.jpg)
FINDING GOD ON PARK STREET
Dive into the heart of the Catholic experience at Yale University with host Grace Klise, Director of Alumni Engagement at Saint Thomas More. In each episode, Grace and her student co-hosts engage in conversations with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members. Together, they discuss the nuances of living out the Catholic faith in today's world, culminating in the question, "Where have you found God?" This podcast offers a space to explore the intersection of spirituality, community, and education, providing listeners with personal insights and meaningful perspectives. Subscribe now to join the journey of discovery and connection.
FINDING GOD ON PARK STREET
Dr. Kristopher Kahle ’07 M.D. Ph.D.: In the Heart of Suffering
Dr. Kristopher Kahle, a neurosurgeon and neurodevelopmental researcher with a background that's as rich in faith as it is in academia, joins us to share a remarkable narrative that bridges faith and science. Raised on a Wisconsin farm in a Lutheran family and later shaped by his Jesuit teachers, Dr. Kahle's life story is a testament to the profound ways in which spirituality can coexist with, and enhance, a scientific career. With each patient he encounters and every complex mystery of the brain he unravels, his Catholic faith remains a grounding force, imbuing his work with compassion and purpose.
As a father and husband, Dr. Kahle's insights extend beyond the operating room or laboratory. Parenthood, he eloquently describes, is a profound journey where the lessons of faith and love are passed on within the 'domestic church' of the home. His personal experiences reveal how the vulnerabilities and strengths encountered in professional settings can shape the more significant work that takes place in the home and family. This conversation is a touching reminder of the enduring influence of family, the sanctity of raising children, and the importance of prayer and reflection as we navigate both the everyday and the extraordinary aspects of life.
Finally, Dr. Kahle speaks to the resilience of the human spirit that inspires him. From the hopeful eyes of the young patients he serves to the pages of theological and literary works he turns to for wisdom, his reflections encourage us to seek out moments of grace and introspection in our own lives because God meets us there. Tune in to this conversation to be reminded of the fact that integrating our faith with every part of our lives leads to true flourishing and ultimate joy.
Show notes:
Mentioned in the episode: the Jesuits, Michelangelo’s Pietà
What Dr. Kahle is reading: Moby Dick (Harper & Brothers, 1851) by Herman Melville
Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection (Ignatius Press, 2011) by Pope Benedict XVI
Sacra Pagina: The Gospel of Matthew (Liturgical Press, 1991) by Daniel J. Harrington, S.J.
Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Word on Fire Classics, 2022) by St. Thérèse of Lisieux
This is a podcast from Saint Thomas More Yale's Catholic Chapel and Center. I'm your host, Grace Klise, with my student co-host today, Zach Moynihan. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Finding God on Park Street. Our faith does not shy away from the realities of suffering, and neither does today's guest.
Grace Klise:Dr. Kristopher Kahle graduated from Yale in 2007 with his medical and doctorate degrees. Not only a skilled neurosurgeon at Yale New Haven Hospital and director of pediatric neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Dr. Kahle is a scientist researching neurodevelopment disorders. From a sense of wonder of the natural world as a child to the influence of his Jesuit teachers in high school that led him home to the Catholic Church, Dr . Kahle sees his life as a clinician and researcher, and as a husband and father, as an integrated whole. Serving his patients, modeling God's love for his children, nourishing his intellectual and spiritual life during his commute and grounding his days in prayer are all essential to who he is and the life to which God has called him. This is a special episode with an alumnus who is on the front lines of tremendous suffering, and he's discovered that God's grace is abundantly present there too. Let's dive in. So, Dr. Kahle, you hold a number of impressive professional titles, but when did you first become interested in neuroscience?
