An Abundant Life - A Christmas Story

Something else really nice happened the other day that is a real Christmas story. There’s a very sweet older lady who lives in my neighborhood. I run into her all the time, and every time I see her she tells me how beautiful I am. It doesn't matter what I'm wearing or how I'm feeling, no matter what she tells me how precious and special I am. I’ve been going through some clothing to give away and I like to give things directly to people who need them instead of putting them in a drop off box. I asked her if she knew anyone who gave away clothing and told her that I had some things I was going through that I wanted to give to someone who could really use them. She said she went to the church to look through the clothing they give away, and I asked her if I could just give the things I have to her and that if she couldn't use them she could give them to the church. She said she'd be happy to see what I had and to share it with a neighbor if she couldn't use it, that she needed a warm coat and could use some other things and that she has two daughters. I put together a big bag and made sure to put in a few warm jackets and a coat, and I dropped the bag off for her on her doorstep. There were some pants, a suit, some boots, some dressy and some nice winter ones, some jackets a skirt or two and a dress. I was a bit worried that nothing would work for her because she’s really tiny, much shorter than I am, but when I heard from her after she tried everything on she said she loved it all, and when I saw her she was ecstatic! She said she loved everything and her daughters loved the clothes she didn’t take. They are all so happy. She said the dress made her feel like she was a little girl again. It was really beautiful. She told me I outdid myself in choosing things for them, and I told her that’s God.

And it really is God. If you saw her, we’re completely different sizes. There’s really no way in the natural world my clothes could fit her, but God has a wonderful way of taking whatever we do and making it work better than we could have imagined. Somehow, some way, whatever was in that bag became more than I put into it.

When I was first born again, I had gone through the most difficult time in my life than I had ever experienced, and I had some rough times before that. I grew up in family that didn't have many resources, and I started working when I was nine just to be able to buy things for myself that I wanted instead of having to wear hand-me-downs, sometimes from my brothers. I was picked on in school and never felt like I fit in because the clothing I wore was never what the other kids were wearing and was sometimes too big or didn't fit right or was just not the latest style or the way other kids my age were dressing. I always felt so embarrassed, and rarely liked what I was wearing unless I bought it for myself. Even after I moved away from home and started my life in New York I still didn't have much money because I was an actress and worked as a temp and sometimes didn't have regular jobs. It was always a struggle, and though I had some things I liked to wear I didn't have much in the way of any belongings, never mind clothes. And then I went through a time in my life after I was born again when I had lost so much, nearly everything except for the things I had managed to hang onto my whole life, and then I found myself living in this new neighborhood, in a place where I had never lived before, and little by little God started to help me explore and find thrift stores and vintage stores, to find sales at the mall, and to find yard sales and people who gave things away and who gave me gifts of things from time to time. There was a beautiful woman who arrived at a class I was teaching each week with gifts for me from the clothing giveaway at her church. I didn't tell her I needed anything, but for some reason she just decided that she wanted to give me clothing, and she picked out some very beautiful things that all fit me. There were other places I'd go, thrift stores and vintage stores where I'd shop and where people would hand me things and say they wanted me to have them, or they'd put something extra in my bag as I was leaving. It was extraordinary, and everything was always so nice that the people I worked with were always complimenting me and when I'd say that I'd found something at a thrift store or a yard sale they never believed me. I went from being that poor destitute girl who always felt like she didn't fit in to being admired for having such a beautiful wardrobe.

And now there is so much that I was able to give some away to this neighbor. They were all things I like, but I really felt as if I needed to clear through some things and bless someone else in the way I'd been blessed. And to see and hear how happy she was with the things I gave her really touched something so deep in me that I didn't even know still needed to be healed. In seeing her joy and hearing how much she was feeling blessed with the gift of this clothing, I was reminded of the way I'd felt years ago and how I'd had so little of anything special to call my own, and how when I'd lost so much I'd gone through a time of such need and such scarcity that it seems a miracle that I survived it and that I have come to the place where I am now. And it is a miracle, it is a blessing of God, and there is no other way I can explain it than that. To have gone from that place where I was so many years ago, to have struggled for so long, to have lost so much and had so much taken from me and to find myself now in a place where I have enough to share and bless someone else is a miracle of the love and care of God in my life. And as I always say, it's not because I've done anything to deserve it, because when God came into my life I wasn't doing anything special, it's because for some reason God decided to knock on my door and keep knocking, to drop off his blessings when I wasn't even ready or willing to receive them, and to keep on showing me love until I was finally able to recognize that it was God that I needed all along.

