Show Notes
In this episode of Peaceable and Kind, host Derek Vreeland interviews Karen Stiller, author of the book: Holiness Here. They discuss the art of writing, the relationship between holiness and love, and the experience of grief. Stiller emphasizes the importance of writing with love for the reader and being transparent and welcoming in one’s writing. She also challenges the notion that holiness is rigid and legalistic, instead framing it as rooted in the love of God. The conversation explores the balance between being and doing in the pursuit of holiness and the role of community in the journey. Stiller shares her personal experience of grief and the lessons she learned about the complexity of faith and the presence of God in the midst of sorrow.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Holiness Here by Karen Stiller
Charitable Writing by Richard Gibson
Scripture verses mentioned in this episode:
Isaiah 2:2-4
Did you find this episode helpful on your spiritual journey? Consider helping us out!
Leave a review
Share it with your friends
Give us a 5 Star rating on your podcast app of choice
Get to know your host: https://derekvreeland.com
Interact with your host on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
Transcript
Narrator: Welcome to Peaceable and Kind, the podcast where we explore the transformation. Each week your host, Derek Vreeland, will delve into the stories, scriptures, and practical steps that help us embody these essential Christian virtues.
Derek Vreeland: Welcome back to another episode of Peaceable and Kind. You know me I’m your host, Derek Vreeland, and today we have another great conversation lined up But before I introduce my guest, let me say thank you so much for listening to these episodes. I appreciate all the feedback I have been receiving. And if you enjoyed these podcasts, let me know. You can hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. I’m Derek Vreeland in all of those spaces And get subscribed. Get subscribed to the podcast. You can also subscribe to my Substack. I’m putting out with the episodes other content on Substack. So after you subscribe to the podcast, get subscribed to my Substack. And then if you’d be so kind, would you consider writing a review? And giving this podcast five stars. I know you can do that on Apple Podcasts, and I think now on Spotify you can give a five star rating. That really does help out. It helps other people Find this podcast uh helps them find the kind of content we are creating here at Peaceable and Kind. So thank you so much for all of the great feedback. I was just speaking to someone last weekend uh who found the podcast and uh just loves the episode so far. So if that is you, get subscribed, give us a rating and review. We appreciate that. My guest today is Karen Stiller. Karen is a Canadian writer and author living in Ottawa, Ontario. She is the senior editor of the Canadian magazine Faith Today and hosts the Faith Today podcast. She has co-authored and authored a number of books, including The Minister’s Wife. A memoir of faith, doubt, friendship, loneliness, forgiveness, and more, and her new book Is holiness here searching for God in the ordinary events of everyday life? And this has been One of my favorite reads of 2024, and I’m looking forward to discussing it. Karen, welcome to Peaceable and Kind.
Karen Stiller: Thank you, Derek. I’m really happy to be here and I I just loved um your introduction to the podcast. Like that’s it’s so cool that you’re doing it. And um I’m gonna be signing up for your Substack, that’s for sure. I don’t think I’ve done that yet.
Derek Vreeland: Well, the podcast is a is a new adventure. I uh uh an organization reached out to me and asked, have you ever thought about starting a podcast? Cool. I said, Well, I talk for a living. I’m a pastor and preacher and teacher and Words are my life. And uh so it’s been fun so far. I’ve enjoyed doing these and I’ve enjoyed having conversations.
Karen Stiller: Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: And so I’m looking forward to this one.
Karen Stiller: Good. Thank you.
Derek Vreeland: So we met last year at a writer’s retreat in Colorado Springs. Um I remember we rode together in that little
Karen Stiller: uh Fiat that uh you kindly drove me to and fro.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah I remember that and it was such a brief retreat but I enjoyed getting uh to know you there and you were I believe still on the editing process. I think you had finished writing but you were editing.
Karen Stiller: I was nervously awaiting the edits, I think
Derek Vreeland: Oh yes, that to it’s an editing, I don’t know, this has been my experience, but the editing is really the work Um the that initial draft, there’s a lot of joy. It’s a lot of fun. For me, it’s a lot of playfulness. Let’s try this. Let’s try that. And then the edits come back and you find out what worked and what didn’t. And uh editing not as fun as that initial draft for me
Karen Stiller: Well that’s interesting cause I kind of have the opposite.
