A Beacon of Light

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  • My name is Kevin Carroll. I was born and raised in San Francisco, California, where I attended Saint Ignatius College Preparatory. I am a graduate of both Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco. Following a 40-year career in teaching and pastoral ministry, I launched a new career as a writer and speaker.

    I live in San José, California. My wife, Kathy, and I have three adult sons and five precious grandchildren. I have much for which to be grateful.

    I can be reached via email at kmc43sjc@gmail.com

    My books are available for purchase online from Amazon. I also have copies of some of these titles at my home for those who would like to buy them directly from me.

    A Moment’s Pause for Gratitude  (2017)

    Cherries in the Summer  (2021)

    The Ambassador of 38th Avenue  (2022)

    Dad: 12 Questions…  (2023)

    A Focus on Gratitude  (2024)

    Through the Lens of Gratitude  (2024)

    A Bahamian Odyssey (2026)

  • Courage

    A Shakespearean Sonnet

    The world is not the place it used to be.
    I guess this could be said in every age.
    Corruption, violence, all too much to see.
    With passions high, so many turn to rage.

    With no commitment to the common good,
    injustice can be seen most everywhere.
    If leaders simply did the things they should,
    they’d put an end to hatred and despair.

    Their greed and quest for privilege leaves us all
    so powerless to change the status quo.
    In time, this fragile world is bound to fall,
    and misery is all we’ll ever know.

    Despite the chaos which I’ve written of,
    with courage, we can view our world with love.

    © kmc2026

  • 4 x 18 = 72

    “The longer I live, 
    the more beautiful 
    life becomes.” 
    Frank Lloyd Wright

    Life is not without its pains and challenges. We are all confronted with experiences, situations, and individuals who make life difficult for us. Despite this reality, life is good — or, at least, it can be, if we allow it to be.

    I recently turned 72. That’s a lot of years! To live this long, it’s inevitable that I would have encountered times of struggle along the way, and I have. For the most part, those difficult times have come and gone. I have no doubt that there will be other challenging times in my future. That’s just how life works. Yet, when I look at my life through the lens of gratitude, it’s clear to me that I’ve been blessed in more ways than I ever deserved. 

    If I acknowledged my birthday only once every four years, I would now have had a total of 18 birthday celebrations. 4 x 18 = 72, right? The photo on the left side above is me at age four. The other image is me today. 68 years have passed since that first photo was taken. Those years included countless joys and sorrows, victories and defeats, successes and failures, acceptances and rejections, hopes and disappointments, and myriad experiences, both positive and negative. My life has not been perfect, but it’s been very good, and for this, I am incredibly grateful.

    As I face the reality of getting older, I am encouraged by the words of the influential Swiss psychotherapist, Carl Jung, who wrote, “A human being would certainly not grow to be 70 or 80 years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species to which he belongs. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.”  

    I’ve learned that aging gracefully isn’t about looking young, it’s about embracing who I am.

    The English poet, Robert Browning, offers this encouraging invitation: “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.” I offer this same invitation to you.

  • “Working Fire!”

    “The hero is the man  
    who lets no obstacle  
    prevent him from  
    pursuing the values  
    he has chosen.”       
    Andrew Bernstein

    It was the late 1960s. I was at home one night when my Dad’s fire department radio, which we kept on 24/7 in the kitchen, announced that there was a “working fire” at the corner of 9th & 12th Avenues in The City. I don’t recall where Dad had been earlier in the evening, but he was wearing a suit. I was sitting at the kitchen table wondering how 9th & 12th Avenues could be an intersection, since the two streets, as far as I knew, ran parallel to each other, north to south.

    I got up from the table and asked Dad my 9th & 12th Avenue intersection question, explaining that there was a working fire at that location. Dad got up and walked into the kitchen to listen to the radio. The first thing he heard was a call for a 3rd alarm. He turned to me and said, “C’mon. Let’s take a ride.” He was off-duty, but firefighting was his life.

    The next thing I knew, we were cruising up Vicente Street, then Taraval to 14th Avenue. At the top of the steep hill, we turned right on Quintara and right again on 12th Avenue. Dad parked the car halfway down the block and we walked quickly toward the fire apparatus parked in front of the burning home. Sure enough, at the end of the block, the street sign read 9th & 12th Avenues. A house on the other side of the street was fully engulfed in flames.

    A hysterical woman was being told by one of the firefighters that the two women she claimed were in the home were not in the structure. He told her they had checked all the rooms. The woman insisted that the two elderly women never left their home and that she was sure they were still inside. 