A Recent Exquisite Vintage Find

Ready For New Adventures

Blessings,

Jannie Susan    

An Abundant Life - Made With Excellence

When I first moved to New York, many years ago now, my mother sent me an ad from the New York Times for a sale at a kitchen supply store by the name of Bridge Dishes. My Nana had always shopped there, and she had told my mother when she was first married that it was the best place to begin to outfit her kitchen, and so when I had my first apartment my mother suggested that I go there for their annual sale and begin my kitchen planning. The ad showed some specific special sales, and one of them was for a set of Sabatier knives. If I remember rightly they were $19.99 which was to me at that time a fortune. I was working at the Circle Repertory Company as an intern making $60 per week and though my hours were long I had another part time job helping Harold Taylor, the then retired former President of Sarah Lawrence, in his home office whenever I could fit it in. My rent in those days was $390 per month. It had started at $350 when I first moved in and then went up slowly from there. I was subletting a room in a Co-Op owned by someone I had known since childhood, who I had met in modern dance class in Boston in a class that was taught by a former dancer from Alvin Ailey. I started that class when I was three years old because my sister had wanted to take ballet and they wouldn't allow children my age to begin until our muscles and bones had formed more solidly, so they recommended modern dance which for some reason was much more child friendly. Years later when I was planning to move to New York I started contacting everyone and anyone I knew who might know of an apartment, and when I called this long ago friend from dance class who had moved to New York for college she had a room in a Co-Op that was just coming open when I needed it.

When my mother suggested I go to Bridge Dishes and sent me the ad, I honestly don't remember if I walked there or took the subway. In those days my finances were so tight that I walked everywhere I could, a habit that I've continued to this day and that helps me to stay healthy in mind and body and spirit and also gives me a wonderful sense of the places where I live. Walking shows me things that other people who live in areas their whole lives don't know about. I discover beautiful things and wonderful shops and interesting people and places. I seem to remember taking the subway to Bridge Dishes, and I bought the set of Sabatier knives and a wonderful yellow orange Hall covered casserole dish. I also bought at least one wooden spoon that I still have and have used for nearly everything I've cooked for all these years.

The Sabatier knives were beautiful to me when I bought them. We'd never really had great cooking knives in my home growing up, and having something that was known to be made with a history of excellence for Chefs and home cooks to enjoy was a pleasure that made my own forays into the world of culinary art something that was much more than just dabbling. I had decided when I first moved to New York that either I'd have to learn to cook or I'd be eating ramen noodles all day every day which wouldn't keep me healthy or happy for very long. I knew how to make a few things, namely omelets, chili, guacamole, and chocolate mousse, I could bake bread and make cookies sometimes, depending on the recipe, and I could experiment with tomato sauce made with canned tomatoes. It was definitely a start, and so I began to ask my mother for recipes of things I wanted to make, and I relied on a cook book my father gave me, the Joy of Cooking, to give me the necessary details I needed like cooking times and temperatures and how to handle certain vegetables, meats and fish. Looking back on it now it seems like an impossibility that I could have learned as much as I have over these years, but somehow, even with my limited time, I found cooking to be very nurturing and relaxing, and even if I came home very late from the theater I'd take the time to cook something or make something that was healthy and enjoyable. Friends shared recipes with me, I'd ask Chefs and people I met how to make certain things I'd tasted, and everywhere I went I had my eyes open to try new things. When I discovered Chinatown one day I thought I'd made my way into a magical new world and I bought so many things that I could barely carry all the bags home.