Derek Vreeland: Okay.
Karen Stiller: I really, really love revision And for me, that’s when the play happens. And that’s when the what I feel is my best writing comes because I’ve done all that infrastructure work, I would say. So so that’s very interesting.
Derek Vreeland: I see. Yeah, you have the opposite experience. And I I do enjoy the editing experience. I like the back and forth with an editor. Um and I know that it certainly makes my writing better. It just becomes more laborious. And I think it’s also fatigue starts setting in because that deadline is coming and uh you don’t have you feel like I feel like I don’t have as much time. Like the pressure’s on just a little bit.
Karen Stiller: Yeah, no, that’s true. And the other thing that can happen, I think, is you s you can start to hate your own book. Yes. The book that you once kinda liked.
Derek Vreeland: Yes, there was one chapter in my book that in the edits, I wanted to change everything and it was too late. Yeah. And one of one one review I got uh had said that chapter was the reader’s favorite. So I was like, okay.
Karen Stiller: Oh, that’s good. See, because you’re a preacher, that reminds me of the whole preacher thing where Um, like my husband would preach a sermon and think it was awful and then get the most positive feedback.
Derek Vreeland: So Yeah, that’s the grace of God. A little bit before we jump into our discussion of your new book, let’s talk a little bit about the art of writing Because that was really one of my takeaways from reading your book, is how much I enjoyed reading it uh that your writing style had me at times chuckling. Uh it had me at time pausing for reflection. had me holding back tears. So I was moved not just intellectually by the content, but I was moved emotionally. Talk to me a little bit about the the art of writing versus looking at writing as a science.
Karen Stiller: Mmm, thank you. That is a great question. And I I love even the phrase the art of writing because I I think it is art and craft and discipline and um, you know, hard work and all those things. So I’ve been a writer for about, you know, twenty seven years. I time it with the birth of my first son because that’s when I start to really uh you know, try to build a life as a writer. And so um I think if I can, you know, put it very simply that when the writer is loving the reader uh first and as neighbor and as an act of hospitality, that your writing gets better and that you are concerned with every sentence mattering and you’re concerned with, you know, the reader’s experience and and you’re better able to cut out the self-indulgent, you know, Natterine or or whatever. So there’s that, the craft part of it. And then I have this metaphor for my writing life. Which I actually think is a helpful exercise uh for writers to think about. And I already had it and then I read this great book called Charitable Writing. came out a couple of years ago from I think it’s an intraversity book and they suggested as an exercise that a writer comes up with a metaphor. So mine is my dining room table. So I have this big you know, clunked up dining room table and I love to sit at it and I love to host and listen and have very honest conversations. So that transparency piece And the I think, you know, welcoming, it’s okay to be here being honest, peace for me is the spirit of good writing, I think. So I don’t know how those two actually work together, but they’re important to me.
Derek Vreeland: Oh, I would agree. And the idea uh as a writer of loving the reader and so pouring your heart into the craft Because we’re not writing for ourselves.
Karen Stiller: Right.
Derek Vreeland: We’re writing for the sake of the other. And so to love neighbor, I that’s I think all great art um comes from a place of love Oh, I like that. And speaking of love, um, the other thing that really stood out to me in your book, Holiness Here, was that you are rooting holiness and the love of God. Other holiness books and more like classic holiness books it seems to me are more rigid, they’re more legalistic, they’re more connected to some type of moral code. But it seems to me your book is framing holiness in our relationship with the God who is pure love. Let me read just a little snippet here on page twenty-five. This is from your chapter Fruit, where you write, God’s tender love for us and the holiness, which is that love’s result and good work. Will one day mean climbing the tree of life and cannonballing into the river that flows from God’s throne Again, what a beautifully crafted sentence, but to me this typifies the spirit of the book, that it’s rooted in the love of God.
