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.
Biblical Reflection, proverbs

It’s Own Reward

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Those who are kind reward themselves, but the cruel do themselves harm. Proverbs 11:17, NRSV

Our inner and outer worlds are connected in various ways, and what we do in one affects the other. When we tend to our own inner lives, we don’t project our own faults and fears on others; this makes it so much easier to appreciate them, and a lot less likely that we will do them harm. When we tend to our outer relationships, we learn to accept the love of others; in that, we just might know ourselves as lovable.

An act of kindness toward another shines its blessing on our inner world; an act of cruelty toward another throws its shadow over who we are in our innermost selves. Whether we lighten the burdens of others or add to their misery, we cannot escape the truth that we do the same to ourselves simultaneously…

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, proverbs

If You Can’t Say Anything Nice…

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Whoever belittles another lacks sense, but an intelligent person remains silent. Proverbs 11:12

More than once, my first opinion of someone turned out to be wrong. Because my parents and grandparents advised keeping silent rather than saying negative things to or about others, I had the chance to get beyond my first impressions. Several times, wonderful friendships grew out of these less than positive first encounters – loose lips didn’t sink friendships.

I wonder: how often has someone else kept silent when I made a less than stellar first impression? Just as my life has been blessed by my keeping silent, I’d bet my life has been blessed by others keeping silent about their initial impression of me. It’s grace I’ll never be able to quantify, but no less precious because it remains unrecognized and uncounted.

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, Prayer, proverbs, Theology

Watch Your Language

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Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Proverbs 4:24

There are six things that the Lord hates…haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. Proverbs 6:16-19

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. Proverbs 10:11

It’s not the occasional swear word I worry about these days: it’s using words as weapons to harm those with different ideas, faiths, skin tones, and lovers. It’s the exaggeration and the lies designed to provoke. It’s the verbal violence aimed toward others that encourages and condones the move from reckless rhetoric to harmful physical action.

It’s tempting to answer angry and violent rhetoric with more of the same, to meet fire with fire, to win the day by yelling cruel words at those who yell at me. But ratcheting up the bitterness and anger won’t solve whatever the original issue was. It just divides neighbor from neighbor.

The damage hateful and violent speech creates is plain to see. It’s hard to take a moment, to stop the harmful words before they make it into print or speech. But it isn’t impossible. I don’t have to keep the cycle going. I can choose to hold my tongue until my thoughts and words show respect rather than disregard.

I’ve said the same prayer every morning when I awake for over a decade, written by Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow in the nineteenth century. It has been especially helpful for me – I hope it will be for you as well:

Prayer at the Beginning of the Day

O Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace. Help me in all things to rely upon thy holy will. In every hour of the day, reveal thy will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me. Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul, and with firm conviction that thy will governs all. In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings. In unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by thee. Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others. Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day and all that it shall bring. Direct my will, teach me to pray, pray thou thyself in me. Amen.

[A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991, p.20]

This is one in a series on Proverbs. For more information, click Proverbs above…

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, proverbs

Money, Money, Money

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If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood; let us wantonly ambush the innocent; like Sheol let us swallow them alive and whole, like those who go down to the Pit. We shall find all kinds of costly things; we shall fill our houses with booty.

Throw in your lot among us; we will all have one purse” – my child, do not walk in their way, and keep your foot from their paths; for their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed blood. For in vain is the net baited while the bird is looking on; yet they lie in wait – to kill themselves! and set an ambush – for their own lives! Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its possessors. Proverbs 1:11-19

If we are willing to get rich at the expense of others, we value material gain over their very lives. Others become a means to our own financial ends, and we don’t bother to count the cost they bear – raided IRA’s, stolen identities, grossly underpaid labor. What do we care, as long as we get the life of luxury we want?

But there’s a high cost for such things. When we delude ourselves into thinking we can put a price (and a low one, at that) on the well-being of others, we cannot help but put a price on our own lives. The more our ill-gotten estate is worth, the lower our own value. Who we are becomes what we have taken from others, and we are diminished by the very gains we expected to elevate us. The free ride we steal may remain free, but its destination takes a heavy toll.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. I Timothy 6:10, NRSV

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation, philosophy, proverbs

The Good Life

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In the proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

For Learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity;

to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young–

Let the wise also hear and gain in learning, and the discerning acquire skill,

to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles.

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:1-7, NRSV

Call it a beginner’s mind, a cognitive flexibility, a sense of proportion and justice. It isn’t about the accumulation of information or how rapidly and effectively such information can be processed and applied: it’s about what we know and how we know. It brings good things to the world we live in. It’s finding our footing on solid ground: we are God’s beloved creatures in this cosmos – and so are our neighbors, human or other. Wisdom is always keeping our feet firmly planted in that reality in our daily lives.

Proverbs is a collection of notes on what the good life is and how we can live it every day. It’s a collection of short pieces of advice and the praise of those who seek wisdom rather than material gain or fame for their own sake. It’s a primer in ethics, a doorway to living a worthy life. It’s our summer adventure.