The Sabatier knives I'd bought at Bridge Dishes were a set of three, one paring knife, one slicing knife and one carving knife. I didn't use the slicing knife as much as the other two which I used fairly constantly, and then one day several years later when I was preparing steak that had been in the freezer, I went to cut into it and the carving knife chipped. There was no way to use it that way, and I didn't know what to do, so I contacted Bridge Dishes and they gave me the information for the company that was located in France. I sent the knife off with a note describing what had happened and asking if there was any way to repair it, and then one day a few weeks later I received a box in the mail with a brand new and much more professional looking, perfectly crafted carving knife along with a note that explained to me very politely and kindly that the knife I had been using was a counterfeit, and that because of their pride in their family company and history they were sending me a real one to show me how excellent they really are.

After that I was a fan for life, and I always planned one day to purchase more knives from them to make up a set, but my finances were still very low and the paring knife I had worked well enough, and then a friend gave me a smaller kitchen knife as a gift that was made by a good company, so I left well enough alone and used what I had gratefully until a few weeks ago when the paring knife broke as I was cutting an apple for my breakfast one morning. It was completely unexpected and I wasn't sure what to do because I had looked online for Sabatier knives a few years ago and the only place that seemed to carry authentic ones was the company I'd written to years before in France. I looked the company up and there they were, but before contacting them I asked a Chef I know who I think is the best in all that he does f he could recommend anything. He gave me some helpful advice and I explained my whole story and history and admiration for Sabatier and he encouraged me to go ahead and treat myself to what I wanted. I wrote a note to Sabatier, and they sent me to their website, and in all honesty I could have bought everything on it because they are so well made and beautiful. But I also know that though I have learned so much about cooking so many things over all these years I really only use two knives regularly with a few others on occasion, and as I had the carving knife still, and I have an excellent bread knife, I decided to select a paring knife and a small kitchen knife along with a sharpening whetstone, something that I have always wanted. I have a feeling that I may choose more in the future, but for now I am giving myself time to enjoy the two knives I have received. The paring knife is a vintage carbon steel with a wengue wood handle from the 1960's and the kitchen knife is also wood handled and made with stainless steel in the company's heritage style. I'm getting used to using them, and as with all things that are made with excellence it feels as if I've had them for much longer. They fit well in my hand and feel comfortable to hold, and they make my kitchen tasks a joy.

Sabatier Knives

Made In Thiers, France

In Auvergne Rhône-Alpes

Since 1810

https://www.sabatier-shop.com

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Bittersweet

It's the time of the year when berries appear on trees and the leaves have fallen or are falling. Years ago a friend told me that the yellow and red berries that appear on one of the bramble bushes are called bittersweet, and whenever I see them I remember that time walking with her on an island near the ocean and I think of what the name means. I am someone who loves words, and even if there is a meaning, it is more what the sound of the words means to me that I think of, and when I think of bittersweet, I think of the taste but also of memories, of the way that our lives can bring back memories of things that have gone before, of people we knew and things we did, and that there can be memories that are both bitter and sweet all rolled together in the past.

Today is the anniversary of when I was born again, my born again birthday, sixteen years past, making me a sixteen year old born again Christian. To recognize that date, I wanted to share a testimony, a story I wrote for the Episcopal New Yorker magazine a few years ago that tells a bit about how it came to be that I am who I am today. There is so much more to the story, and so much that has happened since and continues to happen, but this was the beginning, a glimpse into who I was and how I started on my journey into this new life.

HOW I CAME HOME

I was born again above an Irish bar. At the time in my life that was the darkest it’s ever been, God reached out His hand and pulled me out of the pit I had dug myself into.

For many years, I had my own business doing public relations for performing and visual artists and putting on events in the community, and I had a dream of starting my own community center. I sent out an email to my friends and contacts describing my vision of sharing living and creative space to create a place for artists to come together and show their work. I heard back one February night when the phone rang and a friend told me he’d forwarded my email to an artist who had a space he was looking to rent. By April I had moved in. It seemed so perfect I thought it was heaven sent.

In retrospect it may have been a Divine appointment. God sometimes allows us to go down paths that lead us to destruction if that’s the only way we can come to our senses and turn to Him. By 2005 I had lost everything. I was in debt, friends and family had either forsaken me or couldn’t help me, the mess I was in was so deep. The place where I was living was being taken over, and I was dealing with an angry landlord who wanted me out so badly he was threatening me daily and had people destroying the walls and turning off the water and heat. I had nowhere to go and I thought I’d be better off dead.