Karen Stiller: Yeah, thank you. Um and I will I I owe that metaphor to the Sunday school children who I describe this moment in that chapter where they’re just like chaotically putting felt figures on this uh image of heaven and uh that they placed people in the tree of life. And so I just I loved that. So Uh because we were talking about craft, I will add a little nerdy writer craft line here that observing and watching and being mindful and being curious about the ordinary lives in front of us that we are living. is also a very important part of the writer life and the craft life. So taking note, but yes, back to the uh content of that. Thank you. I really I did a lot of reading. Like I read all kinds of books on holiness, of course, and I didn’t find myself in them sometimes, although that’s not always true. That theme of responding to God’s love I found very evident in like J. I. Packer’s work and Um so I f I felt comfortable kind of moving holiness out onto that limb a little bit, but I I really wanted to understand it and explore it as a I think I use the term warm invitation as opposed to kind of a stern command Yeah. Um, and I I feel really comfortable with that. I think it aligns with who we see Jesus being and how God is in our lives and how we see ourselves changing. I think we change and grow in response to love. Um, you know, even just in our daily lives, that works better than being yelled at for most of us.
Derek Vreeland: So I’m glad you picked up on that.
Karen Stiller: That’s really important to me. And I I want it to uh explore holiness as a gentle thing almost. And it’s not always that. I know that, but I think it’s it’s a good conversation to have
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, it’s a it’s a it’s a warm invitation, this invitation to holiness. You know, this uh podcast is exploring the implications of Christian faith, Christian experience that promotes and lends itself to peaceableness and kindness. And I think that starts with rooting our lives in the love of God There is a theological tradition that wants to bifurcate holiness from love, as if God’s holiness is a set of attributes separate from God’s love. And when I was in seminary, my systematic theology prof um had that sort of paradigm. And it took me years to recognize I think that’s a false dichotomy. I think God’s holiness is God’s love.
Karen Stiller: Yeah. Oh, I like that.
Derek Vreeland: It’s And so and to me, so that was a part of my theological journey over the last 15 years. And so I I I was picking up those themes in your book.
Karen Stiller: Yeah, I really like that. And I think as we live out of our holiness in the world, I can’t think of a single example where it wouldn’t have to do with loving someone else You know, it’s so deeply relational. So if if that’s how we are reflecting it, I think that is also how we are receiving it.
Derek Vreeland: I agree. John Wesley describes Christian perfection, right? So if we’re going to talk about holiness, to bring up John Wesley is appropriate Um but he in um in the plain account of Christian perfection describes Christian perfection as being perfected in love. And this is why I think your book is such a helpful course correction for people to see that, to worship a God who is holy, and then to reflect that holiness. in our everyday life is to rightly love God and neighbor.
Karen Stiller: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And and in that it becomes actually quite simple, which is Kind of a relief.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah. Well that’s I as a pastor, I’ve often encouraged people s sort of along the lines of the sacrament of the present moment. Like all you need to do is be obedient to God right now. That’s it. Just in the present moment. You can be aware and present to the presence of God right now. It does become simple.
Karen Stiller: That’s beautiful. Um, one thing I uh I share this uh story in the book, and this does tie into what uh this idea of like how God is toward us. I share a story about listening to someone read scripture in church one Sunday, and they’re reading about, you know, the expelling from the garden uh in Genesis, and they read it in this kind of dramatic way. And God was almost yelling at Adam and Eve. And as I sat there, I felt very disconnected from that reading. And I thought, wow. That’s not how I hear God. I hear him. We all bring ourselves our reading of scripture and I know that. So, you know, the truth might be in the middle somewhere, but I’ve always heard sad heartbroken and he still makes clothing for them in the story. So there’s still like a a c a loving concern as opposed to You know, get up, you’re grounded for life.
Derek Vreeland: Right.
Karen Stiller: So that uh always stuck with me. I thought, oh, you know, how we hear these things changes how we experience them.
Derek Vreeland: I think so. I think so. There’s such value in the public reading of scripture. And so I know the tradition you you come from, the Anglican tradition values that we’re a non-denominational congregation, but it was maybe 14-15 years ago that we sort of added bits of liturgy into our very modern contemporary service. And so we have the gospel reading. from the Revised Common Lectionary every Sunday morning. And um it for me is a spiritual discipline. I close my eyes. and open my mind and my heart and pay attention to the words and the language. And yeah, sometimes it it it resonates differently with me. depending on what’s happening in my in my heart and life. But that’s a that’s a valuable spiritual practice, the public reading of scripture.
