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.
Meditation, observation

No Tag

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Fare Thee Well Cards

The one in the way back is from the staff at the Bennington Free Library – my coworkers for the last two plus years – many short thanks and well wishes. The lighthouse is from a coworker who retired; she came in to say goodbye at my last staff meeting a week back. The Garden card is from the woman who has been my Baby & Toddler Story Time partner; her work and creativity added so much to that program, and she made each Tuesday fun.

The final card is from Arlo. I’ve watched him grow over the past couple of years, and watched him become a big brother to Finn. His mother helped him by writing the words he spoke verbatim. The drawings are all his.

In a relatively short period of time, most of the people who signed these cards won’t think of me often; in a couple of years, very few will remember I’d spent time in their presence. And that’s as it should be. We risk losing the gift of those who are in our lives in the present if we spend most of our lives dwelling in the company of former neighbors and colleagues. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have an effect: it means that the love and grace we gave has been woven into the lives of others without us being recognized as its source – the gift is still precious, it’s just lost it’s tag.

Thanks be to God for all the precious gifts I’ve been given, especially the ones whose tags have been lost to time.

Meditation, observations

All Wrapped Up

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Wrapped Up

I’ve been packing up these past few weeks, getting ready to move. Today, it was kitchen stuff that I won’t need while I’m still here. To make sure nothing got damaged, I wrapped it all in newspaper, lined them up on the table, then snugged them up against each other in the moving boxes. An hour and three boxes later, I was down to this last wrapped mason jar. As I reached out to put it away, I looked long enough to realize something: this is me.

There are days when the news just surrounds me, blocking out everything else, insulating and isolating in its ubiquity. If I’m not careful, I get wrapped up so tightly that I can’t get past it. There are too many things happening in the world to keep up, in print and video; it can easily become a wrapping, a bubble that separates me from the life around me and inside me.

I want and need to be aware of what is going on in the world, but I don’t want or need to be smothered in newsprint. I don’t want to live in a box; I want to be part of what is going on around me. I want to participate, not hide.

Meditation

Boxed

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I packed up my jewelry box last night, keeping out just a pair of earrings and three rings. Folders not needed for the next few weeks are in boxes, as are blankets and the seldom used kitchen items.

I’ve also packed up things not coming on this move – clothes, glassware, and book club books are in bags and boxes, bound for local non-profit thrift stores.

Even at work, I’m boxing things – cleaning and organizing a basement long overdue for such an effort. What is in poor shape is getting thrown away or recycled. What is good but not necessary is going to other libraries or community programs. At this point, I am surrounded by boxes.

I wonder what message the cosmos offers with these boxes and packing them. Today, I think it’s something like this: Appreciate the essentials that you have. Let go of what burdens rather than blesses. Hand on what can bless someone else’s life.

Perhaps it’s meant to encourage me to do with my inner life what I am now doing in my outer one – appreciate, declutter, bless others.

Meditation, observation, Theology

Ebbtide

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The Goodbyes have started; a dinner with colleagues, a final staff meeting, food and conversation with friends before the drive away. Soon to come: a final open house, turning in keys after a final walk-through. Packed boxes tucked away in corners and a spare bedroom are changing the landscape of the house. One month out, this move isn’t a once-for-all event. It’s a gradual receding of the activities, things, and people that have marked our daily life these past three years. We are still here, but something of us is receding bit by bit, drawing us out from this particular place.

Ebbtide

It feels like an ebbtide, this pull of gravity. Unlike a true one, we won’t be brought back to this place on the next incoming tide. We will emerge in another place – just as it brought us to this new place not so long ago.

On the water
Meditation, observation

The Presence of the Absent

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Pared Down

Unless you happened to look closely before yesterday, you wouldn’t know that the empty cubby used to hold more cookbooks. A few are already packed up for the move, but most are in the recycle pile.

Thinned Out

The same is true of this book case. Books in poor condition, books not opened in years, and books that can bring joy to others have been removed. What’s left is an emptiness that’s taken up residence between what remains. What has been present in my living space is absent.

No longer present, Absent, is not the same thing as leaving a Void behind. This Absent isn’t removing anything vital or necessary; instead, it’s leaving room to see more clearly what is left – and offering me a chance to see if what remains is truly vital or necessary. Absent relieves my arms of lugging heavy boxes that crowd my living space; Absent also relieves me of the weight that too many possessions places on my mind and soul.

Meditation, observation

Not Packed

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For the fourth time in just under three years, I’m getting ready to move from one home to another. Not everything will make it into boxes and onto the truck. Enough will remain for guests to stay here in the rectory in relative comfort – cook a decent meal, take a hot shower, and sleep in a comfortable bed.

