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.
death, Meditation

Sirens

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I live in a coastal community – fresh water rivers emptying into the salty bay. The miles and miles of coastline mean lots and lots of boats – kayaks to dredgers and everything in between. With the increase in boat travel comes the increase in sirens – ambulances, fire engines, and police cars responding to accidents. Then there are the medi- flights that shuttle between here and Boston or Providence hospitals. Since I live half a mile from the hospital, EMS facility, and a quarter mile from the fire station, I am well aware of the emergency vehicles [I heard police and ambulance sirens while writing this paragraph]. When the sirens wail, I say a prayer that God holds fast whomever requires help.

View From Besse Park

There are other siren calls, ones not attached to emergency vehicles and victims: birdsong, the river rushing over rocks, chittering chipmunks, and squawking seagulls. These sing of life, of beauty, of joy. They enchant and delight.

I’m doing my best to heed both kinds of siren calls, recognizing death and loss along with life and beauty. All the life in the world won’t make up for a single death, but all the death in the world can’t negate even a single life. It’s a privilege to be aware of both…

death, Meditation, observation

Dad’s Life and Death Lessons

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William Orpheus Smith died a couple months short of his seventy-fifth birthday. I was with him when he left this life behind, the man who gave me and my siblings life and a place and community we called home and family. He left behind a wife, four children, five grandchildren, a great-grandchild, a couple of dogs, and all his paperwork in order.

He was the son of an alcoholic who didn’t hand on that addiction. He made home a calm and safe place. He found the world an interesting place, taking advantage of his many trips abroad (U.S. Navy) to attend an opera, admire frescoes, and volunteer at the excavation of Pompeii.

He wasn’t good at making light conversation or expressing his emotions, except when matters of life and death were involved. He rarely shared his inner thoughts and held on to many of the prejudices that came with growing up in a poor New Hampshire town.

When the treatments stopped working and the hospice nurse came to discuss upcoming needs for walkers and pain management on that Friday morning, he turned from facing life to welcoming death. Eighty-seven hours later, he stopped breathing.

The life lesson I learned: hold fast to this extraordinary life.

The death lesson I learned: let life go when it’s time, and embrace the mystery beyond it.

Thanks, Dad.

April 24, 1981, Rick Springfield (Success Hasn’t Spoiled Me Yet)

death, Nature

Death and Life

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I’m out early this morning to work in my yard before the heat makes it a chore rather than an enjoyable activity. Garden bag, clippers, and a few bags of mulch already in the front yard, I head around the house to get the spade and watering can. Just past the end of the driveway, death was waiting for me in the form of a small opossum.

This isn’t the first time I’ve found what remained after a bird of prey fed – there are a number of hawks and owls living in my neighborhood. The raptors keep the populations of small animals in check – as much a part of the circle of life as bats keeping the insect population within reason. But knowing that the tiny opossum died to feed a raptor, accepting that as nature’s regulating overpopulation, doesn’t mean that it isn’t a loss.

Instead of laying mulch in the front garden beds, I dig a hole, say some prayers, and bury one of God’s creatures.

I move on to dividing the mint threatening to take over the garden bed, then to replacing the snow peas and nasturtiums that have been eaten by the three bunnies who’ve taken a liking to my plants. Two herons make their morning flight over me; a couple of robins peck at the grass; the teen next door walks by on the his way to school. Life surrounds me in infinite variety and beauty. Death, too, accompanies me.

Perhaps it’s time to take a look at these companions of mine – life and death. You are welcome to keep me company.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost – contemplating life and death…

[This is one piece in Randall Thompson’s Frostiana: Seven Country Songs. It was commissioned by the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1959 to commemorate the town’s bicentennial. Thompson set seven poems by Robert Frost, who lived for several years in Amherst, to music.]

Biblical Reflection, John's Gospel

The last few words

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But there are many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. John 21:25, NRSVue

There are so many other things Jesus did. If they were all written down, each of them, one by one, I can’t imagine a world big enough to hold such a library of books. John 21:25, The Message

Jesus lived into his early to mid thirties. If every single thing he did while walking this earth were written down, I’d wager it would take up the shelves of a fairly large library. But I doubt the books would be so many that the world couldn’t contain them. Until I think about it.

God With Us dwelled in the person of Jesus, living a fully human life but not limited to a single life span. Jesus lives on in everyone who feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, and visits the sick and lonely. Jesus lives on in you, and Jesus lives on in me, so the stories continue in our stories. What we do, who we are, those we love and serve continue the story.

So let’s go add a few chapters.

Thinned Out
Biblical Reflection, John's Gospel

Aren’t you…?

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Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus…Peter had to stay outside. Then the other disciple went out, spoke to the doorkeeper, and got Peter in. The young woman who was the doorkeeper said to Peter, “Aren’t you one of this man’s disciples?”

