Message of Christianity

by Karen Mains

“So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” 1 John 4:16 NRSV.

This is the message of Christianity that we too often forget. It is not the protestors standing on the fringe of gravesites protesting gay lifestyles. It is not the self-righteous judgments of television evangelists. It is not the angry denunciations of self-appointed “prophets”. It is unaccountable acts of loving sacrifice that make a difference in the world. It is shared homes and meals. It is kind words spoken in harsh environments. It is forgiveness offered to persecutors. It is two people who work, for the sake of the God of love, to make a marriage succeed. It is weariness because of well doing. It is giving of one’s means. It is an overwhelming body of evidence that there are people in society who actually have known and believe the love God has for them, who abide in that love and consequently abide in God and He in them.

I Wish I Could Take Credit For

by Karen Mains

I wish I could take credit for making the decision not to have television in the house.

But the truth is, one of the children dropped the portable television set. We had bought this with the idea that we could put it away in a closet when it was not being used. Well, that never happened.

I set up all sorts of controls—a chart beside the television for the children to record the amount of time they watched television and what they watched; a rule that homework had to be done before television; a limit on viewing. We even had a Saturday-morning-cartoon violence-tracking chart—but none of this worked well. It didn't because television regulation required that I be the television vice squad, something not suited to my style of discipline. Indeed, the greatest viewing offender in our household was I! I am a latent television addict. So when one of the kids dropped the darn thing and it broke, we decided not to replace it and to go cold-turkey TV-withdrawal instead.

And do you know what?—it was one of the best decisions we ever made for the life of our family—not to mention my own intellectual and spiritual development. Read more at Hungry Souls...

The Fragile Curtain by Karen Mains

The Fragile Curtain by Karen Mains won the Christopher Award given for works that exemplify the highest values of humanity.

In this deeply moving book, join Karen on her very personal journey through the crowded refugee warehouses of the world. She went to write about the pain and suffering of these people. Instead they showed her the meaning of her own life. The sacredness of family. The miracle of love. The hope of birth—and death.

Karen dares us all to look at our own lives; to assess the good—and the bad. To celebrate the joy and the blessing of family life. To be thankful that despite sorrow and suffering we dare to begin again.

Listening Groups Start in February 2011

Karen Mains is gathering material to put a book on Listening Groups together and would love to journey from February 2011 through eight months until September with people who wish training as Listening Group leaders. This will keep her mind in the Listening Group mode and in dialogue with people who feel strongly about this spiritual exercise.

Her covenant is to have the first draft of the book written by September 2011.

As usual, the groups will consist of 3-4 members; we will meet once a month at the Mains’ home in West Chicago, IL. The meetings will last 2 1/2 hours, but will include training and hands-on activity with each participant taking turns leading the group. Karen is a small-group specialist, certified by Riva Institute as a focus group moderator.

We will be looking at the neurobiology of well-being cuased by the listening process, at how to ask good questions, at how to guard the architecture of the listening process, at how to create safety in a group, etc.

The fee for this 8-month journey is $125. If you are interested, contact Susan Hands at Mainstay Ministries at info@hungrysouls.org

A Prayer Said During A High School Reunion

Our Heavenly Father, We come to you at this cycle of our lives, our later years.

We remember those, friends and companions, who have been in our midst, but who are now gone. We thank you for the part of their lives that we have shared, however brief or however joyful. Let us remind ourselves, because of them, that each day is a gift, not a promise, to be lived as beautifully as possible within our abilities and our means.

Thank you for the fleeting marvels in each moment, for the solaces of friendship, for the continuing miracle of love coming into our lives, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes through the touch of a child or the embrace of another human, sometimes in the overwhelming reality that You approve of who we are or of what we do.

Thank you for laughter through the years and for those events, small or large, that bring us delight.

Thank you for mercy in the midst of suffering, for comfort when we are afraid or distressed, for sleep that eases our sorrows.

Thank you that we have danced, that we have celebrated, that we have sung and praised, that we have been privileged to live deeply in a time of amazing advancements.

Thank you that many of us have had meaningful work in our days.

Thank you that some of us have made a difference for good in our world.

We are sorry for the times that we have disappointed You, or abandoned others, or betrayed our own selves. Forgive us, please, and help us to do better.

Bless us this evening, we pray. Give us joy in meeting again. Give us tenderness for those who struggle. Help us to be kind in word and deed. Grant that we may be alive with curiosity. And as we leave one another, perhaps never to meet again, help us to wish one another peace—peace for living and peace for dying.

We pray this in Your name: in the name of the Father, and of His Son, Jesus Christ. May we use the time still left to us, through the help of the Holy Spirit, to be more than we thought possible. Amen.

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This prayer was prepared and said by Karen Mains during her 50th high school reunion.

50th Reunion Revelations

by Karen Mains

My 50th High School Class Reunion was full of all sorts of revelations:

• It helps that I had dropped 12 pounds, let my hair go white and found a new spiky hairdo. Nothing like physical confidence to help you face a crowd!
• Old friends are important. They have often accomplished surprising and amazing enterprises.
• Age, no matter what anyone says, is an huge advantage.
• Old boy friends remember their first loves fondly.
• Incarnational witness, backed with prayer, makes a huge difference in the world, even when we don’t know what is happening.
• Don’t avoid reunion events. Go and work the floor like you are campaigning. Don’t be afraid of asking the question, “What has your spiritual journey been like?” (People want to tell you!)

Hungry Souls Advent Retreat 2010

Hungry Souls Advent Retreat will be on December 1-2, 2010. The cost for the days, including a private room with bath and three meals is $120. If you register by October 1st, the early registration fee is $100. If you bring a friend who has never attended, the fee will be $90 for your friend and for yourself. You can begin early registration by e-mailing Susan Hands at info@hungrysouls.org.

