Raise Your Sails

I’m trying to stay focused on the fact that Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away, and not get drawn into the Christmas frenzy. It seems to get harder and harder each year as we are bombarded with Yuletide reminders before we’ve even had time to eat all the Snickers and Kit Kat bars we’ve stolen from our kids’ or grandkids’ Halloween stash. I’m particularly tempted to start thinking about all the gifts I need to buy. So, I decided today, that every time I thought about gifts, I would turn my thoughts away from the gifts I need to get and instead ponder the gifts I have been given. I’m facilitating a group, through Firstfruits, that is focusing on the Holy Spirit - the source of our spiritual gifts. We have been watching a video series with Fr. Dave Pivonka TOR that highlights various aspects of this much misunderstood member of the Trinity. In the video entitled "The Gifts of the Holy Spirit," Fr. Dave uses the analogy of a sailboat to describe the relationship between our giftedness and the Holy Spirit. He goes on to say that the Holy Spirit is the wind and our gifts are the sails. The wind blows and catches the sails on the boat. The Holy Spirit wants to fill the sails of the boat so it’s alive and moving, not stagnant. That’s the exciting, exhilarating life in the Spirit. We just need to raise our sails and put them in position for the wind to power them to move. We need to offer our gifts to the power of the Holy Spirit. We all have these gifts. They are the tools we have been given to carry out our mission to bring goodness and love to the world, to bring Christ to the world. We are born with that mission and with a unique set of gifts to carry out that mission. Not everyone’s mission field is in a foreign land far away. More often, our mission field is across our kitchen table or in our classroom or workplace. We all have gifts that are meant to be given away. We just need to discover and uncover them. We need to make them available when the people who need our gifts show up. What are these gifts I’m talking about???   Tune in next week. In the meantime, just float in your boat and ask the Holy Spirit to...

Lessons From the Leaves

Barnum and Bailey have nothing on Fall in Wisconsin. This time of year, all you have to do is step outside to have a front row seat for the greatest show on earth. With every rustle of wind, the leaf dance begins. Overnight, the trees seem to have switched on their internal spotlights. They have lit up. The spiders intricately woven webs collect passing leaves, making beautiful natural Halloween decorations. (See the pic above.) Nature is all a buzz in the Fall. It’s the storm before the calm. The gateway to winter. What a clever plan our Creator had, to use nature as a classroom. If we take the time to notice it, observe it, and let it instruct us, we learn a lot about life and death. We witness first-hand the cycles of life and grow to appreciate the beauty of each one. If we let our imaginations take over, we see the journey of the leaves each year as a symbol of the journey of our lives. The budding, the fullness, the aging, the transforming, the snap, and the gentle tumble and soft landing to a place we’ve never been before. At each step of that journey, we are never alone. We are surrounded by others who are experiencing the same cycles, the same changes, the same uncontrollable progression of life to its end. We are surrounded by the Creator’s love too, the love of the One who is in all of this, in all of us. I hope you will find the time to take in this show. It has a limited engagement. It won’t be around forever and you don’t want to miss it. Put down your phone or tablet, or whatever you are reading this blog on, and go outside. Something amazing awaits! Joan...

I Don’t Like You

In addition to death and taxes, I have discovered that there is one other inescapable reality of life. There are going to be people who don’t like me. I realize I have spent much of my life avoiding thinking about that or working hard to make sure it couldn’t happen. In my efforts to stave off the inevitable, I often sacrifice my own needs for those of others. I have a hard time saying no. I do things I don’t really want to do and then get resentful. I envy those who can go through life not caring what people think of them. They can easily say no to requests; they seem to live life on their terms and are always looking out for their best interest. I envy them? Well, not really. I wouldn’t want to operate like that either. I think there must be a happy medium between me and them. A life in balance between the needs of others and our own needs. For many, women in particular, that happy medium is out of reach for most of our lives. With age and wisdom, I can feel myself letting go of my desire to be liked. I can feel myself being more authentic. My middle-school syndrome is on the road to recovery. That recovery started when I opened myself to the truth that the only love and connection that really matters is the love of, and connection to, God. The only group that will fill my need to belong is a group of two, me and God. We need to let go of the disordered ways we have adopted to make sure we are liked, we are included, we belong. We can trade them in for a more authentic way of living. Because we know that at the core of our being, we are liked, loved, and included.  We have always and will always belong to a loving God. The more time we spend in close connection with God and the more effort we put into growing our awareness of the Holy Spirit alive and at work in our lives, the easier it will be to live an authentic grace-fueled life. To be who God made us to be. To follow God’s direction in the choices we make even when some of those choices may seem selfish to others. Learning to say NO, (Well sort of.) Joan...