    Dad turned to me and said, “Stay right here.” The next thing I knew, Dad was entering the home in search of the two women.

    I don’t recall how long he was inside the burning building. I remember it seemed like an eternity. I wondered how I would get home if anything happened to him. I was too young to drive, and the car keys were in his pocket.

    Finally, Dad emerged from the home. He informed the firefighter who had been speaking with the two women that the elderly women were, indeed, inside the home. He found their bodies in the back downstairs room, apparently victims of smoke inhalation. 

    I had not thought about that incident in many years, until last Thursday when I was walking the third segment of the Crosstown Trail with my friend, Mary. The walk took us up 9th Avenue to 12th on our way to 14th & Quintara. I noticed that two houses near the intersection were a notably different style than the others on the block. I’m guessing that the fire that night sixty years ago did enough damage to the neighboring house that both homes needed to be rebuilt.

    The memories of that night were vivid as I stood at the intersection on Thursday. I remember thinking that night that my Dad was a hero, even though the two women had perished. My thoughts about him have not changed.

  • Another City Walk

    The Moraga Steps

    “San Francisco itself
    is art… every block  
    is a short story,  
    every hill a novel.”  
    William Saroyan

    One of my favorite quotes, often attributed to Mark Twain, tells us, “A person who does not read has no advantage over one who cannot read.” Although there is no solid evidence to support that Twain ever said this, the message is clear. This same line of reasoning can apply to walking. A person who does not walk has no advantage over one who cannot walk.

    By the grace of God, at the age of 72, I still have the ability to walk. For this reason, I choose to walk. My goal is to average 5,000 steps per day, acknowledging that not every day is a walking day. On my walking days, I try to log between 10,000 and 20,000 steps. On the last two Mondays of May this year, I walked 40,000 steps (20 miles) each day. On Friday, May 15th, I got together with a friend to walk the second segment of the Crosstown Trail in The City — a 17,500-step trek from Glen Park BART station to Forest Hill Station. This past Thursday, June 11th, my friend and I got together again to walk the third segment of the trail — from Forest Hill Station to the corner of 16th & Judah. I ended the day with a total of 19,300 steps, yet the adventure was much more strenuous than the 40,000-step walks I took in May.

    I met my friend, Mary, for breakfast at Java Beach Café on Judah Street, just across from Ocean Beach. After a bite to eat, we walked along Sunset Dunes to Taraval Street, where we boarded the “L” streetcar to Forest Hill Station. This is where the real challenge of the day began. When we disembarked the light rail vehicle, we climbed the 113 stairs from the tunnel platform to the street-level station. It was the first of several staircases we would encounter on our journey.

    Following the directions provided online for the Crosstown Trail, from Forest Hill Station we walked along Magellan Avenue to the Grand Pacheco Stairway. Another staircase led us up to 9th Avenue. Our walk through Golden Gate Heights involved a few more staircases, which included one which led us to the peak of Grandview Park, appropriately named for the 360º view of The City the hilltop provides. We then began our descent, which included three more staircases. The first one zig-zagged down the hill from Grandview Park to Noriega Street, near 15th Avenue. The second was the famous 16th Avenue Tiled Steps (commonly referred to as the Moraga Steps). The last staircase was the lesser-known Hidden Garden Steps, which took us to the intersection of 16th & Kirkham. Our walk ended one block north, at the corner of 16th & Judah.

    Of the 19,300 steps we walked on Thursday, about 1,000 of them were stairs — some we walked up, others we walked down. It was a physically-demanding excursion, but the views of The City from various points along the way made for a memorable outing.

    At this time last year, I was averaging 5,533 steps per day. In 2026, I’m averaging only 4,309 steps per day. I have a little catching-up to do.

  • One Day at a Time

    These words by C.S. Lewis, from his book Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, remind us that life must be lived one day at a time. We cannot embrace today’s challenges with yesterday’s faith. Each sunrise offers us an opportunity to consciously choose to trust God in that new day. 

    Humans, however, seem to have short memories. It is so easy for us to forget past blessings when we are confronted with new sources of anxiety. Sadly, our natural default setting tends to be one of self-reliance. We are often overwhelmed by the burden of dealing on our own with the difficulties which arise in our lives, even though, deep down inside, we know that God is available to help us with any challenges we might encounter.