People kept telling me I had to start praying. Some were Christians, some were not, but the message was always the same. They told me I needed to forgive and pray for everyone in the situation, including the people who were harassing me. I said no way. I hadn’t ever spent much time in church, but whenever things went wrong in my life I’d beg God for help and He always came through. I’d start praying now, but I wasn’t going to pray for these other awful folks.

One night on my way home I saw a cartoon booklet lying on the ground. I was walking down a dark street and a shaft of light from a street lamp on the corner beamed on it. It had been raining all day but the paper seemed dry. The cover picture was the character Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ ”A Christmas Carol,” saying the words “Bah Humbug!” I love cartoons and always have and it is a family joke that my father used to walk around at Christmas time saying that. It made me smile, something I desperately needed, and reminded me of my father who I desperately needed too. He died in 1998 and I never missed him more than I did then. I threw the booklet in my bag and forgot about it until the next morning.

When I started to read, it was a Chicks publication tract, with the story of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” told in scripture, and the theme was all about forgiveness. When I got to a page with a picture of Jesus on the Cross saying, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” I threw it down and said, “I know you want me to forgive them but I can’t. I know you were able to forgive when you were on the Cross but I’m not you.” The answer came back, “You’re not on the Cross.” In that moment I was filled with the knowledge of the love of God. I understood that I was a sinner, that I was no better than the people who had been threatening me, I understood that God loved them just as much as He loved me and that He could forgive me and love me even more if I could forgive them. I started weeping and said, “I understand, I understand, I understand, I forgive them, I forgive them, I forgive them.” An enormous weight came off me, and in a few days I found a new place to live. I didn’t know what had happened to me except that I was now talking to God all the time.

Six months later when I was visiting a church, the Pastor made an announcement that they needed Soup Kitchen volunteers. I heard the voice of God saying, “You need to go.” I was scared because I didn’t know what kind of people I’d find there, but the voice kept saying, “You were almost homeless. Go.” When I walked down into the basement and saw the depressing environment and the unhealthy food, I heard the voice of God saying, “Only the best for my children.” He sent me to high quality markets for donations and they started pouring in. He started opening doors and one of them led to teaching nutrition and health workshops to faith based and non faith based organizations all over the five boroughs. I went to shelters and soup kitchens and harm reduction centers, food pantries, recovery programs and schools. I also worked as the Director of an After School program in public housing on the lower east side, bringing arts programming and enrichment programs to youth. My work and my daily life are walking testimonies to the transforming power of God’s love, forgiveness, redemption and salvation, and through word and action I do all I can to show His love and bring hope. I continue to teach nutrition and wellness and I am also working with artists, designers, small business  owners and entrepreneurs and not-for-profits, helping with public relations and marketing, collaborative events and a variety of business management needs, and I am embarking on a new project to facilitate life skills and empowerment workshops to adults and youth who are living in transitional housing. The business I had lost has been restored a hundred times over, and the work I am doing has expanded beyond anything I could have imagined.

There is a beginning to this story that is another example of God’s love, mercy, and wonderful sense of humor. When I was applying to college, I had wanted to go to Sarah Lawrence where my mother had gone and I was accepted, but though I was an excellent student I was unable to get a scholarship there because their scholarships are extremely limited. I had also applied to Harvard and Yale, but in a strange sequence of events was not accepted because I needed a scholarship, and they had awarded scholarships to two different students from my high school and told me that the quota for that school was limited. I was accepted at the University of Puget Sound which was a very affordable school, and though I had thought I might like to study marine biology, my real love was acting and I didn’t want to be so far away from the East Coast theater world. That left Chatham College in Pittsburgh, which at the time was an excellent small liberal arts college for women (it is now a University that accepts men for classes). Chatham gave me nearly a full scholarship, and so off to Pittsburgh I went.