Dr. Kris Kahle:I have two different paths and a lot of times they don't necessarily feel like they're fitting on the same head, in the sense that I'm both a clinician and a scientist. So I guess the first question is, for either one of those paths, how did I get inspired? There's a couple of photos that I didn't even know existed until, I think one a couple of holidays ago, when I was with my own kids back in my folks' house in Wisconsin looking through some of our pictures. It just had me dressed up in a lab coat, pouring colored water from one test tube to another, and that was probably around the age of five or six and so, growing up, we were just in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin at that time anyway, nowhere Wisconsin. Now it's been built out a little bit, but living on ten acres in Brookfield, Wisconsin, essentially bordering the cornfield. So my kids make fun of me because I always tell them that, hey, when I grew up, before my brother John was born, I was kind of on my own for a while. And imagine this-- there's no internet, so what do you do? There's no Netflix. And I guess the answer is that I was doing experiments, and so then that evolved into just a fascination with the natural world, and I think that was easy to come at by living in such a place where you know that beauty was all around.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And then, as I got into high school and college, thinking about how to take that interest in science or that passion for wonder, essentially, how can I channel that? So it is maybe most useful or most helpful and one of the best definitions I've come across, in fact a vocation, by this. He's not a Catholic theologian, but he's a Protestant theologian and preacher, Frederick Buechner. He said something like,"v ocation is the place where your passion meets the world's greatest need. And so I thought, well, if there was some way to apply this interest in science and to try to help somebody.
Dr. Kris Kahle:I thought that doing it within the realm of medicine was the most maybe practical, and then pushing it further, you know, you begin to experience different fields, and I remember reading some of the early descriptions of brain development in Aristotle.
Dr. Kris Kahle:I was just thinking like, wow, this is the most amazing thing I've ever read, that this organ that essentially distinguishes us from the rest of creation, at least from our consciousness, has such a patterned development that leads somewhere, that has a telos, that has a purpose. So I thought well, if you're going to center on -- my wife, who's a cardiologist, would probably kill me for saying this-- but I think the brain is the most important, the most cool, and so it was an obvious match. But it definitely evolved over time. And then so, being a pediatric neurosurgeon along with being an investigator, it just seems like the coolest marriage of all those things together, where you're thinking of okay, what are those most vulnerable patients that you can make a real contribution to? How can you study brain development, but in a way that is potentially impactful for disease therapy? So that it just kind of came together over time.
Grace Klise:Yeah, you get to get to be involved in all sides of it, which, as you said, probably at times it's a lot of hats to wear and sometimes maybe hard to determine where exactly you're being called. But just doing your MD, Ph. D. at Yale and the work that you're able to do now, it seems like you've just let that sense of wonder lead and kind of followed where it's led, and I have heard Zach also talk about the brain in that way as the most interesting organ.
Zach Moynihan:I am biased as a neuroscience researcher, I have to say but I would have to agree with Dr., Kahle, that I am also amazed by what the brain is capable of doing, how intricate and complex it is, and you had this great experience doing your MD PhD here at Yale, getting to explore the brain in great detail. I'm wondering if you have any specific memories or standout moments for you. It's a long journey getting that MD PhD. I'm wondering if anything sticks out to you to this day.
Dr. Kris Kahle:It does. But I should say that my foray into neuroscience, it really didn't start out that way as a PhD in Rick Lifton's lab when, of course, he was still at Yale now he's the president of Rockefeller, but at that time he was the chairman of the Department of Genetics at Yale and was teaching undergrads on the Yale College campus their genetics courses. But the disease that I was studying at that time was a kidney disease. But I had really joined Rick's lab based on some interactions that I had with his students, who were very positive. One of, a very good friend, Rick Wilson at that time, who was a PhD student in the lab. I just knew. I knew it was a great environment to be in and I didn't really know where it was going, but I knew that in that environment I would probably learn what I needed to then apply to whatever problem I would ultimately get interested in. That definitely proved true.
