechist on Saturday, January 4th (8:00 am Pacific) or January 7th (7:00 pm Pacific) for a Zoom educational session about the specifics of “What Christians Believe” via the Nicene Creed. Sign up (register) here: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C084CA4A629A3F4C43-54130811-faith#/