Before we started the fall semester, Chatham connected us with our soon to be roommates and suggested  we contact them and tell them something about ourselves. I got a very friendly letter from a young woman named Jewel Hendrix who told me how much she loved Jesus. That was enough to send me running in the opposite direction. I had always been a geek in school, not popular, though I did have a boyfriend from another town who was in my youth orchestra. I loved learning and school, but didn’t want to be a geek my whole life – I longed to be accepted into the in crowd. One of my other friends from youth orchestra had been talking about how great Jesus was and that she was born again all of a sudden, and I couldn’t get far enough away from her, and now here was this other girl who I was going to be stuck in a room with talking about that same thing.

As soon as I got to Chatham, I started meeting some very sophisticated girls who partied and did all kinds of things that seemed so cool – everything I thought I wanted. They were trendy and hip and fashionable and they invited me to dorm parties and parties at the frat houses they went to at Carnegie Mellon and The University of Pittsburgh. And each afternoon when I’d wake up after 1pm after a night of being out with these very cool girls, I’d find this young woman Jewel Hendrix sitting next to my bed praying for me. It made me so angry. How dare she! I complained to the Resident Advisor that she was crazy and awful and as soon as I could I separated from her. The RA told me that Jewel had agreed to separate because she didn’t want to cause me any harm or discomfort, but that she wanted me to know that she thought God had put us together so that she could save me. “See what I mean?” I said to the RA. “She’s nuts!” I ended up transferring from Chatham to Sarah Lawrence after my Sophomore year, but I would see Jewel from time to time during the time that I was still at Chatham and when I went back to visit with friends. She was always very friendly, but I snubbed her every time. I couldn’t get away from her fast enough with her weird Jesus talk. One of my closest friends who is still a friend to this day always said that she thought Jewel was a very nice person, but I wasn’t buying it. She might be nice, but she was nuts and I wasn’t interested in getting to know anything about her.

Fast forward to twenty years later, after I found myself talking to God above an Irish Bar, and I wanted to try to find Jewel to apologize. I was talking to that same friend who had always thought she was nice and my friend tracked Jewel down on the internet. At the time she was working with a group called Feed The Hungry, and she traveled all over the world as a Missionary. I called the main number listed on her page on the website and left a message, and a few weeks later I got a phone call one afternoon from a voice I hadn’t heard in years but that I could never forget. She told me she’d gotten my message when she returned from Guatemala and that she’d had to listen to it several times because she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. We laughed a lot that afternoon, and we’ve continued laughing, and at times when things seem very difficult and it’s hard to trust God in a storm, I always remember Jewel Hendrix and Chatham. In a wonderful way even when there have been times that I’ve been too weak to remember, an email will come from Jewel, and on one very memorable occasion when I was really going through a tough time, I asked God to have someone call me out of the blue so I could know without a doubt that I was hearing His voice, and Jewel called me. When I tell this story to people sometimes they look at me with that look that says that even though it sounds crazy, they know I’m telling the truth. Jesus tells us that we will know the truth and the truth will set us free, and because He is the way and the truth and the life, He does.

In a very strange denouement, I had written the first part of this testimony for an article on Forgiveness and Salvation in The Episcopal New Yorker a few years ago. As I was writing it, I went back to look at the Chicks tract that had so impacted my life and though I went through it page by page I could not find that image of Jesus on the Cross. It simply wasn’t there. But it had been there so clearly in my memory that when I told the story for years afterward, that was an integral part of it. But it wasn’t there, at least not in the natural world. A good friend who has known me for years says that I have a memory like a steel trap, and I pretty much do. I have a photographic memory for things that people say and things that happen, and images stay with me seemingly forever. I can still see that page in that tract, and feel how angry I was when I threw it down in frustration. It was there just for me in that moment, the last straw on a very stubborn camel’s back that helped the camel get through the eye of the needle and go home.

