Sister Joan Brown, OSF, shares insights for discering God's call in confusing times. Sister Joan is Executive Director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light. Hear the full In Good Faith episode IGF045 at aNunsLife.org.
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Sister Joan Brown is Executive Director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light. Previously, she ministered as a journalist, director of Pikes Peace Justice and Peace Commission, and co-director of Tierra Madra, a sustainable strawbale self-help housing project that she co-founded.
Sister Joan grew up on a farm near Olpe, Kansas, in the Bluestem Prairie region. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in Religion and Cosmology. She is a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Rochester, Minnesota.
Sister Maxine
This podcast is brought to you by A Nun's Life Ministry. This is Sister Maxine of A Nun's Life Ministry, and my guest, Sister Joan Brown, Executive Director of New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, working with people of faith and conscience in education, action, and policy advocacy around climate change and care of Earth. Sister Joan, as you describe your journey to this point, it has taken many different kinds of turns. For people who may find themselves in the position and that similar position of "Where's God calling me? It seems this direction, and this direction, and this direction." What might you say to somebody who is in the middle of that search right now?
Sister Joan
In my own life, I found that those different directions are always one direction. And that one direction is into the heart of God, the holy, and expressing love in the world, and to not be discouraged. And when things are difficult to not think that that is the end of everything, or that there's never going to be a light or newness again. But that that light, the love, the direction does come. And that's been the case in my life as well. And what has helped me along the way are deep times of retreat, and retreat actually in the natural world.
Sister Maxine
When you say the retreat in the natural world, what kind of gift does that give you in terms of the insight that you need to move forward, or maybe the consolation?
Sister Joan
It offers a time for deep listening to other wisdom and that quiet, almost imperceivable voice of the Holy, that speaks to every single element in the entire planet and world.
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.