Dr. Kris Kahle:It also provided a way to experience the phenomenon that I'll call Dr. Murat Gunel, who was now the chairman of neurosurgery down at Yale, very close friend. He was someone who had trained with Rick and used those tools to study the genetics of brain vascular malformations, and it was an encounter with him that really, you know, I remember him very clearly one day coming to lab with a scrubs on and I was like, well, you know what is this? You know everyone else has either a lab coat on or just, you know, normal kind of street clothes that you would just wear to lab. And do you know who's this guy with these scrubs on and what is he doing here? It seems like a misplaced environment. And then you know I had understood that. Oh wow, this is someone who not only does neurosurgery on patients but is interested in using, you know, a rigorous genetic approach to you know understand the pathogenesis of the diseases that he treats in the operating room.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And so my own career really has been patterned and fashioned really by those two Rick L ifton and Murat Gunel. You know, during my time at Yale, and you know, to this very moment, you know they're my biggest mentors. Anything good happens, I usually let them know about it. Anything that I need advice, you know, and so Yale is, will always be my own development. The critical moments really started there.
Grace Klise:Yeah, amazing to have those two people who have kind of paved the way for this life and work as both a clinician and a scientist, to have them in your corner, that you can continue to encourage one another and to learn from one another. Was your time at Yale also a time of growing in faith, or what did your faith look like when you were growing up out in Wisconsin on ten acre acre farm? And then how was that challenged or nourished, as you really devoted your life to the sciences?
Dr. Kris Kahle:You know my background, from a faith perspective at least, I think is pretty interesting. Again, I think it's just an example again of evolution, in the sense that I was baptized and raised as an evangelical Lutheran in a very conservative state. You know the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. You know, confirmed in that tradition in eighth grade, very, very robust, rigorous confirmation process. You know your Bible very well as a Lutheran.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And then from there my first encounter with Catholicism was really by going to an all- boys Jesuit prep school in Milwaukee named Milwaukee Marquette High, and it was really my encounter with the Jesuits that opened up this whole other world to me of being able to use faith as a lens. I think the encounter with the Jesuits allowed me to synthesize multiple aspects of my life into one common vision versus in a Lutheran tradition. So I think that, for example, the orientation to service and in particular service to the poor. And then, too, this discovery almost of natural theology, which I think hit home with me just from a scientific standpoint, realizing that we can, you know, see God in multiple of his works, not just the word and not just scripture, as in, you know, heavily emphasized in the Lutheran tradition, but also in the created order, and so it just was a, if anything, a more expansive vision and certainly complimentary. And you know, there are elements of my the Lutheran faith and Lutheran upbringing that are still within me.
Dr. Kris Kahle:But I feel like there's more balance in my faith from having encountered the Catholic Church and, in particular, the people within the Church on the Jesuits, that I just, on the one hand, could teach me BC calc and also be my coach after school. I'm playing football while walking back from the field, talking about, you know, Aquinas' take on some existential issue, I mean like, wow, these guys are really well-rounded guys and I want to be like that. I want to be able to, you know, be a scientist and help people by translating my faith, which is just not a theory, to someone who is sick and dying, and I also want to be able to, you know, wrestle with these perennial questions and have a vocabulary to be able to talk with others about it meaningfully. And so it's definitely evolved.
Zach Moynihan:And you've developed this robust faith life, starting with that Jesuit background and thereafter. How has that faith foundation informed your work in the clinic in neurosurgery? This is a discipline that takes a lot of time to get there and then, once you're there, it's a very demanding specialty. I imagine that you interact with a lot of sick patients, especially working with kids and interacting with their families. I'm wondering how this faith foundation that you developed informs your work and potentially keeps you grounded during those hardships and those challenges that inevitably come up in your work.
