| |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Image
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Three Stories of Reconciliation in the World
Mission Yearbook: Michigan artist encourages ‘eyes of wonder’ to see faith in new ways
Joel Schoon-Tanis is the artist-in-residence at his church in Holland, Michigan, and this past summer, established a mobile studio Montreat Conference Center for a two-week stint as the artist-in-residence for the Presbyterian Association of Musicians’ Worship & Music Conference.
Schoon-Tanis recently joined hosts Sarah Abushakra and Jeremy Roberts for their “Sounding Board” podcast. Follow their 73-minute conversation here. Schoon-Tanis is introduced at the 7:50 mark.
“I have always loved church and felt home in church, and I am super thankful to have two daughters who feel the same,” he told the hosts. His younger daughter arrives at church early every Sunday “to make sure everything is OK, and then she rings the bell,” he said. “She appointed herself bell-ringer,” which she does every Sunday 10 minutes ahead of the start of worship.
The son of a professor at Hope College in Holland, Schoon-Tanis attended the Christian liberal arts institution tuition-free. Halfway through his studies, he realized that “all I’ve ever wanted to do was paint and make stuff.” During his senior year, he met a woman in a painting class who was preparing to open an art gallery. “We became friends, and the next thing you know, I was her sole employee,” he said. She allowed him to show his work there. “It was the last time I held a real job,” he said, “but at the same time, people started buying my work.”
He said he’s always enjoyed the juxtaposition of painting childlike images “and the realistic.” He told the hosts he’s convinced “there are colors in God’s Creation we don’t know about yet.”
“I have this ache sometimes to find a color I expect to have on my palette but it’s not there,” he said. “To me, the new creation should be better than the old creation. That’s my hot take, and I’m sticking to that.”
Asked by Roberts about the intersection of his work and his faith, Schoon-Tanis summed it up in one word: wonder.
Take a child on a hike and they’ll notice the tiniest things, including bugs, he said. They often describe what they’ve found “through a different angle, so a zebra is a horse with a striped suit. They’re piecing it together, which ends up being delightful and whimsical.”
When Schoon-Tanis prepares to paint something he’s done a thousand times, such as a tree, he’ll try to do it “in a whimsical, fun way so we notice it differently” and “so it doesn’t become just a bland thing that we’ve seen before.”
Similarly, when we study Scripture, “we can get locked into how we think a biblical passage should go or what it should mean,” he told the hosts. “If you hear a sermon on a specific passage enough times, you say, ‘Oh, I’ve got this.’ I know I can sometimes not listen as well then. I’m always thankful when pastors can prove me wrong and guide me in a different way.”
“What eyes of wonder or this whimsical approach can do is it can take on a passage from a different angle,” he said, “and help us look at the same story we might think we know deeply with fresh eyes and a slight change in perspective.”
That reminded Abushakra of Mary Oliver’s “Instructions for Living a Life”: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
Children are especially good with the “telling” part, Roberts said. While working with a children’s choir one day, the term “merciful” came up in a hymn the children were singing. He asked them: what does “merciful” mean? A first grader raised her hand and said, “My mom loves me all the time. Even when she gets mad, she still loves me, no matter what.”
“I thought, yes, that’s what merciful means,” Roberts said. “The way kids can break things open is so wonderful.”
Fatherhood “has absolutely reinforced my philosophy of wonder,” Schoon-Tanis said. He used to watch the way his daughters drew things and would sometimes steal their techniques. “Not anymore,” he said, “because they’ve both gotten pretty accomplished.”
Find the work of Schoon-Tanis on Instagram or through his website.
“Sounding Board” is available on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Rachel Anderson, Global Ecumenical Liaison-US, Global Ecumenical Partnerships, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Molly Atkinson, Senior Administrative Assistant, Financial Aid Service, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Let us pray:
Gracious God, we praise you and also wonder at the great need we see around us. Forgive us for our failure to love our neighbors as ourselves. Strengthen us to work for a world where all are fed. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Friday, September 18, 2026
Mission Yearbook: Author discusses ‘Sacred Curiosity’
Author Britney Winn Lee literally wrote the book on sacred curiosity, and she had plenty to tell Simon Doong and the Rev. Lee Catoe, the hosts of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast.” Listen to their 54-minute conversation here.