    I’ve received a number of positive responses to a quote I used in my blog post on Friday, June 5th. Many readers can relate to the question posed by author Corrie Ten Boom, who asked, “Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” It seems that we are comfortable with turning to God in times of crisis (like the spare tire in the trunk of our car), yet we don’t capitalize on the opportunity to allow God to consistently direct us, to guide us, to lead us through our day-to-day activities. We believe that we can handle things on our own — and often it seems that we can. In reality, however, when we allow God to direct our lives, when we humble ourselves enough to surrender to God’s loving care, life is so much more manageable. 

    The popular phrase “Let go; let God” is not evidence of hopelessness or resignation on our part. It’s not about our giving up due to frustration or apathy. “Let go; let God” is about surrendering ourselves to the love of God. It’s about acknowledging that, in many circumstances, we are powerless to change a situation, or a person. Our reliance on a higher power is not a sign of weakness, it’s an act of faith — total and complete faith. It’s acknowledging that God wants what is best for us, even when we might not know exactly what that might be.  

    From our earliest days, we are encouraged to “deal with it” when difficult situations arise. We are often praised for our self-reliance if we are able to handle crisis situations on our own, without the intervention of others. Yes, this can be a good thing. Yet, as we get older, we come to realize that there are times when we simply don’t have the ability or tools to respond to a particular situation effectively. These may be challenges caused by our own words or decisions, or they might be the result of the actions or provocations of others. In either case, we can easily find ourselves feeling powerless and overwhelmed. 

    As I mentioned, reliance on God is an act of faith, one which allows us to acknowledge our vulnerabilities and personal limitations. Only when we are willing to do so can we experience the serenity we so desperately seek in life. 

  • What Might Have Been

    “Of all the words 
    of mice and men, 
    the saddest are, 
    ‘It might have been.’” 
    Kurt Vonnegut

    Given the reality that I am now retired and 72 years of age, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to know that I occasionally reflect back on what might have been in my life. I do so not with regret, but with wonder. How might my life have been different if I’d chosen a different path?

    In the years following my graduation from Saint Ignatius College Preparatory in June 1972, there were a number of career options I considered. Throughout my childhood, and even through my high school years, I assumed I would pursue a career in firefighting in the City of San Francisco. That’s what my Dad did, as did my paternal grandfather.

    A totally unexpected opportunity was offered to me in 1974 with an invitation to teach at a high school in The Bahamas for one year. The experience was transformative, but temporary. There was another career path I’d been considering for seven years — a vocation to the Jesuit priesthood. I felt that I needed to pursue that possibility until such time as it was clear whether or not that was my calling.

    I entered the Jesuit Novitiate in September 1975. Although I had thought about the possibility of being a Jesuit for many years, there was never a time when I was absolutely confident that priesthood was my calling. I mentioned this to my spiritual director at the Novitiate when I first arrived there. He assured me that I was in a good place to clarify that possibility. It didn’t take long. Though I enjoyed my time in the Novitiate, by February 1976, it was absolutely clear to me that I did not have a calling to ordained ministry.

    As I continued my education at Santa Clara University, with the intention of returning to teach in The Bahamas, I was offered a part-time teaching position at Bellarmine College Prep. I taught there for three years while completing my undergraduate degree. Upon my graduation from Santa Clara, I applied to be rehired at Saint Augustine’s College in Nassau. The principal, Mr. Leviticus Adderley, sent me a welcoming letter informing me that I had a teaching position at SAC for the 1979-80 academic year… and beyond. I was ready to pack my bags and go, until another unexpected invitation caught me off-guard and derailed that plan.

    The principal at Saint Christopher School in San José, a school to which I had not applied for a job, offered me a teaching position beginning in September 1979. At first, I explained that I had already accepted a position in The Bahamas. Then reality set in. I was renting a house in Santa Clara for well below market value. I had a car. My family and most of my friends were in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before long, the thought of relocating to The Bahamas seemed impractical and unwise, so I regretfully contacted Mr. Adderley, thanked him for the job offer, but explained that I had accepted a teaching job closer to home.

    With each of these possibilities I passed up, I have often wondered what might have been. What if I’d accepted the job with the San Francisco Fire Department? I had passed the exam and received a letter in 1978 informing me that I had a job, but I didn’t take it. What if I’d decided to return to Nassau to live and teach there? What if I had stayed in the Jesuits and served as a priest throughout my lifetime? Instead, I ended up teaching in catholic schools and working in pastoral ministry in catholic parishes until June 2021.