Dr. Kris Kahle:Yeah, well, I mean, I think I know what the reputation of neurosurgeons are and I don't know if they're necessarily positive. There's a few adjectives or profanities that you could probably sprinkle in here. But in terms of how my faith either intersects with or informs what I do in neurosurgery, I honestly just can't imagine doing neurosurgery without faith. I just can't. It's an essential ingredient that, as my mom would say, my mom would say you can't pour from an empty cup. I feel like the moments that I have in the morning where I'm able to go through the readings for the day, maybe read some commentary or a book on theology, which I always have reading on the way on the train into the hospital. I just cannot fathom tackling the challenges and the issues that we encounter on a day-to-day basis without that lens. And on the flip side, my faith has been kind of inspired by my patients and, in particular, being a pediatric neurosurgeon, I think one thing that our field why it's challenging, but also why I think it's just a complete privilege to be involved in is interactions with parents and who in this sort of the psychologists will call it kind of these boundary experiences, or their courage and their own faith, whether it be maybe less explicit than in our own tradition, yet the self-sacrificial love that they show for their child in a time of sickness and even death is just mind-blowing. And if you wanna see Christ incarnate in the very literal sense of the word, these moments at the bedside with it's not always mom, but a lot of times it's mom with dad accompanying. But when I see that mom holding a very sick or maybe even a dying child, that the picture in my mind is always of Michelangelo's Pieta and Mary holding her son.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And so I've said this before. But our faith is such a oddity and that we, you know, the God that we profess, is one that is not aloof, but is one that is hanging on a cross or is being held by his mother, you know, dying and suffering, and so it's a God that in a mysterious way is able to understand and commune with our suffering. And, and for some, for some people, and for me, on a bad day, that's a sort of mystery that that I you know, by definition, of course don't understand and sometimes can get angry about. But it's also something that I see God there. I don't know what that means, but it's probably because there is a love being demonstrated, that that survives sickness and survives death, and I think that's our, our faith in a nutshell.
Grace Klise:That's the exact image that had come to my mind as you were speaking to that sculpture, or the Mary standing at the foot of the cross too, and, yeah, you know, bearing with us in our suffering. It is a--i t is a great mystery, one that you know, since, since the Apostles, time has confounded us when we've encountered suffering, but also has inspired us and has moved the church forward and has kept us going. And, thank goodness, in our intellectual tradition and in Scripture and then in the lives of those around us, we see examples of this love that suffers to the end and that endures. And yeah, thank goodness that you know, we, we have a faith that doesn't turn away from that or try to deny that, but actually wear around our necks, we have it in the front of our Chapels as a reminder, and then, of course, we have the grace of the sacraments to give us the strength when we don't know how to, how to move forward or what words to say.
Dr. Kris Kahle:Yeah, there's a lot of talk, talk about them. I certainly still have their, their picture, their their face in my mind. But you know, the Chapels at Yale New Haven Hospital or you know, up at MGH. Now I feel like I, you know they probably all know my name because of these sort of the frequency with which we're both involved, you know, in these sorts of these sorts of interactions and you know, I think we, you know it's not my job to to provide that service, but you know it's difficult for me not to witness.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And you know, I think it really comes down to how you define faith and in this, this idea of you know, an explicit faith or a creed that we profess, which is, you know, certainly foundational to who we are as a Church, who we are as people, how we articulate that, being able to articulate that.
Dr. Kris Kahle:But when you have this concept of almost an implicit faith, where you know you can talk to people that are in these situations, maybe with their child, trying to put myself in their position and wondering, you know what, what would happen to that professed faith that I so kind of easily, easily rattle off every Sunday, you know, during, during the creed, whereas I know in real- time, whether they admit it or not, they are incarnating that faith that we profess by the very acts that they're doing. And you know people I've heard it before where people, literally they spell out the Gospel without even knowing it. They say, well, I would give anything to trade places you know with with my kid. You know why them, why not me? You know if there would be some way as a substitute, as a sacrifice, I mean, it's, it's, it's there. They may not know it, but I see it and it's the same sort of you know agape, that.
