Puisque C'est Joli: A love letter to the Berg

The following is a love letter to the place that has impacted me more than perhaps any other physical location on the planet, and I have been on quite a few continents.

The Bergamo Center is a Catholic Marianist lifelong learning center located on 100 acres in the middle of an otherwise bustling area. The nature preserve on the property host some of the most popular hiking trails. While here this past weekend, I took my trusty iPhone loaded with a photo editing app and found myself snapping away.

Through 12 years of Catholic education, I learned many things about God and Jesus and the religion in which I was raised. But as I've realized is the typical situation for most students in Catholic schools, religion is a class and faith has little to do with our rote answers written on tests. Retreat centers like this one give students the opportunity to grow and develop with Christ in an environment away from classroom pressures. It is on retreats where walls break down...

...where divisions crumble....

...where understanding and friendships can grow where differences once stood.

I began my relationship with Bergamo in high school as a participant in retreats sponsored by my school as well as the center itself. Continuing through college, I returned a few times a year to facilitate the very retreats that had moved me so much, longing to aid others in their own spiritual journey. And now I am here again, this time as a teacher, taking a back seat as a chaperon. This has been my most difficult role, not being an active participant in this process. But I realize that just as I needed the opportunity to grow, I must step back and allow the next generation to flourish.

And so I took my solo hike early in the morning to center myself, sitting on a mossy bench in the middle of the woods with only my thoughts and Pandora for company.