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The Pain & Substance of Gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving.

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Sorry that this isn’t your typical feel-good Thanksgiving post.

On Tuesday, my job had a large Thanksgiving lunch for all the staff and clients we serve. I got my food and sat down next to some of my coworkers and across from a client I had never seen before. She was very friendly. She didn’t ask me my name or anything; she just began asking me questions about what I was doing for the holiday, where I was going, if my parents were still alive/together, if I had any siblings, so on and so forth.

As she kept firing one question about my Thanksgiving week after another, I started to feel an awkward tension developing because I wasn’t returning any of these questions back to her. I wondered if my coworkers thought this was odd of me to do, but it was very intentional.
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Christmas Sing-Along House Show on December 9th!

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

The Birdhouse (the house/venue I share share with the manliest of men) is having another house show. All of them have been pretty fantastic, but I’m expecting this one to blow the others away, because this will be a Christmas Sing-Along show. Yes. You read that right. Each act will do some originals, but the majority of their set will be sing-alongs for all of us to join in. Here are the details:

The Birdhouse presents, vol. 4: Deck the Halls
Friday, December 9th at 7pm.
2204 Catharine St Philadelphia, PA 19146

If you’re interested in coming, check out the Facebook Event Page and RSVP. Also be sure to go to our website and listen/download recordings from the other shows (the album for the second show might be coming soon). Then come on by and bring any food, drink (especially cider), and merriment you may have to spare and enjoy the evening. This will be epic. Confirmed musicians for the evening (so far):

  • Josh Schurr
  • Luke Bartolomeo
  • Ashley Haugen and Jen Huber

“I once dated someone that…” {on enduring love}

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

 I hate being able to say that line.

I was reminded of this when I was walking out of one of my neighborhood coffeeshops this past week and overheard someone begin a story like that just as I walked out of earshot. The person saying this–a woman–said this in an almost cheery way. My first thought was, “I never say that phrase in that tone.” At least for me, there is a sobriety and somberness that I feel whenever some sort of reference to an old relationship comes up.

So, like I said, I hate being able to say that. Yes, yes, I know: I’ve learned much in these experiences and my story is my story and I wouldn’t be who I am and where I am without them. I wouldn’t know God, suffering, people, their hearts, counseling, or relationships in any sort of depth or in a way that could help others had I not gone through these things.
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Join Us for a Tour of Biblical History at the Penn Museum this Saturday!

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

For those those in Philadelphia or nearby, I’ll be leading a tour of The University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology of Anthropology focusing on Biblical History (mainly Old Testament). They have a very rich collection of items from the regions in which most all of Biblical History unfolds: Mesopotamia, Canaan, and Egypt. We will be following the unfolding storyline of the Bible as we travel to each section, learning the context and the history that set the stage for the faith many of us now call our own.

If you’re interested, meet us at 12pm on Saturday, November 19th in the courtyard in front of the main entrance (pictured above). The cost is $10 for adults and $6 for students (and well worth the price). The museum is located at 33rd and Spruce (map), right across the South St bridge. (Parking advice: park on the east side of the South St bridge in the Graduate Hospital area and then walk over the bridge). See you there!

Redefinition (or, “Paul: broken & beautiful” or, “on why the lack of bloggage”)

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

This is a weird post to write. The past two months have seen such a change and revelation in so much of who I am. God, that sounds so dramatic. Well, this season has been pretty dramatic, so I guess it’s okay. Let’s talk.

A little over a year ago, I wrote a series of blog posts called I’m A Fearful Man (and i need to get over it). In them, I talked about some of the subtle currents of fear at work in my heart; I talked of their source, their outworking, and how they led to great anxiety, insecurity, and non-communication in my life.

Throughout the series, I received great encouragement and comments from others and there seemed to be an excitement building as I wrote each post. People saw much of themselves in my story and baggage and were looking forward to the conclusion of this story to see how I was going to address these issues.
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art that makes me cry (thank you, Jen Huber)

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments


This is another amazing piece called “Broken Hold” (original post) by one of my favorite artists and closest friends, Jennifer Huber (I’ve featured her art here before). In all seriousness, I just started crying looking at this and just had to post it. This particular piece reminded me a lot of one of my favorite songs by some other good friends of mine (who are also amazing artists), the band My Epic. You can find the song and the lyrics below. This piece especially reminded me of the last line of the song. Enjoy.