Zach Moynihan:You know we, we profess this idea of family has always been so important to me in my faith practice. I'm thankful to all those family members who brought me into the faith in the first place. I'm thinking of my godmother, who was my confirmation sponsor and a really big influence over me as I went from the confines of my K to 12, K to 8 actually, Catholic school and then continued at a secular high school and now here at Yale. It's been those presences around me that have kept the faith strong and I think it's it's just such a major part of our faith that I'm so thankful for and you mentioned earlier this notion of self-sacrificial love by parents. You witness this on a daily basis as a pediatric neurosurgeon and I'm sure it means a lot more to you as a father, and I'm wondering what's your favorite thing about being a dad? How does, how does being a father in the first place inform your work and how do you view your role as somebody who is tasked with transmitting this faith to the next generation?
Dr. Kris Kahle:Yeah, it's a huge task. It's why I, you know, say prayers to St Joseph every time after every Mass on Sunday. You know all my vocations, you know, in the order of you're trying to be a disciple who learns, an apostle who is sent out, a husband who cares, a father, and you know I don't even get to be, you know I talk about being a neurosurgeon or a scientist until about you know, four or five things down the list, and so you know, being a father to me first of all, you know, the overwhelming thing that I think of is, first of all, my own dad, and how blessed I was to have him around and he's kind of like like St Joseph. He didn't use a lot of words and just model, models his faith and and and does that, did that in the way that we were raised, and then also is very accepting of me, when you know I really didn't pursue the Lutheran tradition, despite the fact that that was what he was raised in and he understood, you know, understood that along with my, you know, two other brothers which kind of have taken you know, have taken their path. They were kind of before me, but it's all through, you know, our experience in Catholic high school, but just the concept of fatherhood and knowing that you know what really motivates me front and center with trying to be a good dad, and I would say I definitely do my best.
Dr. Kris Kahle:I don't know if I'm a good one or not, but I think that the idea that when my kids are reading the Scriptures and talking about God the Father, that it will be natural for them to link the word Father with what they've experienced through me, and so that is a that is a mind-- to me, a mind- blowing concept. To think that you know, because you get angry or you got a short fuse or you know whatever you know challenges, I personally might have that when they think of Father, that some of those sort of things might get into their concept when they're thinking about God the Father, does he get angry with me, is he too judg mental? Wow, so trying to even you know, allow them to think of, okay, I hope you guys know how much I love you. Now multiply that toward, you know, infinity and try to get a glimpse in your heart about the sort of love that you know God, the Father, has. So yeah, for me it's just realizing that the home, being the domestic Church, and the place where faith is laid down first and should be. You know I take it very seriously about how we try to learn our faith and communicate our faith, and you know I've structured my schedule to the best that I can to.
Dr. Kris Kahle:You know readings for the day, Gospel for the day. You know prayers and use those as just a reference point for, and a lens through which we're looking at other issues going on in their life and always trying to relate the fact that this faith is not an abstract thing that you know we just kind of bring out on Sundays, but is the apparatus that we use to make decisions like, or how to respond when a friend does something that you might not like, or what kind of commitments you're going to give yourself to after school. You know what kind of effort you put into something, I would say it's just an awesome vocation that I pray for daily. Amazing, do either of yo u have kids?
Grace Klise:I am expecting my first in April.
Dr. Kris Kahle:Wow, Easter baby, maybe. Congratulations.
Grace Klise:I hope so for the sake of my work here at STM, I hope baby comes after Triduum.
Dr. Kris Kahle:Yeah well, I know that you've got enough to do at the Triduum down there and anywhere. But wow, well, yeah, I mean, talk about it. The being a parent has made me definitely a better physician. I can say that.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And you know, as a pediatric neurosurgeon, you know, like I said, there are a ton of interactions with families and you know, when I was a resident or even a well, I guess we had our first kid when I was a fellow, but definitely as a resident, you know, you would see, you would have interactions with families and sometimes thinking, man, these guys I just don't understand. These guys are crazy. I don't understand why they're asking so many questions, why they're they're just killing me about that. And then you have your first child and you're like, wow, I would be a terrible patient. I would be doing the same thing if this resident came in with you know, you know ketchup on his scrubs or whatever you know, coming from line. You'd be like, man, just give me the information that I need. And so I totally get it. It's made me a better physician too.