    While I have enjoyed my life, I absolutely understand Kurt Vonnegut’s words in the quote above. The reality is this: I’ll never know what might have been,… and that’s okay.

  • Self-Acceptance

    “Character 
    is what you do 
    when no one 
    is looking.” 
    Coach John Wooden

    I recently heard about an activity in which participants of a group discussion were invited to write a list of people they admired. These people could be family members, friends, coworkers, celebrities, professional athletes, or anyone else who inspired them. The list was to be written on the left half of a sheet of paper which had been folded vertically.

    Once their list was complete, participants were told to write the character traits they admired in each person they listed. These were to be written on the right-hand side of their paper. 

    I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but I got the idea that participants were challenged to see each of the character traits listed… in themselves.

    It’s so easy to overlook our own giftedness, our own goodness, and our own strengths of character. Self-criticism seems to be a trait of being human. We can see the giftedness in others, but we honestly believe that if people really knew us the way we know ourselves, they would be disappointed in who we truly are. We tend to be our own harshest critic.

    I invite and challenge you to do this exercise for yourself. Who do you admire? Write down their names. What is about them that causes you to admire them? Write down their traits. Then consider how those traits just might apply to you, too.

    It would be nice if we could see ourselves through the lens of other people. Others, it seems, are better able to see and appreciate the giftedness and goodness in us. 

  • We are…

    “We are… S.I.”
    Vince Tringali

    It was the fall of 1968. In the previous academic year, Saint Ignatius High School had joined the West Catholic Athletic League after years of competing in San Francisco’s Academic Athletic Association. Pundits had predicted that it would take S.I. several years to be competitive in the WCAL, as the level of competition was significantly greater than what they had experienced in the City league. Despite this warning, the Wildcats won WCAL championships in both football and basketball in their inaugural season in the new league.

    I’m sure Coach Vince Tringali had high hopes for the 1968 Wildcats football squad. They had a number of returning varsity players and promised to be a force to be reckoned with in the league once again. In preparation for the first game of the season, an all-school rally was held in the gymnasium of the old S.I. campus on Stanyan Street. Cheerleaders led cheers and members of the Rally Committee put on skits to entertain the student body. The rally concluded with a passionate speech by Coach Tringali.

    If I recall correctly, he spoke for about 15 minutes. I don’t remember anything he said in the main body of his presentation, but the fervor with which he spoke is unforgettable. The conclusion of his speech has echoed through the stands of athletic competitions involving the Wildcats for more than fifty years.

    As he neared the end of his speech, Tringali got quiet, and increasingly passionate. Holding the microphone in one hand, he whispered, “S.I.” Then he said it again, “S.I.” It’s difficult to put the emphasis of his tone into words, but he spit out the letters with incredible force. “S.I.”

    Then, with even more emphasis, the coach said, “We are… S.I.” He said it slowly. He said it deliberately. Then he said it again, and again, and again, increasing in both volume and intensity each time. “We are…S.I.”

    As the cadence of his words set the tone, the cheerleaders joined Coach Tringali in front of the S.I. student body, inviting and encouraging the students to stand and join in the proclamation. Before too long, the entire gym was rocking to the sound of more than a thousand high school boys, led by the intense coach and five cheerleaders, shouting, “We are… S.I.”

    Someone with a drum began accompanying the chant: “We are (boom, boom) S.I. (boom, boom). We are (boom, boom) S.I. (boom, boom). We are (boom, boom) S.I. (boom, boom).” The entire student body was worked up into a frenzy of excitement for the upcoming game. I had never experienced anything like it.

    I spoke with Bob Sarlatte (S.I. ’68), who played on that 1967 championship team under Coach Tringali’s leadership, outside Java Beach Café on Sloat Boulevard last Friday afternoon. I asked him if that cheer had ever been used during his years as a student at S.I. He acknowledged that it had not, but then said he thought Coach Tringali had something to do with introducing it. So I shared my memory of that September 1968 rally. 

    It’s been almost sixty years since that rally, but the pride of S.I. is still expressed at athletic events to this day with Coach Tringali’s memorable words… “We are… S.I.” 

  • Global Communication

    “The Internet  
    is becoming the  
    town square  
    for the  
    global village  
    of tomorrow.” 
    Bill Gates

    It’s been 27 years since Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, wrote these words in his 1999 book, Business @ the Speed of Thought. His words have proven to be prophetic. Were he to repeat this thought today, he may acknowledge that the internet has actually become the town square of the global village.