Broadleaf Books published Lee’s most recent book, “Sacred Curiosity: Wondering Our Way Toward Wholeness.”
“One of the things I discovered during my deep dive into curiosity was how incredibly accessible it is,” she told the hosts. “It doesn’t require adding a ton more to an already maxed-out schedule or nervous system.”
Instead, “the way it has been part of my journey is it has manifested as a breadcrumb trail that leads to the next question, the next healing, the next conversation, the next connection.” The book came from “how I was in a dark place, a deep well of grief.”
“As I say in the book, I hated and feared less at the end of this journey,” she said. “I would not have said that was possible before my counselor said, ‘I think maybe you might find some life and color again if you just follow a little bit of curiosity and awe and wonder.”
She said she thinks of curiosity as “a tiny change in posture, asking one more question or keeping one more conversation going.”
She’s also clear what curiosity is not, and in response to a question by Doong, she said it’s not scrolling endlessly through one’s social media feed.
“When I’m scrolling, I could call it curiosity. But a lot of times it’s really a hunt for certainty,” she said. “I have started wondering, what if none of that is actually curiosity? What if curiosity is an openness?”
Catoe asked about the connection between curiosity and empathy. “If we are really curious, we are released from that hate and that fear,” he said.
That got Lee to remembering an immigration immersion experience she and others took some years ago along the U.S.-Mexico border. A guide took them to a place in the desert where vigilantes had shot up water stations designed to keep immigrants alive.
“I could feel the anger and hate welling up in me,” she said. Then the guide saw some border patrol agents she knew and started up a conversation. “She does this work day in and day out,” Lee said. “She came back to the vehicle and said, ‘The minute we stop being curious, everybody loses.’”
Maybe curiosity isn’t a luxury, Lee thought. “Maybe it’s strategy. Maybe it’s human,” she told the hosts. “Maybe it’s how we get to the other side together without destroying each other. Some of it feels pie in the sky, but to see it in action” made Lee think at the time, “this is how I want to live my life — not just locking into the certainty of the sides, but going, OK, what is a different story that could be possible here?”
Lee has a friend who once told her, “I just feel like God can’t only be found in being correct.”
“I think that’s an understatement,” Lee said. Theologically, we have “adopted infrastructures and systems that have bought into the idea that if I’m right, then I’m good, and if I’m good, then I’m safe.”
Catoe asked Lee to identify some ways “we can develop these curiosity muscles.”
She suggested “using curiosity to tune into yourself.” One practice Lee uses is asking herself “the five whys,” which is a way to keep one’s internal conversation going.
In the book, she talks about “coming to a point where I thought, God has to be bigger than whatever this curated box of answers I have concocted or adopted or perpetuated,” she said, adding her favorite scripture is in John’s epistle, “God is love.”
“Curiosity in our faith helps in our posture toward God. God is so big and so limitless, in our neighbor and in our enemy,” she said. “One more question keeps the conversation going and gives hope a heartbeat.”
“If hope has a heartbeat, then resurrection is possible,” she said. “We thought [death] was the end, but it wasn’t. There’s a real resurrective quality to that idea.”
New episodes of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” drop every Thursday. Listen to previous editions here.
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Ken Tolley, General Assembly Support, Assembly Operations, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Kate Trigger Duffert, General Assembly Support, Assembly Operations, Presbyterian Life & Witness
Let us pray:
Loving God, in you the whole structure is joined together and grows. Bless those who come hungry for education but also find community — and meet you — in the process. Amen.
Your October Mission and Service Stories and more!
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Three Stories of Reconciliation in the World
Stories of Reconciliation Supported by the World Communion Offering The World Communion Offering supports reconciliation work locally and ar...
-
Betsy Shirley , the editor in chief of Sojourners , recently told the hosts of “A Matter of Faith: A Presby Podcast” that resilience in diff...
-
Image Photo by Sincerely Media via Unsplash The Rev. Dr. Jermaine McKinley, the co-chair of the Self-Development of People Ministry Team for...
-
For their sixth episode, podcast hosts reach out to a sage and seasoned pair of Presbyterian pastors July 1, 2024 Photo by Benarelexander vi...