What is necessary, beautiful, and life-enhancing will be boxed and delivered. What is no longer needed, just taking up space, will be donated, recycled, or thrown out. Sorting through it all isn’t quick or easy: it’s an exercise of intention and of spiritual discernment, letting go of material things burden rather than uplift. These accumulated things have taken up psychic, emotional, and spiritual space as well as shelf and closet room. It’s time to lighten the load.

Mantra for Moving
Biblical Reflection, proverbs

A Proverb to End On…

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Two things I ask of you; do not deny them to me before I die:

Remove far from me falsehood and lying;

Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need, or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, “Who is the Lord,” or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God. Proverbs 30:7-9, NRSV

It’s so tempting to embellish, fail to correct a false assumption, or misrepresent myself. It’s not often over something important, just a few little adjustments here and there to the real and the true. Is this life I’ve been given not enough? Of course it’s enough. Then why the temptation to lie?

Am I wise enough to ask God for a life that brings my daily bread – enough resources to sustain and nourish but not enough to waste? Maybe, maybe not.

Years ago, I found this in a bookstore in Newburyport. It’s been hanging in my kitchen ever since. I suspect the proverbial request is a plea to God to be on the good side of this sentiment…

Biblical Reflection, proverbs, Theology

Like a Hair in the Throat

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Do not eat the bread of the stingy; do not desire their delicacies; for like a hair in the throat, so are they. “Eat and drink!” they say to you; but they do not mean it. You will vomit up the little you have eaten, and you will waste your pleasant words. Proverbs 23:6-8, NRSV

A host’s generosity is a gift of time and effort as much as it is the cost of the groceries. Soup and bread on a cold November evening; Mac and cheese with a simple salad brought over by a neighbor during convalescence; coffee and warm muffins put out for an early morning meeting. It’s not the price at the register, but the thoughtfulness that makes such things nourishing for body and soul. It’s a pleasure to eat these meals.

A host’s lack of generosity makes even favorite foods hard to choke down. The feeling that the cost of every mouthful has been calculated and weighed against the value of the guest (and that the guest just isn’t worth the meal) does the opposite of nourish.

We know hospitality when we receive it, whatever is on the plate. It is life-giving. We also know stinginess when it’s offered – it turns whatever is on the plate rancid.

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, proverbs

Time and Money

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Do not wear yourself out to get rich; be wise enough to desist. When your eyes light upon it, it is gone; for it suddenly takes wings to itself, flying like an eagle toward heaven. Proverbs 23:4-5, NRSV

Churches and libraries pay enough for a good life, but not a fancy or frivolous one. The two bedroom Cape we purchased when our children were young is the house we still own; we’ve had Toyotas, Subarus, Mazdas, VWs, and Smart cars over the years – the smaller ones with good gas mileage. Since I never wanted a big house or a luxury car, I don’t consider it a sacrifice of life quality to do without them.

Time, on the other hand, is precious to me. The luxury of not needing a full time/beyond full time job to pay the bills meant more time to spend with those I love, doing meaningful work that didn’t come with a paycheck or title, and the slower life pace helped me enjoy the years rather than just get through them.

Time does take wing, flying away never to return. Spending it well means having less in my wallet to spend. Money and material things – I can’t take them with me. The memories and life time brought – who knows if I can take them with me when I die. But that’s not the point. Leaving them behind for others is.

Biblical Reflection, proverbs

What Loss?

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Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss. Proverbs 22:16

It happens in every time and place, this making the rich even richer at the expense of those who can least afford it. It’s happening right here and right now, in our time and place. The rich get richer while the poor stay poor. This refusal of generosity, of the bare minimum required to live a good life, is what spurs revolution. Sadly, most revolutions only change the roles – people on top end up on the bottom, and a few end up in their place. The system stays the same.

So what is this loss, what do the oppressors lose? Financially, not much. Social position, not necessarily. On the individual level, at least on the surface, no loss. And the surface is usually the only level we give more than a glance.

But look again. On the communal level, robbing those who can least afford it to give more to the ones who don’t need it (and may not even notice it) drains away the very life of all involved. Such unfairness fractures the bonds that connect individuals to each other, the bonds that create community. It’s loss, sometimes unto societal death.

There’s also a spiritual cost. Harming the defenseless for personal gain leaves its mark, invisible to the eye but there in the heart and soul. It surfaces in the sleepless nights spent worrying that what was taken from another will be taken by another. It’s never being able to trust another’s word – because what goes around comes around. More than anything else, the loss is in the sure knowledge that no amount of money can buy a minute of time. A life was wasted robbing others for gain when it could have been spent seeking beauty, love, and holiness.