Over the past six years I’ve shared my walk of faith in my column for the Summit Daily News and I see a better version of myself today than existed when I began. But now I’m curious. How you are living your faith?

Today begins what I hope will be the first of many interviews that I’ll share in the coming year. Let’s meet Amy Evans, a Breckenridge fine artist. I chose Amy because she leads two centering prayer groups in Breckenridge and I wanted to know how her faith practice informs her artwork.

Would you like to share your walk of faith with others? Please send me an email at: [email protected] Here are some questions to get you started: How has your faith changed your life? What spiritual practices resonate with your heart? Where do you go to find and speak with God? I look forward to hearing from you!

What compelled me to get up and go to swim practice in pre-dawn darkness? I loved swimming. I loved competing. I loved my teammates. I loved how it felt to glide through the water. I loved everything about swimming. And I knew the only way to excel at swimming was to practice it consistently — always pushing myself to do better.

My devotion to my swimming career in high school is what came to mind as I tried to find a way to describe my newfound pleasure in attending weekday morning Mass and evening prayer and praying the rosary.

When I first moved to Breckenridge, I didn’t know a soul, but I began regularly attending the Saturday evening mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Church. I was greeted by Barbara Rasmussen who always said “hello” and asked how I was doing.

If I didn’t show up for a few weeks, she asked where I’d been the next time she saw me, which had the effect of giving me second thoughts before I skipped another Saturday evening Mass. It was also an important lifeline because I was going through a difficult depression during that first year.

Church communities offer a special kind of support that we might not find elsewhere. I believe it is because we understand that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and it is God who responds, “Come to me all you who are burdened and weary and I will give you rest.”

I’ve begun attending 8 a.m. Mass at St. Mary’s on Sunday mornings. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be doing this, I would have laughed because I’ve never been a morning person.

On a recent phone call, I told Mom I began going to the 8 a.m. Mass because Ken brought doughnuts from Daylight Donuts along with freshly made coffee.

I’ll do just about anything for a chocolate covered doughnut or two.

The other day, I listened to Bishop Robert Barron and Alex O’Conner, host of the CosmicSkeptic and university student at Oxford, debate the existence of God.

Eventually, the argument came to the question of suffering. This argument usually proceeds as: If God exists and allows suffering, he is uncaring or uninvolved in our lives, or God does not exist. In any of these instances, this God is not worthy of our interest, much less worship.

The counterargument generally revolves around original sin, fallen man, therefore there is evil, and while God might permit evil to play out on earth, in the afterlife, all will be redeemed.

sometimes get mad at God. Not for something he has done but for something he has not done, which I, in my infinite wisdom, felt he should have. Of course, my wisdom is not infinite; it’s actually pretty limited. And God‘s wisdom is infinite, which means I often don’t understand things from his greater perspective.

That doesn’t stop me from getting mad at God because I am human and was created with free will. And God, in his infinite wisdom, never wanted to deny me the freedom to make mistakes and learn or, more often, blame him for the outcome of my poor decisions or shortsighted vision of how things should be right now.

I believe the question we should ask is not why more Americans don’t believe in God or don’t go to church. God exists whether we acknowledge him or not. And we have created churches to suit every taste, from dance halls to living rooms.

The real question is: Why don’t more Americans find personal meaning in a relationship with God? How do we create a meaningful, personal relationship with God?

It got me thinking of my own approach to reading the Bible this year. I am reading the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, just two chapters a week over the course of the entire year.

I got the idea when I received my Word on Fire Bible, which contains only the four Gospels but also a wealth of commentary and vibrant artwork related to every important passage so that commentary and artwork make up as many pages as the actual sacred text.

I’ve discovered that this wealth of information has greatly expanded my understanding of the context of each passage. As I read, I find myself underlining passages, taking notes in my journal. Best of all, I look forward to reading each day.

Which brings me to a few quick tips I’d like to share...

#catholic #christian #inspiration #faith #bible

“The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. — Ecclesiastes 1:5”

Last week, I watched the sun rise over the Atlantic Ocean every morning, and I don’t know why I was surprised to discover that no two sunrises are alike.

Some mornings it rose behind clouds, its arrival hidden until the very last moment when, suddenly, the sky was suffused with orange and pink until the smallest edge of fire overcame the clouds, which sat upon the ocean like a flotilla helpless to hold back such beauty.

The first few mornings, I went out to watch the sunrise to be able to say that I had. Once I realized each morning would offer an unexpected entrance, that became my focus.

When all is well in our lives, God’s love warms our heart and warms our back and blesses everything we touch, and during these days, it is easy to love God in return because, like the sunrise on a clear morning, there is nothing to hide the radiance of that love.

#catholic #christian #inspiration

One afternoon sitting at an outdoor café in Paris, I felt a bit sad, and so I paid my bill and headed across the square to the Louis Vuitton store and bought myself a purse.

That purse sits on a shelf in my closet. Nowadays, I’d feel silly carrying it anywhere in Breckenridge. Thankfully, we live in a low-key town. If you stroll down the aisles of City Market, you’d be hard-pressed to differentiate the billionaires from the regular folks. I like that.

I worked for eight years on the 98th floor of 2 World Trade Center in New York City and used to stand at the tall windows facing uptown and feel like I was on top of the world. Now, I can’t imagine any skyscraper comparing to the beauty of the mountains I see each morning from my bedroom window.

When I lived overseas, the highlight of most evenings was meeting my friends for drinks. For the past year, I’ve been meeting my friends from St. Mary’s and Our Lady of Peace on Zoom at 5 p.m. for evening prayer.

I am tickled pink that my priorities have matured over the decades, especially as I enter my 59th year. But I take no credit for the change. It was God.