Karen Stiller: Yeah, and that we’re listening together. Yes. And um I love that and that is so essential. I to our Christian life and I I try to explore that in the book as well, that, you know, we’re not on our own doing this. In fact, we, you know, shouldn’t be in the in the best um times on our own in this. We we can depend on each other, we can be honest with each other. And I I think that ability to confess our doubts, our fears, our failures to each other just helps us in the journey in holiness because then I don’t feel like such a failure when someone else says me too or I get it or it’s okay. That is so helpful
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, we recognize that none of us have yet arrived. We’re all still in this this process of formation into Christ-likeness. You repeat a couple of times in the book, if I remember right, I think it’s a repeated phrase: holiness is and holiness does. That holiness is both being and doing. What are some of the problems with a view of holiness that’s all doing or all being?
Karen Stiller: Yeah, well I think that is um one of the conversations that it’s would be helpful for us to have in the church. When holiness just is and it’s not about so it’s when it’s all about being and not doing, which I think is a trap I have fallen into in my life, where I think oh I just am and, you know, I have permission to just rest and it’s not about performing and achieving and of course it’s not, but we’re always invited to live out our faith. And I think we want to like i one of the questions that was driving this book for me was has my faith made a difference in my life and does it really change how I live and I want it to and but realizing part of that’s up to me. It doesn’t just sort of magically happen. I need to practice it like any you know, discipline in my life. And so as we practice, we become more aware actually of the being part too, because I’m really a grouchy person sometimes. And I, you know, I can be very resentful. I can be very envious. I have major FOMO. Like those are some of my you know, f quickly coming to mind traps that I can fall into. If I’m waiting until I feel all the love, I probably won’t do things. But if I do them and then I’m aware of my feelings, I can actually deal with those too. And so, so that being and doing really helps each other, they serve each other. And I think that’s really awesome. And a great, you know, a great design. So I think in either case, if we’re just doing and if we’re just being, we’re shortchanging ourselves and our our circle. We’re shortchanging our world of the beautiful love we can bring and share.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah. Yeah, ‘cause I I just don’t think you can break them apart and and they they work together.
Karen Stiller: Mm-hmm.
Derek Vreeland: You know, I think the more that we are doing, the more we are becoming. And we need to give, I think, adequate attention to to both. Because I’m with you. I can lend or I can lean towards the all being. Let’s just do prayer, spiritual formation, the dose.
Karen Stiller: I will receive.
Derek Vreeland: Right. I I can just live in that, yes. Everything happening in me, it’s beautiful, it’s wonderful. And um then there’s my neighbor who just got robbed on the road to Jericho, and I’m walking to the next prayer meeting because I’m all being and not being. So
Karen Stiller: Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: Jesus, I think, has a lot to say about our our doing. And ultimately, I do think the very essence of our faith is what we do, but it flows out of who we’re becoming.
Karen Stiller: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I agree completely. And it’s great to be, you know, to remind each other of that. And it’s Wonderful to be curious about what’s happening in our own hearts and so when I’m feeling that kind of laziness or whatever, um, I can be curious about that and not condemn myself. Right. And certainly not condemn other people, but just ask myself some good questions and then just get moving again.
Derek Vreeland: There you go. Let’s talk about the sorrow chapter, chapter 10. I I don’t want to give away too much of the book. But I was so moved by your chapter on sorrow. I know it’s the chapter you didn’t plan to write when you were outlining the book. So I don’t want to give away too much, but what can you share about the sorrow chapter?
Karen Stiller: So yeah, I was sort of eight chapters in when I experienced a very dramatic and huge loss and I had to decide a couple of things. One of them was uh as I picked up the book again after I had to decide, do I still want to write this book? Do I still believe this book? Um, and then look at holiness through the it felt, you know, back to craft things again. It felt, it would have felt like a lie not to write that chapter because it was such a big thing and such a big loss that I felt like I no I can’t not share about this. And so What I was trying to do was look through the lens of holiness. Like, where am I seeing holy in death? And where am I seeing holy In grief and in this chaotic mess our family found ourselves in. And that made me, like for me as a grieving wife it made me do the work of sort of slowing down and counting mercies that I could not easily see. And that is that content is in that chapter too because I did not easily experience what people call the comfort of God and you know what people said to me. Like Oh, and in cards, you know, may you feel the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Wow, that wasn’t readily available to me emotionally. And I’ve since discovered that that’s actually not uncommon, which was a big relief.