“Communion” by My Epic [Spotify] [YouTube]  Continue reading →

you can always tell the health of an urban neighborhood by…

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

… the number of trick-or-treaters.

I just frustrated a few middle schoolers (way too old to go trick-or-treating) who knocked on our door and were miffed that we had no candy to give. They were probably also confused by the fact that both my roommate and I had yelled “come in!” in reply to the door-knocks.

We had done this because last year my roommates and I bought a big thing of candy in anticipation of the trick-or-treaters and none showed up. And so we expected this year to be the same. We didn’t even think about the chance of any trick-or-treaters coming. But, alas, they won’t stop knocking on our door tonight; the street is teeming with them. At this point, we’re just ignoring the knocks, not wanting to incur the wrath of any more children.

So much must have happened in the past year in our particular neighborhood of Graduate Hospital in Southwest Center City Philadelphia. It’s exciting to watch all that is happening in this amazing city we call home.

Retelling the Story (in crisis, loss, & healing)

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Why does healing take time? Have you ever asked yourself that? Why does pain, heartbreak, and loss seem to have a very real lifespan it must go through before the process seems completely done?

As I’ve said several times before on this blog, we humans live on the basis of story. Our life, our world, and our faith provide our lives with a grand “narrative” in which all of our “sub-plots” find shape. We can’t help but use this shape of the present story to fashion some sort of idea of where this story is going. We’ve all experienced this when reading a book. The entire time, we have a guess of where the plot is heading; as we receive more information, we naturally readjust our expectations and thoughts as to the goal or end.

In short, the only way we know to make sense of the various aspects of our lives is to give them shape, narrative, and an anticipated goal towards which they are moving. This is the only way we know to justify each step forward we take in this career, relationship, etc. It gives us our bearings and a point of reference.

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one of the manliest quotes ever

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

–Theodore Roosevelt (thanks, David Schrott)

Dmitri, I Am (on sin, story, & salvation)

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

I once read a very good book by one of my former professors called When People Are Big and God is Small. It’s about the sin many in church history have called “Fear of Man.” I read this entire book with a particular friend in mind, wanting to know what I could say to her to help her in her struggles with this. It wasn’t until the final pages that I realized that this was something that I myself wrestle with profoundly.

But the book was now done, I didn’t want to immediately re-read it, and so I had missed my place in the story; I had missed how it could have spoken to me and perhaps led me to some freedom and healing in this. Indeed, even though I’d hear the author lecture about it years later, I still write about and struggle with my “Fear of Man” issues today.

Have you ever had a similar experience of missing yourself in a story?
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A Theology of Sleep (i need it) | Psalms 63, 121, 127

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Lately, I haven’t been able to sleep. It’s not that if I lay in my bed, I can’t fall asleep, mind you. It’s the getting to bed part that keeps getting to me. I find myself staying up way too late (usually writing up these blog posts) until I can barely function, and then falling into my bed–unconscious even before my head hits the pillow. I then struggle to wake up and don’t end up having time and energy to start my day in the way I would hope.

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Of Robes & Righteousness

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

Yesterday I went to two church services. The first was my home church, where I participated in one of the best services we’ve ever had (oh, Communion was so sweet!); the second was the church of one of my closest and dearest friends. I could have just met up with him after his service, but I decided to go anyway. Why?

I thought I was looking pretty good yesterday.

Of course, this wasn’t the only reason I went (it’s an amazing church and I’d definitely go there if liberti weren’t around), but it was a real factor. People had spent that morning complimenting me, and I both appreciated and enjoyed it. And so, I wanted to be seen. (Surely all of us have experienced this sometime, right? Come on, I’m just trying to be honest.)

During the service, I found myself thinking about this. There is a constant conflict we have with our embodied selves and the garments that clothe them. I’ve spoken of this tension before and how our responses to it often betray a hatred we seem to have for our bodies. Our clothing both reveals and conceals at the same time; it communicates things about us all the while hiding our greatest intimacies.

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