    I can sit here in my home office and write a blog post to publish on A Beacon of Light. These blog posts are accessible globally. Through the years, I’ve had readers from the San Francisco Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, Southern California, the Midwest, the East Coast, the Southwest, the Rocky Mountains, and the South. 

    There are also regular (and not so regular) readers of my blog in Japan, The Bahamas, Jamaica, Ireland, and Canada. If there are others, I just don’t know about them. The internet has most definitely shrunk the world and formed what can accurately be described as a global village.

    More importantly, the internet provides the opportunity for me to keep in regular contact with family and friends throughout the world.

    Prior to 1999, I was a prolific letter writer. Even throughout my high school years, I enjoyed corresponding with people through the exchange of handwritten letters and cards. In fact, I’m confident that my writing skills are what they are today because of the practice of letter-writing in my younger days. I would begin by jotting down three things I wanted to share in a letter. Then I’d begin writing with a generic “hello/how are you?” paragraph, followed by one paragraph dedicated to each of the three topics I’d selected. I would finish the letter with a concluding paragraph. Ta-Da! A classic five-paragraph essay!

    While the internet can be, has been, and will continue to be used by some for negative purposes, it can also be utilized to nurture relationships and to promote peace, learning, gratitude, reconciliation, understanding, healing, and so much more.

    For this, I am tremendously grateful.

  • Rejection

    “Rejection is merely  
    a redirection;  
    a course correction  
    to your destiny.”
    Bryant McGill

    I was fourteen years old. It was my freshman year of high school. Wanting to experience my high school years to the fullest, I decided to attend the Rally Mixer, the first dance of the 1968-69 academic year. Mixers were dances which did not require dates. While some couples attended the dance, most of those in attendance were there solo. St. Ignatius High School was an all-boys institution, but there was no shortage of girls at the dance. At that time, there were nine all-girls’ high schools. Tickets to the Rally Mixer were sold at these schools. I bought my solo ticket on campus.

    The night of the dance, I found my comfort zone standing against the back wall of the gym on the Stanyan Street campus with a number of other freshman guys. Some of the guys may have summoned up the courage to ask a girl to dance at some point, but I was not one of them. I had no confidence in myself when it came to dancing. Nor was I comfortable asking a girl I didn’t know to dance, even though I was well-aware that many of the girls who were there that night were hoping to be invited to dance.

    As the evening went on, I noticed a young girl sitting alone on the bleachers on the west wall of the gym. She was quite attractive, so I assumed that she was with someone. I thought that, perhaps, her date had gone to use the rest room or to pick up a snack or drink from the concessions stand in the gym lobby. Periodically, I would glance back over at her. She was still sitting alone.

    As the dance was winding down, the band (yes, a live band) leader announced that they were preparing to play the last song of the evening. Then, much to my embarrassment, he called us out. “Hey, all you freshman who’ve been standing against the back wall all night, get out there and ask someone to dance.”

    Again, I glanced over at the girl sitting on the bleachers. She was still alone. I took a deep breath, walked over to the bleachers, and climbed up three rows. “Would you like to dance?” I inquired.

    She looked directly into my eyes. The expression on her face was pleasant. So I was a bit caught off-guard when she responded, with no malice in her voice, “With you? No thanks.”

    Ouch! I didn’t know how to respond, so I just turned, climbed down the three rows of the bleachers, and returned to my safe space against the back wall. 

    In September of this year, it will be 58 years since that awkward, painful experience. At the end of that academic year, S.I. moved from the Stanyan Street campus into the new facilities on 37th Avenue in the Sunset District. I have not set foot in that gym since May 1969, yet I remember the encounter vividly. In the years since that time, I’ve learned that we should never let one rejection make us feel like a failure. It’s just one chapter of a much bigger story. I understand this, yet when I had the opportunity to stop by the Koret Health Center of the University of San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon, I had a strong desire to go back to that gymnasium. The Stanyan Street classroom building was razed many years ago to make room for the Health Center, but the old gym was spared and is now connected to the newer facility. I entered the gym and walked over to the back wall, my comfort zone, with crystal clear memories of the events of that night.

    I find solace in the words of author, entrepreneur, and speaker Jamie Kern Lima who said, “Rejection is just a reminder that you are putting yourself out there and trying new things, which takes courage.”

    I didn’t attend another high school dance until the end of my sophomore year, when I was invited to the Presentation High School Junior Prom. That’s right,… a sophomore going to the junior prom at one of the all-girls’ high schools. That changed everything!