Karen Stiller

Writer and editor Karen Stiller understands (and writes about) faith, doubt, friendship, loneliness, forgiveness and loss. As senior editor of the Canadian Faith Today magazine, she gets to travel across Africa and North America, reporting on what God is doing in and through his church. Host of the “Faith Today” podcast, she also gets to interview great Christian movers and thinkers like Ann Voskamp, Philip Yancey, Kate Bowler, Scott Erickson and others. Join us as Karen gets vulnerable about life’s great joys, grief and loss, connection and hospitality, and the spiritual practices that shape her faith.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

Early into our marriage, we bought a huge dining room table. It seats around 16 when it’s fully extended. We bought it used from a man in a fancy house in downtown Toronto. It’s moved with us across Canada, back and forth, and now sits in our brick townhouse in an old part of downtown Ottawa. It’s been painted gray, and now it’s dark blue.

I remember at one church where my husband served as an Anglican priest, and we invited his entire leadership team over for dinner. I cooked the roast perfectly and then wrapped it in foil to keep it warm — and ended up cooking it more and more and more. It was amazing, though, to extend our table to its fullest length, add a few more small tables we borrowed from the church to one end, feed everyone overdone beef, and turn our house into an eating place for around 20 people.

We loved to sit around that table, tell stories and listen. You don’t have to be a great cook to do hospitality. I guess I’m proof of that. But to invite other people into your life and space is a beautiful thing. It makes so much possible. It slows time down. So my favorite meals have taken place around that table. Sometimes it’s takeout, and in Ottawa, that would often be Pho, that amazing Asian soup full of noodles, broth, Thai basil and other great things.

As a writer, I’ve found it helpful to have a metaphor for my work. What does my writing mean to me, and what would I like it to mean for a reader? I found myself back at my dining room table in my imagination. I want my home and my writing to welcome people in, like a good meal. I want it to be conversational and welcoming, warm and transparent. Good food.

Sparks Street Ottawa — Nabil Saleh; Unsplash

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also help you find essential spiritual renewal?

Walking is an indispensable part of my life, especially right now. If I visit a new city, that’s the way I want to explore. In my own city, I love to set out into our somewhat gritty neighborhood. Walking is a huge part of my writing life as well. It’s like I shake things loose. I often pause to record thoughts on the note app on my phone. I might also call a friend and catch up. I’m sure they hear me huffing and puffing. If I don’t walk every day, I feel its absence.

This year, I took line dancing classes for the first time in my life. It was ridiculous, and I loved it. It’s harder than it looks, and it feels like exercise when it’s happening (and also the next day). Louis, the teacher, is an old, tall, gracious man who made me long for my late father. He stands in front, long back to us, facing the mirror (he smiles a lot), teaching cab-driver style with extreme patience.

“Count the steps, or you will get lost,” he says, and he counts in French. I find myself counting in French, too, which I bet I haven’t done since grade three. “Voila!” he says when he shows us something new. His petite wife of 60 years or more (guessing), danced beside him on the first night, wearing little bright red heels. At first, he calls out the moves and tells us exactly what to do and when to do it, and then sometimes he just uses his hands to point in the right direction. It felt good to finally get it, even just a little bit, as we followed along clumsily. Just try to tell me that’s not spiritual.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human, too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?

If I have a besetting sin, it’s envy and discontent. One breeds the other, of course. I’ve accepted that it’s part of my spiritual struggle in the world, and I lean into it to try to get rid of it. I do this through something called agere contra — to act against — which I first read about in Ian Cron’s book “The Story of You.”

Even though I had never heard the term before, agere contra felt deeply familiar, like a cousin I finally got to meet in person at a family reunion. So if I found myself envious of another writer’s success, another person’s home or a sweet vacation, I forced myself to pray for them to be even more successful or just be generally even more blissful. I say “forced” on purpose. This stuff isn’t easy. Like a lot of things that aren’t easy, it does work eventually. “Bless them. Help me want them to be blessed. Make them successful. Help me want them to be successful.”

There can be something really ugly about envy and discontent. People don’t like to admit it. It seems so petty and small. Admitting things, though, is the beginning of their end. We need to say this stuff out loud and turn the lights on in the room. That’s when things can get better. Almost always. If I find myself hanging on too tightly to something, I try to give it away. Take a look at the Ignatian practice of agere contra. It can really help.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

I’m not a farmer. (But I do love the word “toil,” by the way). I’m a writer and editor. But when I saw a little painting at an art show in our neighborhood of a woman standing alone in a wonderland of a farmyard, I wondered if I should think of myself as one, at least for a little while.

I resonated with the image immediately, and it brought [inevitable, predictable] tears to my eyes. I thought of how much work this woman farmer had done to create her beautiful world and how intentional it seemed — and with so many colors. She wore a little red hat and overalls. (If only she had funny glasses or I was made of paint, maybe she would be me. That’s what it felt like.)

I spoke to the artist and shared what the painting meant to me as a recent widow whose husband had died unexpectedly. I knew I had the unwanted task of building a forced new life. This little farmer, who had clearly worked so hard and stood serenely in her scene, did something to my guts, which I spilled out in the park.

The nice lady artist moved in for the kill. So my tiny farmer hangs in my kitchen to remind me I am making something important right now. We all are always creating or building something. Right now, I am moving more deeply into my vocation as a writer in the world. I do work like a farmer, I think. Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book “Big Magic,” talks about writers being like farmers, working hard every day. I have found that to be true.