Granola Bar Theology

I don’t know about you, but I need to eat three meals a day. I envy those of you who can have a cup of coffee for breakfast and feel satisfied until lunch. Or those of you who can eat a bowl of popcorn or a pint of ice cream for dinner. If I did that, my body would just throw me into deeper pangs of hunger. My worst nightmare is to be invited to an event with “light appetizers.” After trays of stuffed mushrooms, my stomach says, “Are you kidding me? Where is dinner?” It’s just how I’m wired. It’s not just three meals a day that I need to feel satisfied. Sometimes, I need a boost in between those three meals. Years ago, I started the habit of never leaving home without a granola bar in my purse. My kids tease me that when I die, they are going to throw some granola bars in my casket. I don’t argue with it. I don’t know how long that trip home is going to be. The thing is, when I get hungry, I get irritated and crabby. I’m off my game. The mild headache and lack of focus leaves me unable to be the best version of me. I feel unsatisfied. All it takes to get me back on track is a granola bar. Granola bars satisfy a hungry belly, but hunger isn’t always physical. In our world today, there is a hunger for peace, connection, unity, compassion, and love. We need three meals a day of these things and more, in between those meals. Our hearts are very hungry. They aren’t satisfied with the bread of this world. We try to satisfy that hunger with the light appetizers that the advertising world and social media feed us, but our hearts know better. They long for a real meal. The words of a familiar hymn say it all: You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat, come give to us, oh saving Lord, the bread of life to eat. Maybe it’s time we fed our hearts three meals a day of God’s provisions. Fill up on His presence and promises. Snack on His words. And never leave home without Him. Joan...

All In A Day

Yesterday, I spent the entire day outside, except for an hour I spent eating dinner and taking a shower. It was glorious. It started at 8:30 in the morning with the Forest Therapy sessions we offered through Firstfruits. For two plus hours our group of eight women were led on a discovery of the beauty of the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the heart of God’s creation. The summer-like weather was the perfect backdrop for our transformation from our daily stresses and anxiety to pure and powerful peace. There is a calm that can only be found when we stop talking, to others and to ourselves, and enter into the quiet of nature. It’s in that calm that we can notice the leaves waving to us, the smell of the pines, the sound of the crickets, and the beat of the heart of God’s creation. It was glorious. When the guests left, my good friend Mary arrived, decked out in her Brewer baseball gear, toting a bag full of ballpark snacks. It was time for the first Brewer playoff game. I’m a huge baseball fan. I grew up in Chicago and some of my most cherished childhood memories were of my dad taking us to Wrigley Field to see a Cubs game. It is in my blood. Which made yesterday’s game a bit conflicting for me since the Brewers are playing the Cubs to move on to the next level and ultimately to the World Series. Mary and I set up the TV outside on the fireplace and spent three hours basking in the beauty of the outdoors and the beauty of a victory! To top it all off, my daughter stopped over with two of our grandbabies and we spent time just sitting in the grass and laughing. It was glorious. When Mary left, it was time to get ready for a group of our college friends to come over for a fireside chat. We gathered around the fireplace to share conversation that ping-ponged back and forth between hysterical college escapades back in a time of carefree living to the sobering reality of our world today. As we are all nearing our seventh decade, we found it hard to believe the state of things. We never could have imagined the changes that are happening. It felt good to be able to vent and give words to our fears and sadness. It wasn’t glorious but it felt...