Jannie Wolff

July 22, 2019

Parts of this Testimony Appeared In “The Episcopal New Yorker” Fall 2014 Issue

Jannie Wolff In New York in 2019

Photograph Taken By Montgomery Frazier

Blessings,

Jannie Susan

An Abundant Life - Christmastime In The City

The first year I lived in New York, I bought a very small tree near one of the supermarkets on 110th Street and Broadway near where I was living at the time. The supermarkets are long gone, and the area has changed so much, but that first year is still in my memory because of that lovely little tree. It wasn't tiny, but it was definitely small, and it was so dear to me. I think it cost $11 if I remember rightly, and that was a lot of money for me in those days. I bought ornaments from Woolworths and maybe from some other five and dime type store, and in my eyes that tree was the most beautiful I'd ever seen. I still have those ornaments, and I've used them every year when I've had a tree.

At some point I moved downtown, and I remember a year when the trees began to get very expensive. It was a particularly cold winter, and one day when I was walking past one of the tree sellers, they were advertising that they couldn't take the cold any more and their trees were discounted fifty percent. I bought a Frasier fir that year, the first time that I started to understand what the different types of trees were. This one was more than six feet tall and so big around that it filled an entire area of my apartment. It was lovely, and I remember carrying it home, having to stop and rest because it was so big, but I was so happy to have this beautiful tree that it was worth the struggle.

I used to have a tree every year, but then at some point I moved into an apartment that just didn't seem like there would be a place for one, and I didn't have any extra money then at all, so at that point I stopped. At some point during that time, I had a consulting job helping a music promoter bring a touring youth choir from Southern Africa to New York City for some holiday show fundraisers to bring awareness and funding to their region for medical relief and healthcare. Though I had been contacting all kinds of people and agencies and there was interest in what they were trying to do, I hadn't been having success is finding bookings for them until one day when I was looking at a poster that the man I was working for had given me and I saw the name of the Harlem Boys Choir on it. It was a poster for another concert he'd promoted a few years before and there were all kinds of people involved, but somehow the Harlem Boys Choir name seemed like it was larger than all the rest for a moment, and I felt as if I was hearing a voice telling me to call them. That kind of thing happens to me sometimes, and I've learned since I was born again to listen, and though at that time it was early in my walk with God, I had already had the experience that when I heard that voice I needed to do what it said, even if it made no sense to me. I got out my phone book, because in those days that's what we still did when we wanted to find a telephone number, and I looked up Harlem Boys Choir and found it. I called the number and when I man answered I told him what I was calling about, describing as I had done countless times about this youth choir from Southern Africa and how I was trying to help them find places to perform for the holidays. He told me that it was very interesting that I'd called just then and that he'd answered, because he wasn't usually at that location and he normally wouldn't have answered the phone, but he had a possible client that might be interested in hearing about this youth choir because he was in charge of the bookings for the Harlem Boys Choir and there was someone who had asked him if they could do a series of high profile concerts for the holidays but they were not available. He said he couldn't tell me who the person was because they were such a high profile client, but if I'd send him the information about this group and what the cost would be to have them perform, he'd share the information with the client and let me know if they wanted to move forward. That call led to me and the group I was booking being a part of the New York City launch for Sarah McLachlan's latest album at the time, a Christmas and holiday record of traditional music and cover songs. One of the songs was John Lennon's "And So This Is Christmas," and they needed a youth choir to sing backup for three events. One was a radio show, one was Good Day New York, and the other was the Rockefeller Tree Lighting Ceremony. That Christmas season that year is so memorable for so many reasons, and that experience was a beautiful one. The night of the tree lighting I was under the tree as it was lit, ad every year since, whenever I see that beautiful tree I remember that night and that phone call that led me to that place.

This year of course was a very different one than those in the past, but though the City has been quieter than it would normally be, it's definitely feeling much more like it used to around holiday time. The tree at Rockefeller Center is another beautiful one, and the holiday windows at Saks Fifth Avenue across the street are filled with light and life. At times like this when I look back on years past, I'm grateful for those times that I've had that were sweet and lovely and extraordinary. There's something to be said for recognizing those things in our life we have to be grateful for, and as I think about other years and other times when my own life was so uncertain, I know that somehow, some way, if I take in the fact that my steps have always been guided to things that were not only good but were precious, then I can know that as I move into the unknown future that it will be an adventure that is filled with joy.

The Tree At Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Plaza

New York City

Blessings,

Jannie Susan