My first book was called “The Minister’s Wife.” It’s a spiritual memoir where I go deep on topics like friendship, loneliness, forgiveness and yes, envy. Our life in the church formed me, as did my role as a pastor’s wife, and so did my husband. I guess he was my muse. In “Holiness Here,” my newest book, I explore how we can all lead lives of holiness, and what that can mean for people who are wrecks like me. My husband died while I was writing the book, so I wrote a chapter I didn’t ever want to write, called “Sorrow.” Holiness really does show up everywhere if we look for it, live into it and live out of it. It’s not easy, but it can be beautiful. I really believe that.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors, or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

God is always present with us. As we embrace who he has made us to be and who we beautifully and uniquely are, we become more ourselves and closer to God. I think God works through us all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. As a writer who explores spiritual things and tries to do that with a lot of honesty and vulnerability, I trust that if I do the work of reading, thinking, walking, talking to others and yes, praying, God will be present in my work.

I believe deeply in the process. And that our spiritual posture impacts our practice, whatever our work may be. So if I am trying to live in humility, my posture to my work will be one of humility, and that, amazingly and maybe surprisingly, makes my work better. With humility, I know that writing is collaborative and that I need my editor. I understand that the first draft is just a first draft. I accept that I will discover as I write and that what I discover might be more questions. I accept there will also be mistakes.

I’m wary of writers who talk too much about God telling them things. I find that very bold, to be honest. We can pray that might happen and open ourselves up for that to happen, but in the end, we are moving in mystery and most likely writing more about questions than answers. I think that’s okay.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

The spiritual practice that’s working best for me right now is meeting regularly with a spiritual director. She is helping to put me back together after losing my husband. She is leading me into lament and freeing me to be completely honest and bare and furious and peaceful. All the things.

She helps me use my imagination to approach Scripture in a way that is safe and healing. Elena is not my first spiritual director. I had to find the right fit. It’s okay to “play the field” with spiritual directors until you find the right fit for the right time. It’s incredibly and especially helpful for me right now.

What you do with your spiritual director can change. Elena begins our sessions in prayer, and she usually invites me to be quiet for a few moments, and then we share. The role of a spiritual director is to help you see where God might be present in your life. To help you see, listen, touch, feel and move. You can do that just through talking or specific spiritual exercises that often involve imagination and always involve vulnerability. When I drink my coffee in the morning, she’s asked me to just very gently ask Jesus to sit there with me. I’m trying to do that. It feels tender.

It can be scary to do some spiritual practices. This one involves baring your soul to another person, or in front of another person. This is a practice that can take practice. Like them all I guess, but this is a risk worth taking.

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?

I love this question. Spiritual reading changed my life and has fed and deepened my faith. I read to know I’m not alone like C.S. Lewis said. (I think!) Authors like Anne Lamott, Christian Wiman, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Frederick Buechner and Marilynne Robinson — their willingness to go to the hard places and write beautifully about beautiful things has kept my boat afloat. When I first read Anne Lamott, I thought: We get to be that honest? And that funny? That’s amazing!

Joyfully and amazingly, as I read well, I want to write better, so the practice of spiritual reading has also shaped my writing. At least I hope so.

These days, I also listen to a lot of podcasts. Lately, they’ve been about grief. It turns out there are podcasts for just about everything. What I require is honesty and not simple answers for complex things. I’ve also been enjoying Kat Armstrong’s “Holy Curiosity.” I love “The Habit,” which is about writers of faith sharing their work. “The Mockingbird” podcast is refreshing and worth checking out.

I’m going to say that another resource is the people who accompany us for a time. So the quirky wonder of the small group. I’ve sometimes had a love/hate relationship with the idea of a small group. So much sharing. Such weird people (including me!). We are each other’s best resource — if we’re willing to be honest and open to each other.

We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times — times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.

Let me share what a younger writer friend is doing for me right now, which is a beautiful and amazing gift to me. Every month since my husband died, she has sent me a book in the mail. It’s a title she has read and liked or just thought I would. They’re mostly fiction, although there was that one memoir about raising baby pigs. I can’t tell you what a gift this has been to me.

I discovered “Hello Beautiful,” as one example, a brilliant novel about a family, which also contains grief. The books my friend Hannah sends me remind me of the role of fiction as a healer. It’s not just theology books or Christian living books that can help us. It’s stories, stories, stories! We can find God in stories.

I’m also just being healed by this act of love and generosity. How did she dream up such a gift? It’s amazing! So fiction, in general, is helping me right now. Read fiction.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

A great change was imposed on my life when my partner died at 59 in January of 2023. I’m in a storyline I did not expect and do not want. And yet, here we are. I am now very aware of the value of time and its passing.

I’m wondering how I am to spend my years now and how I will be as a writer. What am I being called to now? I don’t want to write press releases and news stories and things that much longer, quite frankly, stuff that pays the bills but feels like anyone could write. I’ve written thousands of those. I want to write what only I can write. (Does that sound too something-or-other? Maybe.) I’m sure it will have something to do with grief and healing. How could it not? But how will I explore this new country I am in now? I don’t know yet, but I do know it will be with a pile of books, a spiritual director, my writing, my friends, walking and good food and friends around our dining room table.

How do we respond when unexpected sorrow strikes?

Horatio G. Spafford asked the same question. A successful lawyer and businessman, Horatio tragically lost his four daughters while they and his wife were on a ship to the U.S. His wife miraculously survived. But how could the couple respond to such a loss — much less heal?

Horatio made his choice. He responded by writing “It Is Well,” one of the most popular hymns of the last 150 years. His lyrics have brought comfort to many broken hearts:

“When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul.”