A Porch Dweller

Many years ago, I attended a workshop that focused on evangelization. The image they used to describe evangelization has stuck with me ever since. It is what I had in my mind as I was visioning for Firstfruits fifteen years ago. That image was a house. The house represented a place where God can be experienced. Where our faith can become more intentional and alive. A personal experience of God that leads to a lively lived faith is the ultimate goal of any evangelization effort.  In the house there were many rooms to go through. The aim of evangelizing was to ultimately get people through the rooms and into the kitchen, the heart of the house. A place of real transformation and commitment to the faith. What really spoke to me personally, wasn’t a room in the house, it was when they talked about the porch. Before anyone can make it into the house, through the rooms and into the kitchen, they first had to make a decision to come in off the sidewalk and on to the porch. That is the first step on the path to an intentional and living faith and often the most challenging. I have always felt called to the porch when it comes to evangelizing. I have felt called to invite others to join me on the porch. I don’t feel comfortable in the kitchen. It takes a very different set of charisms or spiritual gifts to be working in the kitchen than to be a porch dweller. I don’t pretend to have the gifts of evangelization it requires to be working in the kitchen. I leave that up to the clergy and religious and others who have been called and gifted for that. What I do have are the gifts to make a comfy, safe, homey, and holy porch that just might be what someone needs for a while in order to make the next move into the house. There are so many people wandering the sidewalks in search of that experience of God, that living faith. They might not realize that is what they are searching for, but it is, and they don’t know where to go. A move from the sidewalk to the kitchen is just too much. We need more porches. I hope I haven’t lost you with this convoluted “house of evangelization” analogy. It might sound a bit confusing. The bottom line is, God called me to...

Silent Stillness

I spent a few days in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin last week visiting my friend, Jamee. It’s a beautiful area of hills, valleys, and bluffs. At this time of year, the hills are alive with heavily laden apple trees. The roadside stands are impossible to pass up, as are the apple cider donuts. The valleys become the perfect front row seat to nature’s annual Fall color show. You could almost see the hillsides slowly turn color right before your eyes. It truly is a slice of heaven. The most amazing part of it all though, was the silent stillness that met us each morning and lingered all day. You don’t realize how much noise we are bombarded with each day until you step away. When you experience real stillness and quiet, it feels like you are one with the world around you. It’s like you enter a place of deep connection with something, or someone? It truly is the sound of heaven. On my return to reality yesterday I realized, more than ever, the importance of finding a place of silent stillness and visiting it often. A place to become one with God. A place to let God take the lead. A place to rest in the connection that the quiet provides. We don’t all have access to the quiet of the Driftless Area, but just maybe we could recreate that silent stillness at Firstfruits. Our kick-off for the new season is coming up this week. Kick-offs usually connote celebration and lots of activity, but at Firstfruits our kick-off comes in the form of prayer first with a time for silent stillness, followed by a bit of fun. A heavenly combination. I hope you will join us. Feel free to just drift in. Joan...

The Redheaded Cheerleader

As these dog days of summer are winding down, my garden seems to be doing the same. Overnight, things have started to turn various shades of brown. The ferns are calling it a day. The hanging pots, when at their peak were vibrant shades of purple and pink, are now fading into mere shadows of their old selves. There is another thing that happens this time of year at our house that reflects the funny side of Mother Nature. We have a lot of very big oak trees, and this time of year, they decide it would be fun to drop acorns on us unsuspecting patio dwellers. I was sitting on the patio the other day, reading and just taking in the beauty of one of our last summer days, when I was pelted by acorns. They hit the gutters and ricocheted into my lap. They would land on the brick patio so hard their little “caps” would fly off.  At night we can hear them thudding off the roof. It sounds like a warzone. Late summer, early fall, is a bitter sweet time of year. Each passing day brings more beauty and wonder as the trees instinctively perform their annual wardrobe change. All this beauty isn’t always fully appreciated because we all know what comes next. The harsh reality of winter becomes harder and harder to ignore. Nature never ceases to amaze me, no matter what the season. It’s God’s creative design, a gift for our viewing pleasure, a token of His love and His creativity. Take for instance, the redheaded cheerleader I spied amongst the ferns in my garden. (See picture above.) You can’t get more creative than that. Yay God! Joan Come see the redheaded cheerleader for yourself! Join us on October 4 for Firstfruits’ morning of Forest Therapy at my house. For details, click here. For registration, click here....