And so we begin at the beginning, because all the advice that follows cannot be understood or put into true practice if we forget who we are: fragile, mortal, limited beings created by a God whose sheer presence and power would destroy us except for one precious truth – we are irrevocable and unimaginably loved. Or, in more biblical words:

The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Quick note: Fear of the Lord isn’t fear of punishment or being ashamed of ourselves; fear of the Lord is the recognition that God has created us and all things. It’s awe that moves us to life and love, not terror that scares us to death and destruction…

This is one in a series. For more information, click “Proverbial” above.

Meditation

Written in Friendly Letters…

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Hitchhiker’s Guide Socks

They are a Mother’s Day present from my younger son, and a reference to one of my favorite books. It’s what’s written on the front of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – and advice for all intergalactic travelers. Don’t Panic.

With all the hype in the world, all the noise, it seems like things are conspiring to make us panic. Things move too quickly, the rhetoric abrasive to the point of antagonism, and painting anyone who isn’t a known quantity as an enemy rather than as a companion on this journey through life.

Standing on this advice just might help me take a step back, take a breath, and pause long enough to remember that every single person I meet is God’s own beloved. If I pause rather than panic, perhaps others will do the same. And that could change everything…

Meditation, Nature

Death and Life

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One State To Another

The tree trunk is riddled with holes, covered in moss and lichen, lying on a bed of leaves just off one of the walking paths. It isn’t the only one – there are hundreds of them in the woods, decomposing.

I wonder how many years this tree stood, how long ago it grew from a seed into a towering presence. It seems like a sorry end for a grand life form, and an unnoticed one.

But I noticed, and a closer look revealed the life that is now present in this fallen trunk. Mushrooms and animals are breaking down the dead wood, turning it into new soil. Insects and small animals are living in and under it. The life of this tree ended, but nothing of the tree’s vitality has gone to waste. Energy and matter are being transformed from one state to another, and new life is created. This new life doesn’t change the fact that a tree has died, but the death of the tree doesn’t change the fact that new life emerges. It would be true whether I noticed it or not.

At the end of my time here, when my life is ended, who knows what the remains of my existence might foster – Noticed or not.

Meditation, Nature

A Beautiful Life

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Unfurled

Flowers in bloom are lovely, but it’s hard to beat the symmetry of what has yet to open up. The structure of it, compacting into such a small, circular space what will soon unfold into something so much more noticeable to passersby.

Some see in this unfolding the evolutionary genius of the plant – a plant attracting what it needs to survive and thrive by flowering. Some see it in terms of aesthetics – beauty that is valuable for its own sake rather than for survival beyond its individual life span.

I’m not anxious to choose one perspective over the other, whether it’s the life of this plant, my own, or all the life this cosmos bears. Just because our lives foster the next generation doesn’t mean that they can be reduced to a means to a biological end. And just because our lives are an expression of beauty and uniqueness doesn’t mean that they aren’t leading to life beyond our own brief span of years.

Maybe Jesus wanted us to find more than one meaning in telling us to consider the lilies.

Meditation, observation, Prayer

Foundation

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Local Foundation

A short walk and a glance at foot level is a time capsule in this Vermont town. Brick, marble, field stone, poured cement, cinder blocks, and a combination of any and all of these are holding up any number of buildings of varying vintage, purpose, and style. I am amazed at the ingenuity of past builders who were able to use what was on hand to create solid and unique foundations.

Partially Covered

The history of additions is on display as well, where the original and new meet. An expanded house requires a larger foundation to support it, and sometimes new materials brought together in new ways.

I suspect the foundation of my faith is much the same – made out of what was at hand throughout my lifetime, and in need of expansion as my faith grew beyond what the original could support.

I hope, at the end of my days, my foundation is sturdy, supporting a lifetime of change and adventure – and that it is anything but uniform.

observation

The Path Appears

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My usual walk to Northshire Bookstore was blocked from the crosswalk in front of Up For Breakfast to just past Christo’s Pizza. A mini-excavator was busy digging out an area just off the sidewalk. I couldn’t see what was in the works through all the traffic, safety cones, and workers; I continued my walk to the bookstore. For my return home, I took another route. It wasn’t until two days ago that I could see what had been done.

Christo’s Alley

An alley connecting the Main Street sidewalk and a parking lot had been covered in stone.

I’m sure I’d glanced at the alley sometime in the last two years, but I’m also sure that its presence didn’t register. What had been invisible to me was now visible – more than that, attention-grabbing.The stone revealed a path not seen before, and certainly not taken.

I keep thinking about this alley path – its invisibility and its appearance two days ago. It has become part of my daily meditation. I’m not yet sure why, but it feels important. A way to navigate the place I call home, a connection that wasn’t mine before, a path where I thought there was a wall. A new way through.

In a time with so much chaos, meanness of spirit, violence, and hatred, I’d like a new way through – a way to peace, kindness, healing, and compassion. It might only be an alley, but it doesn’t need to be a boulevard for me to walk from one place to another.

This is one in a series. Click “At My Feet” above for more information.