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What People Are Saying About Kathleen . . .

  • Thank you so much for your amazing message on Sunday. I can think of no way that the gifts of women could have been celebrated better. I expected excellence and you more than delivered. We are to blessed that you shared your awesome talent with us.
  • Thank you for your incredible "God Talk" this past weekend. I can't tell you how much I am inspired by the words you so carefully craft to enlighten those who are on the journey. A journey for some who have just begun and for others who are at a different point in the journey. What incredible sensitivity you have in knowing how to reach each of us with your words.
  • Kathleen was a wonderful speaker, guide through this retreat.
  • Thank you for the beautiful retreat you led today. All six of us from St. Luke Lutheran in Bellevue thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and felt spiritually nourished by your wisdom, discernment, knowledge and ability to lead. We appreciate the hospitality offered us. Thank you for inviting us; we hope to receive more invitations to programs you lead in the future. - Roselyn
  • Thank you for an amazing God-filled retreat! That was an awesome Saturday. Please keep me in mind should you have another retreat in the future. - Bernie
  • I needed Saturday! You are an excellent facilitator. I hope I will have the opportunity to attend some of your other programs.- Mary
  • Thank you for your joyful spirit! I realize how much I did not know. - Penny
  • Thank you for a wonderful way to celebrate the Easter Octave and for sharing of your time, effort, and self at the retreat yesterday. - Betty
  • I really enjoyed the retreat. You were so well prepared and it was so good to have time to discuss questions at the table. - Judy

Bit of a Bio. . .

In the beginning…

It all started long ago when my sister, Terry, was born. At the tender age of 19 months, I was automatically promoted to the rank of Big Sister. I ended up being the oldest of seven sisters—and one brother, and that has been the basic position I tend to occupy in life. It has been my natural inclination and lifelong interest to reflect upon the relationships among women and to do so within the positive frame of sisterhood

While Terry and I were still in the primary grades of St. Mary Star of the Sea School, I developed the habit of "God talk.” Terry and I shared the same room, and she would often ask, "Kathleen, talk me to sleep.”  And so, I talked aloud about the things I wondered …did Jesus get colds when he was a boy…who did he play with since he didn’t have a sister…did Mary teach him to pray…when did he know that he was God?

I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the beginning of a lifelong habit. My simple childhood, “God talk,” I later came to understand as theological reflection, examining all of life through the question, “where is God in this?” These two early tendencies of mine, thinking like a big sister and musing about God, fused together into a world view, the place out of which I continue to relate to people and minister. 

Family

Ministering as a Lay Woman

Master of Divinity Degree

In my office hangs a matted collage with my Baptismal Certificate and my Master of Divinity degree. Encircling the documents are small black and white, cut-out pictures of family members holding an infant in a long, white baptismal robe. This small cluster of familiar faces was my first faith Community. The Baptismal Certificate attests to the power and dignity that is mine in Christ. It is the strength and grace of the Sacrament that empowers me to minister. The Master of Divinity degree represents the Formation that equipped me to do that well. At any time, I can glance up and be reminded of all three: Community, Sacrament, and Formation. They sustained the various ministries that were a major part of my adult life. They sustain me still.

Today…


Currently, I am accompanying and supporting my husband on his own journey of faith as he's returned to the Lutheran church of his childhood. He is a happy sojourner at United Lutheran Bella Vista, ELCA. We have both felt most welcomed and while, like the tiger and her stripes, I remain Catholic, I am thoroughly enjoying hanging out with these Lutherans--and still enjoy returning to my home parish of St. Pat's whenever I can.

Our God is a God of relationship. My first relationship is with God, but I am also daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, teacher, and mentor. I draw from these in all that I do. Always we live out our relationship to God in our relationships with others, one of life’s greatest privileges and joys.

I continue to encounter new “sisters,” women of strength and character within the stories of Scripture. Their lives, seemingly so ancient and long ago, still touch my own life and I bring their stories to others. These ancient sisters had the same trials, the same questions as we do today, and their stories offer a timeless wisdom. They, also, have entered the circle of relationship. It is my hope that my studies and books will allow you to meet them too. And you will be encouraged to encounter God in Scripture, within relationships, and in the quiet of your own pondering and prayer.

Our library

WHY THESE WOMEN? is published!

In WHY THESE WOMEN, you are invited to consider that we are missing something in skipping over the four women in the opening of Matthew’s Gospel, their names, and their stories—something critical to the full appreciation and understanding of the Gospel which follows.

What if we took seriously the anomalous presence of four women in the all-male lineup of ancestors that opens the New Testament? What if we read their colorful stories for more than the titillation they contain but probed them with sacred questions and expectation?

We might discover that the stories of these women become a part of Jesus’ own story, their experiences and lessons woven into his parables and into his unfailing respect and compassion for women. We might recognize how he was formed by the stories of his people, including the women.

We might see these women as examples of those for whom he came, women who suffer injustice, then and now. Their stories serve as evidence of our failure to notice; their placement redirects us toward addressing that exclusion with all that it implies.

We might find hope that the God who planted their stories within the great larger Story provides purpose and meaning for our stories as well. We might even find that we read the Jesus story that follows somewhat differently, changed by what we have read.

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WHY THESE WOMEN?

MAGDALA 


MAGDALA is the online journal of the Assisi Colloquy. Their website can be accessed here:  MAGDALA. The summer edition on BEING  will feature my article, Being Beautiful in the Bible. The journal comes out of Italy and is offered in three languages: English, Italian, and French. Guess we've now gone international!

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