Cheryl Johnson

Now that I’m retired from teaching, when someone asks, what do you do?  I answer, Write, as a spiritual practice.  The reaction is usually, Oh, you’re a writer then.  Yes and no.  I don’t write for tenure now, or my name in lights.  I contemplate world and word, waiting for a spark to light and invite the experience of awakening.  For me, writing seeks to engage a deeper current in life, not just the horizontal hubbub, but a vertical exchange that informs it even when the ember seems buried deep in ashes.  I seek to honor the mystery of Creation, its brokenness and its beauty.

I’ve taken retreats at Spirit Center; volunteered at the Monastery, offering Art and Journaling; lived a month-long artist-in-residence at the Monastery (September 2022); co-facilitated The Creative Word and several online retreats; co-edited Come to the Table: Recipes for Loving and Serving; and recently published my spiritual memoir, From the Country of Home: A Remembrance.

Currently, I am engaging pocket sketching and watercolor as a contemplative practice. Each sketch timed at 25 minutes which invites paying attention to the present moment. I continue to write and mine what rises in Word and Image. I’m an Oblate of the Center for Benedictine Life at the Monastery of St Gertrude and an active member of the The Episcopal Church of the Nativity, serving as Junior Warden, co-leader of the Food Pantry Program, and a team leader in the Saturday Supper program for community neighbors in need. Married, mother of three, grandmother and great grandmother of several grand morsels, gardener, and quiet walker.