Grace Klise:Fatherhood yeah, it's something my husband and I talk about, in that it is daunting that we will be the first teachers for our child and the first glimpse of God's love as very imperfect people. Yeah, it's a lot of pressure, but again, what a rock we have in our faith to turn to and to draw from as well in that ever- important work of forming these little souls.
Dr. Kris Kahle:Yeah, and there's, and the good thing about being in the Church is that there's a lot of good resources and there's, you know it's not there's. There's a grand vision, there's a, there's a system that is rational and not all the time, but, you know, make makes sense and is, is and is deeply respectful of creation and deeply respectful of our bodies and other people. It's just a you can communicate that vision, which has stood for thousands of years, and it's something that you can. And then there's a vocabulary you can talk about the. You know sin and weakness and fear and hope, and then, of course, how, you know why, why those things aren't the last word.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And so there's, there's, there's mechanisms and resources to, I would say, combat life's issues versus just changing. You know wins that go. You know this day, you know this is what are going to be our approach, and then the next day it's going to be this other approach, based on whatever we hear, or whoever writes that, or a new book that comes out. So I just think that there's. It's a, I think, a very comprehensive way in which you can learn about yourself and learn about how to interact with others.
Grace Klise:Yeah, I'd love to hear from you, Zach, too, because this is something I see in our students that for many, praise God, their home and their family was the foundation of their faith when they come to Yale, and it's challenged in new ways by classes and professors, by peers, by the campus culture that isn't always conducive to cultivating and developing these other parts of ourselves in an integrated way.
Grace Klise:That's the word that keeps coming up as we're talking and thinking about the Jesuits too, and your experience there just how integrated our faith is in that it's not something that we can keep to Sundays, but actually true flourishing comes when we let it infuse every part of our lives. But that's hard to do on a college campus, let alone on Yale's campus.
Zach Moynihan:at times, it certainly is, and you don't get an appreciation for the real intentionality that it takes to maintain your faith until you're thrown into an environment where it is not around you all the time.
Zach Moynihan:I grew up, as I said earlier, in a K-to-8 Catholic school where I would be in my science class and then I'd walk across the hall to my religion class. At the end of the day there were crosses on the walls and we had first Friday mass and we would regularly go to confession and partake in the sacraments. And that was just my childhood and that was my introduction into the faith, and that's why I think I've been able to hold on to those things that made it so strong and meaningful to me in the first place. Being in college it has felt a lot different, but having a place like STM has made the transition so much easier. A lot of that comes from the programming that we have, sure, but it also just comes from peers, older peers especially, people who have served as mentors to me, who model what it means to be a college student and a Catholic, especially somebody working in the sciences as well. I just thank STM for providing that for me.
Dr. Kris Kahle:STM is a very special environment, and the environment in the community that we're at up here now in Boston is like the analog St Paul's. It's the Harvard Catholic Center. Right, that's done with intention. I'm also faculty there, of course. But these sorts of younger, vibrant environments, more academic, usually more progressive, it's just a place where there's always something going on. It's a place where people are asking questions and trying to develop updated answers.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And for me, what was so exhilarating about STM? I remember the first time I went there. I walked in and looked over on the left side of the pew and I saw three or four physicians that I knew because they taught me in medical school. So when I came back as faculty with my own family and my wife was a physician, went to Yale medical school, she's like, oh, that's Dr Coglararo, he's a cardiologist and oh, that's Dr Duffy God rest his soul that taught me professional responsibility, took us to the museum to look at paintings and blah, blah, blah. But I didn't know that they were Catholic, but yet they were all my favorite physicians that when I was in medical school I was like, oh, that's of course why they're different, why they're my favorite physicians, why they were the most caring people. Why this, that and the other? And so it was like a big secret coming out for the first time and I was like it's like a club that you just got invited into. And you're like, yes, of course they are, why wouldn't they be? And for my daughter now, when she was 13, goes to Milton Academy not a Catholic school, but she's able to. You know we still own a house in New Haven, in Worcester Square. We go back to STM up here at St Paul's. She sees very impressive Yale College and Harvard College students that go to church. Oh my God, you're like, wow, really you can go to Yale and Harvard and be smart and also do that. Yeah, you can, and you know you should think about that. It might help you just to see that.