Women

Fifteen years ago, God put on my heart, an undeniable desire to gather women to support and encourage each other. He guided me through the process of creating a space for women to come together to share in each other’s happy times and not so happy times, a place where women can just be how God wired them to be. Sometimes we are quiet, sometimes we blab. Sometimes we have it together and sometimes we can’t even finish a thought. Sometimes we are incredibly brave and sometimes we shake with fear. Sometimes we give hugs and sometimes we need hugs. Firstfruits became a touchstone of God’s deep and abiding love for women. A haven for our female souls. A place where women take care of each other. And boy, do we need taking care of by other women. I came face to face with that truth last week. My daughter suffered a miscarriage last week, and I do mean suffered. As women, we’ve known, or can keenly imagine, the physical and emotional pain of that kind of loss. It’s in that suffering, and its lingering effects, that we see just how powerful and comforting it is to have God’s love mirrored in the eyes, the touch, and the caring attention to detail of other women. There was a nurse that attended to my daughter in the ER that we think may have been an angel. She just appeared right when she was needed most and took care of so many small details that made my daughter feel so much better. We never saw her again. But in that short visit, she mirrored God’s love and assured us of His presence through her feminine touch. Women caring for and about other women. Nothing better. In a couple weeks, we will be starting our fifteenth year of Firstfruits. Do you need the support of other women? Do you long for a place to just be who you are? Do you need a haven for your soul? We all do, that’s how God wired us. Please come join us at Firstfruits on the evening of Wednesday, September 24th as we kick-off our new season. If you’ve thought about coming to Firstfruits but just haven’t yet, now is the time. Who knows, there just might be an angel waiting for you. Joan To register for the Firstfruits kick-off on September 24 click here....

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Outside our screened-in-porch are two birdfeeders and a birdbath. I love to sit out there in the early morning and watch the birds have their breakfast and splash around. It’s sweet to see how patient the birds are as they wait their turn for the feeder in a near-by serviceberry bush. Sometimes there are baby birds, on what is probably one of their maiden voyages out of the nest, perched in the bush waiting as the adult visits the feeder and then brings the seed to them and puts it in their wide-open mouths. Most of the time, this local bird spa is a place of quiet enjoyment for me, but not so last week. This haven turned into something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. As I was enjoying my morning ritual, out of nowhere, a flock of at least a dozen large blackbirds descended on my peaceful space and turned everything upside down. The smaller birds tried to share the feeders but were soon booted out. The sound of soft chirping morphed into loud flapping wings and shouting. At any given time, there was a ring of six or so blackbirds on the bird bath. None of them took a dip. I imagined them laughing to each other and saying things like “Look at this pathetic bath. Where is my infinity pool?” They just seem very arrogant. They came on the scene and took over with a sense of entitlement. All at once, something would spook them and the whole flock would take flight to near-by trees, but then minutes later, swoop back down and do it all over again.   I wondered how long this was going to go on. I had never seen anything like it. I texted my next-door neighbor who is a bird enthusiast and she said this happens occasionally and to just repeatedly make a loud noise and they will not come back. Otherwise, they will stay until they’ve eaten everything. I had taken some pictures as all of this was going on and I had to smile when I saw the picture posted above. If you look hard enough you can see the ring of blackbirds on the birdbath but to the left is one lone bird that looks to me like the classic depiction of the Holy Spirit, a dove amid the darkness. In the midst of all this chaos was a sign of hope, beauty, and...