All posts by Johnna

I am a Christian educator and writer.I have worked in churches, denominational offices, and seminaries. I have a PhD in Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, with a focus on Practical Theology and educating in faith. In 2010, my book, "How the Other Half Lives: the challenges facing clergy spouses and partners," was published by Pilgrim Press. I believe that words can build doorways that lead to encounters with God through the Spirit.
Education, Meditation

End of the season

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For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what was planted…

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 NRSV

Reading and Eating, the library’s summer reading program, ends this week. Heartfelt thanks to all who gave the program grants and volunteered time, a table of garden snacks, and a show by the Hula Hoop Lady will finish it up. A power point presentation will show children and adults in the garden, listening to stories, and making crafts. Families will turn to cool weather pursuits and school supply shopping. By next week, program supplies will be sorted and boxed. Leaders will review each day’s story and activities. Unripe tomatoes and still buried potatoes will be gathered without a children’s garden lesson or home made snack.

I’m going to miss my time as the library gardener. Finding squash and counting butterflies with preschoolers made the world new again in my eyes. Sharing recipes for herbed dipping oils and marinara was a joy – and a reminder of how fun it was to do these things with my own two sons in years past. This is a grace if anything is.

I’m ready to let this season go. It’s a lot of work to plan and prepare garden lessons every week. I’m tired of keeping track of the number of participants, of what worked and what didn’t, of saving receipts and recipes – all necessary for planning next year’s program. Other things need my attention and energy.

I’m happy with what grew in this year’s garden and even happier with the love of nature that’s grown in the children who came to water and gather. This season of growing the garden is ending, as it should. The season of growing young gardeners and nature lovers? Not so much. After all, seasons end and return to begin again. Who knows who might be tending this garden long after my season ends? If this summer is any indication, the garden is in great hands. So is the world.

Education, Meditation, Uncategorized

You don’t stand a chance

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You don’t stand a chance against my prayers

You don’t stand a chance against my love

[Robbie Robertson & the Red Road Ensemble, Ghost Dance, Music for The Native Americans, Capitol Records, 1994]

It’s a song about spiritual power and a restored land. Plains indians danced the Ghost Dance to resurrect the dead, heal the land and restore the its caretakers – the native peoples. Some believed it would get rid of the white people who had taken away their way of life, starting a political revolution that would restore peace. Others believed that the peaceful, non-violent behavior it engendered would restore political peace. Either way, it came from remarkable spiritual visions and it brought hope to people in desperate need and dire circumstances.

In December of 1890, at Wounded Knee, hundreds came to dance the Ghost Dance. Believing that their dance would protect them, even from bullets, they danced the outlawed dance. A gun went off, United States Army soldiers panicked, and soon 250 or so men, women, and children were dead.

There is no magic song that can stop bullets from tearing into living flesh. There is no dance that can bring peace to people whose lands and cultures have been banned. But what if the dance is a prayer?

Prayer isn’t magic, but it’s powerful. It can bring peace and forgiveness. It can and does create a new world. Praying for those who harm us may not save our lives, but it can lift our enemies into the embrace of God. On this side of life or the other, no one stands a chance against the power of love. Who’s to say when such prayers will create heaven on earth?

Education, Meditation, Theology, Uncategorized

God only knows

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I may not always love you,

but as long as there are stars above you,

you never need to doubt it,

I’ll make you so sure about it.

[Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys, God Only Knows, The Sounds of Summer, 2003]

Downloaded from iTunes, 2010

I bought it for my ipod years ago with the itunes card that it came with. It’s simple in words and music. There isn’t a pretentious note or false word, and the vocals are amazing. It is such an easy song to sing that I sometimes forget how very difficult it is to create this kind of simplicity.

I think the same is true of love. It looks simple on the outside, but it takes a lot of work. Harmony isn’t easy. It takes listening to someone else, accommodating another just as someone does for me. It’s a lot of work and it can get repetitive.

I can sing these words to a few people on this earth and really mean it. There are a few who have made and kept such promises to me. As long as there are stars above you and me, I hope I never take them for granted. If there’s anything like heaven on earth, this is surely a glimpse of it.

Biblical Reflection, Meditation

Home Made

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Just know you’re not alone I’m gonna make this place your home.

[Phillip Phillips, Home, The World from the Side of the Moon]

I live in a town with 20,000 other people, give or take. This time of year, there are a lot more people living here. People of all shapes, shades, and sizes look for hermit crabs on the beach, cast lines into the river, catch a Gatemen game, and sleep under the same starry sky that hangs over my house. Most days, I do my best to make this place I live in and love a good home for my 20,000+ neighbors. I hope they know they aren’t alone. I’m here.

Loneliness is a peculiar kind of spiritual homelessness. It has nothing to do with the place I keep my furniture or the bit of asphalt that my car sits on. It’s more about whether I feel lost in this big world. Am I alone in a vast, dark, empty universe? What if I get lost in the billions of years that have already passed and the billions to come? Is this cosmic neighborhood simply too big to call home?

If I don’t pay attention to the demons who fill me with fear, if I take a deep breath and open my eyes, I can see my town, planet, galaxy, and era for what they are: the place God made my home. The place God made the home of all my neighbors.

The heavens are telling the glory of God;

and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. 

Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, Theology

Hum along…

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This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…

I didn’t attach the music to this one. I think you know the tune. Repeat the above once, then again, adding let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. If you are feeling especially brave and silly, hold up your pointer finger like a candle. If you happen to have small children, you’ve got a ready-made chorus.

It’s a favorite song when we are young; it’s embarrassing from our teen years through most of our twenties, thirties, and forties – unless we’re just singing along to encourage little kids. If we are very wise and very lucky, it’s a treasure we reclaim in our later years, along with Jesus Loves Me, This I know.

The light we hold is ours alone, the unique and precious gift we receive from the One who forms us in holiness. It isn’t our talents or marketable skills, our keen intellect or acerbic wit. It is who we are at our very core, and what we are made of: light and warmth. Such a light and heat isn’t made greater by extinguishing the light of another. It’s meant to dispel darkness, call people home, and illuminate this beautiful creation around us. We don’t create our little lights, we let them shine.

When I die, I hope someone sings this song. I hope I’ve done my best to let my little light shine. I hope.

Meditation, Theology

Thin line

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Religion, religion…oh, there’s a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning...

[Jimmy Buffett, Fruitcakes, Fruitcakes, MCA records, 1994]

Jimmy Buffett is one of my favorite summer musicians. His tunes go well with sand, sun, high temps, and tasty beverages. But he sneaks some pretty good theology and a bit of church Latin in with the steel drums.

I love this line. I didn’t use these exact words, but the sentiment was one that crossed my mind almost every Saturday night when I was a bartender. Not for the reason some would think: last call bad behavior followed by self-righteous piety in the pew a few hours later. I’m sure there was some of that, but it didn’t really interest me. What did: people came to the bar for the same reason they showed up at church – seeking kindness and connection, something deeper than the usual pleasantries. On Saturday night, it was a couple of martinis that offered honesty and self-revelation. On Sunday morning, it was confession and a cup of truly awful coffee after the service.

I don’t tend bar anymore. My work is on the Sunday side of the thin line. But I am so glad I spent a few years on the Saturday side. I suspect I was just as faithful to God on the one side of the line as on the other…

 

 

 

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, Theology, Uncategorized

Reading It Right

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I read the Bible often

I try to read it right

As far as I can understand

It’s nothing but a burning light

[Blind Willie Johnson, Soul of a Man from Bruce Cockburn’s Nothing But A Burning Light, Golden Mountain Music Corp., Sony Music, Inc/Columbia Records, 1991]

A lot of time and effort is spent by seminary professors trying to teach their students how to read the Bible right. Historical/Critical, Literary, and Socio-Political are just a few ways to interpret scripture. Generations of students compare different versions, studying texts in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. But how do they read it right?

I’ve heard excellent, intriguing lectures that explain many things about complex texts. I’ve listened to blatantly biased interpretations used to justify opinions and situations that the Biblical writers never encountered, much less wrote about. I’ve heard Sunday sermons do the same.

Just like the lyrics say, I read the Bible and do my best to read it right. If I’m reading chapter and verse to justify myself or judge another, I’m treating sacred words like the family silver service – sorting it, shining it, and stuffing it in a drawer to be used at my convenience and need. I don’t think it was ever meant to be read likethat.

Blind Willie had it right: if I’m reading it right, it’s nothing but the burning light that reveals me, angels and neighbors, and the sacred path we walk together upon God’s green earth.

Available on iTunes.

Meditation

Child, not my child

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Your children are not your children

They are the sons and the daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you, but they are not from you

and though they are with you they belong not to you.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, “On Children” (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923)

This graduation season is the first one for a child of mine. The newborn I brought home over eighteen years ago will eat, sleep, study, pray, wonder, worry, and laugh on a campus just a few miles outside of Philadelphia. On August 24th, my husband and I will take our two sons and a trunk full of college necessities to Haverford. We will unload the car and have lunch just up the street at El Limon. Good-byes will be exchanged, holiday plans briefly mentioned. With a wave, three of us will drive away and my older son will begin his college years.

For the last couple of months, people have been asking me if I’m ready for this next phase of life. Many tell me how awful it was when their own left the house. More than a few said they’d turn back the years if they could, bringing their adult children back into childhood to fill up the rooms that still seem empty without them. Others ask if I’m worried that something awful will happen to him; after all, the world is big and isn’t safe.

I’ll miss my son, and I’m sure tears will come on the drive home or soon after. I have loved his every age and stage, from the first time he opened his eyes through his whole childhood. I love the man he’s become – kind and thoughtful with a dry sense of humor and an artist’s eye. But he’s a child of God, not a personal possession to keep in a safe place. He isn’t on this earth to be my second chance or a means to my own ends: he is here to be a delight to God. He has his own life adventure just as I have mine. I wouldn’t trade the years of his childhood, but I don’t want to repeat them. There’s a whole world of adventure ahead for him that I can’t begin to imagine – his part of the sacred story of all God’s beloved children. What a blessing to be a part of it.

 

On Children, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Selections 1976-1988, disc 1 (Cambridge, MA, Rounder Records Corp., 1997)

Uncategorized

Bill A’s lyrical prayer choice

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Hallelujah, The Canadian Tenors (album), The Canadian Tenors (artists)

(available on iTunes)

I did my best, it wasn’t much

I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch

I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you

And even though it all went wrong

I’ll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

In all things, praise the Lord,

Every day and every night, praise the Lord,

There is no one beyond the reach and love of God

Not me, not you.