Dr. Kris Kahle:You talked about flourishing or the abundant life. You know having life, but having it more abundantly in these sorts of environments, I think there is, there can be, a tendency for that. Without that community, that beloved community, so to speak, there's just it can get degraded and you can really spin out of control pretty quickly, especially at this tender age. And I, you know, definitely happened to me at Nodes in my Life in retrospect, looking back, either in college or medical school, where those times where the poorest decisions were being made or I felt, you know, the opposite of flourishing, you know, was when those times would now was not close with the community and you know, living my faith. And so we prepare in so many different ways, you know, to go to college or in college. We have to have that, we have to have this all on lockdown. All that stuff is secondary to you're not going to be really equipped to deal with what you need to deal with, in my opinion, without that element.
Grace Klise:Yeah, that's our hope.
Dr. Kris Kahle:And you guys do a great job. It is such a bullying experience, you know, feeling to see. You know, I think we've all been in some of those. Maybe you're on vacation or and going to going to Mass somewhere at a church, you know, and you look around and there's, like you know, just a few old people. You know really, really old people. Nobody, there are no families. I don't see any college kids. Like you're like, is this, is this still a thing? Is this dying out? Is there, is there a future? And then all you have to do is go to one STM Mass or you know, st Paul's Mass and you're like, yes, I see the future, I see it here and you know it's bright. You know it's got a lot of talented folks who are not only going to, not only have faith, but they're going to be able to take that candle and kind of light it up in whatever environment they're going to be in.
Grace Klise:We're also thankful for our alums who are doing that, who are, who are taking their faith and continuing to integrate it into the new challenges and chapters of their lives. So, as we wrap up here, dr Kelly, the last question we ask all of our guests is where have you been finding God recently?
Dr. Kris Kahle:Where have I been finding God recently? I mean, it probably gets back to what I was saying before about parents, parents that end their interactions with their children and my patients. I think that's a. That's another one Seeing the courage that you know a lot of kids have. I don't know where they. You know where they get it, the faith that they, that they reveal, that they show when they're, you know, encountering the kind of the unknown for them and to be as Christ would say, to become like little children, to enter the kingdom of God. And to me, that that sort of littleness, where you're in a calm, faithful matter, showing your utter dependence on someone other than you and then, but yet courageously going forward, that's where I see God, yeah.
Grace Klise:A good model for all of us. I lied. I do have one more question what are you reading right now? And you said you're reading. You read theology or philosophy as you're on the train.
Dr. Kris Kahle:Well, let me. Let me show it to you one second. I'm a multi-book reader because I I shift around. Starting with the second, you can't read Moby Dick enough. So Moby Dick, it is the gospel of Mark for this year. So Harrington's commentary on Mark. Right to bang through the readings, my Lenten Lenten reading. We can't go wrong with Pope Benedict, holy, you know, basically Holy Week, and then learning about my vocation to love by St Therese.
Grace Klise:Wow what a lineup. Oh my goodness, that feeds me Lots of classics there, I love it Couple things to add to my reading list. That's right. Well, thank you so much, Dr Kelly, for your time and and for your witness, and we will see you next time you're in New Haven and stop by STM.
Dr. Kris Kahle:Definitely Well, God bless you guys.
Grace Klise:If you enjoyed listening today, please share this episode with a friend or relative and leave us a rating and review. The producer of this podcast is Robin McShane, director of communications at STM. Sound mixing and editing are by Ryan McAvoy of Yale Broadcast Studio and graphics are by Mary Lou Cadwell of Cadwell Art Direction. We hope this podcast encourages you to seek God's presence in your everyday life. Thanks for listening and know of our prayers.