He said, “I am not.” John 18:15-17(excerpts) The Message

It’s painful to read about this – how Peter denied being a follower of Jesus. I’m sure living it was much worse. Every time I read Peter’s denial – the first of three – I feel slightly sick. I know what happens later. I know Peter is forgiven and goes on to spread the news of Jesus’ love. But still.

Standing in the dark, outside the court where Jesus is being questioned, fear grows inside Peter. It takes hold of him. So he does what he must to avoid being taken into custody, tried, and executed: he denies who he is.

Such fear in those of us who follow Jesus is still here, still grows when life and limb are in danger. I think that’s why we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: save us from the time of trial. Because none of us know what we will say, standing in the dark, when someone says to us, “aren’t you…?”

Biblical Reflection, John's Gospel

In the Garden

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Jesus, having prayed this prayer, left with his disciples and crossed over the brook Kidron at a place where there was a garden. He and his disciples entered it…John 18:1, The Message

Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Genesis 2:8-9, The Message

For humanity’s first home, God chose a garden. It was here that humanity grasped for the knowledge of good and evil, then hid from God because they were afraid of what God might do to them because of it.

For his last night of freedom, for the place of a friend’s betrayal, God-With-Us chose a garden.

Why in a garden? I’m not sure. But for me, a garden is a place of life, a life-giving and nurturing space. It’s a place where the holy walks in nature. Perhaps that’s why: it’s the place that cannot be blamed for choosing betrayal and death over true connection and life.

Biblical Reflection, John's Gospel

Home Making

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Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself, but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. John 15:4

Abide in me as I abide in you. John 15:4a, NRSVue

Who lives in you? Who makes a home in your deepest self, and who holds you in theirs? Cullen, Ted, Elisabeth, Elizabeth, Eun Joo, Jeanne, Diane, Heidi; Aleph, Barney, Magic, Taylor, Frank. My children, husband, parents, siblings. These are the ones who live in my heart – mentors and friends, beloved pets, and the ones who share my DNA and physical addresses.

What if we dare to let Jesus take up residence in our heart of hearts? What if we welcome God-With-Us into our souls as we would a best friend who stops by – without worry of judgement at our imperfections, and confident that we are loved as is?

What if we claim our home in Jesus, not as a vacation rental but as our permanent address?

If we dare, then every place we go, we are at home – and everyone we meet is family.

Biblical Reflection, John's Gospel, Meditation

Pruning

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I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken. John 15:1-3, The Message

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. John 15:1-3, NRSVue

The front yard is surrounded by a hedge, a living fence offering separation from the street and a home for small wildlife. Once a year, I take my pruners to it, thinning out maple saplings and other vines. The dead branches go next. But it’s the rest of it that’s so much more difficult: pruning off healthy branches to allow light to penetrate the top leaves, and to keep the sides as well as the top of the shrubs green.

Next week, I’ll be taking the pruners to the hedge for the first time in over two years. Skipping last year’s pruning didn’t make the hedge happier or healthier; it made the hedge scragglier and overgrown.

It’s a lot of work, this pruning, and not for the faint of heart or the overly sentimental. The results, at first, aren’t pretty. It’s only over time that pruning reveals itself as a necessary and good thing. New growth and healthier branches take time.

Lately, it feels to me like my life is in the process of being pruned – some things that no longer work for my age and stage are getting cut away. There doesn’t seem to be a particular logic in it, and it isn’t pretty or a lot of fun. I just have to trust that it will end up bearing some kind of fruit in due time.

Soon to be pruned…
Biblical Reflection, John's Gospel, philosophy

[…]

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[Note: John 7:53-8:11 [the portion in the brackets] is not found in the earliest handwritten copies.] A note in The Message

The entire narrative is bracketed – Jesus, the religious leaders, and the woman caught in adultery. At some point, this story was added into the Gospel of John. Is the whole story just an embellishment added by an unknown writer? Did Jesus really write in the dirt? Is any of it real?

There’s no definitive proof. It could have been a legend added in to make a point. It could have been an encounter that was handed down orally, making it into the gospel in one of its later forms. But for almost two thousand years, it’s been a part of our Bible. Biblical scholars, John Calvin among them, saw no reason to remove or dispute its right to remain in John – the benefit of the doubt won out.

What matters to me is whether this story gives us a glimpse of God-With-Us. Does it reveal something of human nature, both the good and bad? Does it draw us more deeply into God’s love? Does it plant us more firmly in loving relationship with our neighbors?

If we answer these questions with a yes, then it’s gospel – good news. It’s a yes for me. How about you?

Biblical Reflection, John's Gospel

Second Chances

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The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?”

“No one, Master.”

“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.” John 8:10-11

The plotters and accusers left without throwing the first or any other stone, perhaps a bit wiser for the experience. Jesus speaks to the woman after they’ve gone, then sends her back to her life without judgement or condemnation – just telling her not to sin from now on. What could have been a bloody death becomes a second chance at a better life.

I wonder, who needed the second chance more – the woman dragged in for adultery or the ones who did the dragging? I also wonder, of those walking away, who left the wiser?