by Kathleen Gerwin

Lent just might be my favorite season. That’s not something I advertise and certainly not something I lead with at cocktail parties. When most people hear the word “Lent,” it usually brings to mind images of Girl Scout cookies deferred and pizza every Friday for a month, not to mention oh-so-fun terms like sacrifice and self-deprivation.

This used to be my view of Lent—40 days of chocolate-less Facebook deprivation. For the past few years however, I have been picking a different Lenten commitment to practice over 40 days and it has caused me to fall in love with this beautiful, misunderstood season.

This Lent, I chose gratitude. When I set out to practice gratitude, I had no idea the riches I would discover. I knew that grateful people were happier, healthier, lived longer, and were just more enjoyable to be around. I was excited to focus on all of the riches in my life that I often miss because I’m “too busy” or unaware. What I was really interested in, however, was how this practice might help me to become more thankful for the things that I’m not naturally inclined to be grateful for, like that co-worker who just won’t stop talking while I am furiously working, or the fender bender on my way to  class . . . or even the relationship where my trust was betrayed.

As I have practiced gratitude over the last 30 days or so, I have not found that the interruptions, disappointments and hurts have ceased—if anything, I am even more aware of them. What I have found is that these moments where gratitude seems impossible have opened me up to the opportunity that the moment presents. American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron writes beautifully on this topic. Rather than being originally sinful, Sr. Chodron sees people as originally wounded. Each one of us has a tender place of vulnerability or hurt that we go throughout life trying guard. Sometimes we’re successful at guarding the spot and we feel like life is good and everything is as it should be. Sometimes, however, we fail to defend our wound and stuff gets in—people annoy us or disappoint us or even fail us and we have to experience the pain of our wounding all over again.

It is at these times, however, that we are offered the opportunity to really heal  ourselves. When stuff “gets in” and our defenses break down, that is when we have the chance to become our authentic selves and connect with the fact that we are worthy and loved just as we are and there is no need to go through life with walls up. Suddenly, life becomes more spacious and gentle. The universe is a kinder, more joyful place to be. And that is certainly something to be grateful for.

Dr. Jill at FDR Memorial - One of her Favorite Places

JoAnn:  How do you incorporate spirituality into your teaching?

Dr. Jill: In the Suffering class (PC732 Spiritual and Theological Dimensions of Suffering), we start with a song as a musical response to suffering. I am intentional with incorporating a devotional practice such as a time of silence and framing each class in a theological way. We have two lenses: our social science lens and our religion/spirituality/theology lens. We are in a constant dialectic between them. I think the two different languages are not striving toward the same thing – except health and wholeness. They need to be held in relationship with one another; through this creative tension we find even greater insight. This is integration of spirituality into pastoral care.

JoAnn: Do you identify with the Jesuit Way of Being?

Dr. Jill: Yes, absolutely!  Cura personalis and making men and women for others is what we are trying to do – to create servants. Many service opportunities exist on campus such as CCSJ. This summer I received a Kolvenbach Grant to implement a spiritual/vocational discernment to the job readiness curriculum at Marian House – a program for women with histories of addiction and/or incarceration. Loyola is the most spiritually nurturing place where I have studied with invitations to attend to my relationship with God. That is huge!

JoAnn:  Was there anything that surprised you about Loyola?

Dr. Jill:  I appreciate our students’ maturity and the sacrifices they have made to be here. I have taught at other institutions where the humility of being a graduate student isn’t present. Humility and responsibility are important in graduate work. I had a professor once who said that only less than 1 percent of the population gets to have higher learning, so if you do not feel blessed every day, stop. I think they have an attitude of gratitude and a commitment that I have not seen in any other institution.

JoAnn:  You teach the Suffering Course, Spiritual and Pastoral Care, Introduction to Pastoral Counseling, and what else?

Dr. Jill: I taught Crisis Intervention and this Fall I teach Group Spiritual Guidance.  I will teach Pastoral Care Professional Seminar next semester. That is the kind of work that really excites me; the dialogue between theory and practice, looking at a current ministry situation, turning to what we know about best practices and saying: what are we going to do?

JoAnn: What course do you enjoy teaching most?

Dr. Jill:  I love the Suffering class because it is constructive and fun. We are never going to find out why bad things happen to good people. It’s really fun to wrestle with that question; to dialogue with personal experience and what theologians have been saying for millennia. It’s an interfaith class, so we look at suffering from different faith perspectives. There’s a tragic-comedy element in it because we have to laugh in order to suffer; you need both sides of that coin. Also, we are partnering with Grass Roots here in Columbia. The students in the course work with women-parents and children there. It’s like that book we read this year — What shall we say? Evil, suffering, and the crisis of faith by Thomas G. Long –  that was saying solvitur ambulando: the answer to suffering is by walking. To take on that perspective is empowering in a paradoxical way and deeply spiritual because you give it all over to God. I am not going to fix the world’s suffering in a lifetime, but I take steps toward it.

Read more about Dr. Snodgrass.