Living out Life's Lessons
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For Elizabeth Kerwin, CSJ, the lessons that move us through the years are always unfolding and revealing new and more intricate layers of life. As a Spiritual Director at Loyola Spiritual Center, her unique insights are rooted in a background in biology, including several years of teaching science at St. Margaret's High School. In Liz Kerwin's biology class, students learned through the experience of nature, and everyone, including Liz, grew as a result. Liz says, “I always had the attitude that if I quit learning from my students I better quit teaching.”
Liz Kerwin began teaching a St. Margaret’s in 1967, right after finishing her Masters in Biology at Notre Dame, where she had finished a very transformative experience herself. It was around this time that scientists were embracing an ecological approach in academia, as opposed to more traditional views. |
Ecological theories were exciting to Liz, spiritually and intellectually. The ecological approach focused on the interconnections between ecosystems, living things, weather cycles, and environments. This approach resonated with Liz’s own belief that all things were interconnected, and essentially everything was one with God.
St. Margaret’s High School was also embracing the ecological approach in their curriculum, and thus Liz Kerwin chose to teach there, where she could share her own enthusiasm and insights about ecology. Soon the grounds around St. Margaret’s became the student’s laboratory. They spent time in the Elloise Butler Garden, the pond, and Theodore Worth Park. The classes observed early spring in natural habitats. They put pond water under microscopes under different times of the year, to see how it changed with the seasons. Just as nothing is separate in ecology, the students were no longer separate from nature. They were no longer just learning about the earth, they were experiencing it one to one.
In the years after teaching at St. Margaret’s, Liz Kerwin continues to revel in nature and ecology. She still believes that the best ministry happens one to one, but now she fosters insight and growth through Spiritual Direction. She explains, “In spiritual direction I listen with each person to discover where God is present and active in their lives.” Her background in biology continues to spur new revelations in her work with individuals. Recently Liz wrote, “As I listen to others each day it is obvious that animals teach us innumerable and repeated lessons from and about God. The same is true of plants and stars, of earth, water, air, fire, weather patterns and, of course, the people brought into our daily life. Is it any wonder that in the end of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatious of Loyola we are all invited to find God in all things?”
Just as with her students Liz listens, encourages and questions, in order to bring people more deeply into their own experience of life, and she still recognizes her work as a blessing. She says, “I have been blessed with an abundance of good relationships, education, travel, meaningful ministry, grace beyond belief. I still have more to learn and I agree with Mary Oliver, the poet, I am not just visiting the world.” Through Liz Kerwin’s eyes life is a perpetual lesson, and she is continually living out what she’s learned.
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