Narrator: Right.
Karen Stiller: So that’s another example of where I think my willingness to be really honest has actually helped me and other people because I’ve had people come up and say, I was so relieved because I didn’t feel that either. And then when I heard they didn’t feel it either, in the in the way we might think or expect, I was like, oh, okay, okay. It’s good.
Derek Vreeland: Yeah, grief has no rules. Grief has no timeline. I think the stages of grief, which is now ubiquitous. I mean everyone’s aware of the stages of grief. They’re certainly not linear. They’re not rules. And I think people I think people will be very encouraged. reading that chapter, just as a pastor, I mean I just I know how often families are in a process of grief They’re looking for God. They’re trying to resist the cheap cliches. And I think your experience will help them. Um reading chapter 10, I think, will will help a number of people realize they’re not alone and that everyone’s experience of grief is is different and that’s okay.
Karen Stiller: Yeah.
Derek Vreeland: That’s okay.
Karen Stiller: Yeah, thank you. No, I really hope that that’s true. And that You know, the other experience for me was that I great loss, you know, cracks you open. And it’s another, I guess, opportunity to see, you know, kind of what’s inside. And I r I realized that I had, even though I never would have thought I had this belief that I did have this belief that if you do certain things and believe certain things, and if your husband’s a pastor especially, um, you know, things will go okay.
Derek Vreeland: Of course.
Karen Stiller: And I would never have thought I thought that. And then I realized, oh, I had some wrong theology that I have to deal with now. So You know, that was another uh and I’m probably still on that journey, but that was another opportunity to see like, wow, the you know, the world is not necessarily safe. And We are in that world being loved by God and loving other people and yeah, it’s not safe. And But and yet it’s okay somehow.
Derek Vreeland: Right. I think it’s okay because God is present. God is here. God is is with us. Even in those moments of life where we don’t feel God’s presence. We we confess it. I think that’s why staying in a church and in a tradition that has some liturgical elements like the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. We are confessing, even though emotionally we may not feel God’s presence, but we believe God’s presence is with us
Karen Stiller: I love that you said that. Yeah. Sometimes we are believing in belief and we’re having faith and faith. Right. And we are held up by the body of Christ and that is okay.
Derek Vreeland: And it is okay. Yeah, the body of Christ holds us up. And I think an honest reading of scripture informs that because a lot of us have a theology shaped by the book of Proverbs, which is true. You do write, you work hard, you get blessed. I think that’s generally true. But we also need a theology shaped by the book of Job. We have both of those books in close proximity to one another. Proverbs and Job. And Job tells the opposite story, an opposite kind of truth, that you can be righteous and yet calamity can come your way. Yeah. And so we need a a theology shaped by both. And I think your new book, Holiness Here Will encourage so many people wherever they are. So I hope it finds a wide audience.
Karen Stiller: Derek, thank you very, very much. I really, really appreciate that voice of encouragement and just the chance to tease out some of these ideas with you.
Derek Vreeland: Well, I am not exaggerating because preachers are known to exaggerate uh when I say that your book was one of my favorite that I’ve read this year. So thank you so much for writing. Thank you too for the conversation today. Thank you for joining me for this episode. Where can people find you online?
Karen Stiller: Oh, well, you know what? Again, when your introduction, I thought I’m I need to have a a good paragraph I can say like Derek did about where people can find me. So I do have a website, Karenstiller. com. And there you can easily sign up for my substack, which is probably not as reliable as yours, I’m guessing, but I do like to uh explore ideas and you know share. uh writing news and so on there. Um and of course I’m on Instagram and and Facebook.
Derek Vreeland: All right. Well thanks for joining me today. I appreciate it.
Karen Stiller: Thank you, Derek.
Derek Vreeland: And that’s all we have for today. Thanks for listening. Go get holiness here. Go get this book. Let this book be the next one you purchase. Go in peace, friends, and be kind.
This transcript was generated with AI and may contain errors.