Maria Lynch ’12, ‘14M.Ed.

In teaching, we stress the importance of cognitive dissonance—challenging students’ entrenched thoughts by introducing a new idea or complexity—as the basis of learning. This is one way students experience “conversion” to a new or stronger understanding.

Introducing the Monty Hall Let’s Make a Deal problem in math, for example, leads us out of basic probability into higher level reasoning. And I’ll never forget explaining to my students that the orientation of the standard map was a choice—a bias, even—and that the “bottom” of the globe could just as easily be the “top.” One tired teenager exclaimed, “Stop, Ms. Lynch, you’re making my brain hurt!”
 
I find cognitive dissonance to also be at the heart of spiritual growth and the best evangelizing. Three persons in one God—talk about a brain teaser!
 
Growing up in Seattle, in the “least churched” part of the country, our family’s faith was more personal and, when public, aimed at challenging the stereotypes of “religious people” by being more normal and dynamic than society expected us to be. We went to daily Mass, served at the cathedral’s soup kitchen, and discussed the dignity of workers and immigrants. Our home was littered with articles on Just War Theory, books on Theology of the Body, and Feminists for Life newsletters.
 
After 18 years of one type of cognitive dissonance, my own ideas of what public faith should look like were challenged when I attended Notre Dame. While I had learned to build bridges growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I had also become a little diffident regarding faith. How could my Kansas City roommate pray out loud at restaurants and openly discuss her faith outside of youth group while conversing so easily with frat boys and fully committing to our insane Halloween costumes (the Wayne and Garth one was pretty legendary)?

Notre Dame students were constantly surprising me with how boldly Catholic they were without being condescendingly pious. They were unabashedly yet approachably holy. This four-year period was perhaps the most important if understated conversion of my life.
 
While we all at times hope for a “big bang” conversion, Lent is a gradual conversion, a time given to us once a year to rediscover Jesus’ and our own normalcy, humanity, fear, temptations, and strength. I have, in these 40 days, caught myself doing something I would not have believed possible: turning down the snooze button for an early morning prayer, craving Confession, crying tears of true compassion for another.

In this annual season of cognitive dissonance, what can we discover anew about ourselves and our God?