Open Heart, Open Home by Karen Mains

Can a simple dinner party for the neighbors change the world? Karen Mains says, "Yes!".

And in Open Heart, Open Home show shows how. In this classic on Christian hospitality, Karen Mains steps far beyond how-to-entertain hints to explore a biblical and spiritual approach to using your home to care for others. This approach to hospitality can literally transform the fabric of your community and your world.

Whether you are a business executive or a homemaker, a professional minister or a layperson, a seasoned entertainer or an entertaining klutz, you will find here the encouragement and skills you need to reach out with the gospel through daily acts of acceptance, belonging and love.

Scriptural Hospitality

by Karen Mains

I always laugh inside I encounter Christians who consider the theology of hospitality to be a “woman’s issue.” Rather, practicing hospitality is the expression of a radical life view that often pierces to the heart of justice issues and demands of its practitioners a stance of either civil disobedience or some kind of cultural radicalism.

This is so important. Let me repeat: Hospitality is the expression of a radical life-view that often pierces to the heart of justice issues and demands of its practitioners a stance either of civil disobedience or of some kind of cultural radicalism.

One pastor once told me he couldn’t think of four sermons that he could preach on hospitality! I was amazed. I could spend a whole year sermonizing about this topic.

Let me illustrate. Scriptural hospitality should be the basis of the church’s position on the knotty immigration issues that now face our nation. Instead, we are caught in debates that have nothing to do with Christian conversations but everything to do with personal opinions. For Christians, the dialogue should begin with, “What does the Scripture have to say about this issue?” This may be due to the fact that our premises are faulty—we assume the Bible has nothing to say about this contemporary issue (according to statistics, some 200 million people are on the move globally!) In fact, the truth is diametrically opposite—Scripture has everything to say about the immigration issue, and the sheer volume of passages alone should inform our thinking about how we treat the immigrants (legal and illegal) among us. Read more at Hungry Souls...

Flight Through Life

by Karen Mains

None of us know about the web of prayer that surrounds our lives. We have no way of measuring how many times prayer has protected us, preserved us or assuaged our distresses. We just complain about what goes wrong, howl over the suffering that, unwanted, comes our way; shake our fist in the face of God and cry, “Unfair! Unfair!” But we do not count the ways we have been kept safe, nor measure the days that have been shot through with happiness.

We have no idea how many times He has given His angels charge over us, lest we strike our foot against a stone.

“How was your flight?”

How is your flight through life, through the moments of the days? Begin to look for the gifts of prayer, see if you can detect that figurative flash of wings, the hidden sound of something beating beneath the surface of things. Concentrate, instead of what has gone wrong, on what has gone right. Read more on KarenMains.com...

Lonely No More by Karen Mains

Lonely No More is a book by renowned author Karen Mains. It is an honest and compassionate guide for anyone who struggles with loneliness and alienation, even in the midst of a busy and fulfilled life. It is a deeply personal exploration of what it means to be a woman, a Christian, a wife, a mother, a daughter, an artist and a leader. Fearlessly honest, bittersweet but life-affirming, full of wonder and wisdom, this moving memoir charts its course through the mysterious landscape of the human spirit.

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Putting Brakes On My Pace

by Karen Mains

I needed to put a brake on my fast/faster pace. I began my summer journey into ramping down by re-reading the book by Carl Honoré, In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed. Practicing self awareness, I began to count the many moments of breathlessness in my days. I evaluated those “vices” of punctuality, efficiency, and goal-setting. I discovered I was speeding even when I drove under the speed limit! “Why are you rushing?” I began to demand of myself. “You’re on time. There’s no need to hurry. In fact, it looks as though you’ll arrive early.” After several weeks of this watchfulness, I concluded that I was addicted; I was on an adrenalin high, stimulated by the fast pace of our techno-driven, impersonal society that creates an impatience if we have to wait in line at the store, at our computers, or at a traffic light. “Instant gratification,” quipped actress/author Carrie Fisher, “takes too long.”

Honoré writes, “Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried, analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality. Slow is the opposite: calm, careful, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity.” No doubt in my mind, I want to go back to there, back to what musicians call the tempo giusto—the right speed. I am a contemplative who has lost her way this summer in material activism. I need to get back to the Center and stop rushing through my days. I want to get back to what Richard Rohr in his book The Naked Now calls “the Gospel life,” to become that kind of person who has eyes to see and who sees. It means making the major calling of my life a calling of prayer. Read the full article on Hungry Souls...

Making Sunday Special

In this insightful, encouraging, and delightful book, bestselling author Karen Mains challenges Christians to celebrate Sunday with a Sabbath heart—to make the Lord’s Day so special that its impact launches a weekly cycle of reflection and growing anticipation. Making Sunday Special will help you and your people restore the biblical “rhythm of the sacred” and then fall in love again and again with Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath.

The Unbearable Brightness of Being

by Karen Mains

The all-too-familiar instinct kept nagging at me, Don't do it, Karen. Don't do it! You're trying to shove too much into the afternoon. You're going to greet your guests tonight with an aching back and hostess' anxiety.

But I did it anyway. Because I really wanted to attend the Naperville Art Festival, and because a friend really wanted me to spend some time with her, I crowded my Sunday afternoon. Ten people were coming for a "Bag Team" brainstorming dinner that evening. The table was set, guests were bringing parts of the meal, but I still had to pick up the special kluski noodles I use and some whipped cream at Jewel-Osco, and the homemade chicken noodle soup (that my family loves) was not in the pot yet!

Obviously, I was hurriedly making a choice that I was not carefully considering. Now I was on my way as my friend drove down Warrenville Road toward Naperville to see this remarkable exhibit of artists' works about which she had been so exultant. The time was 12:30. While stopped at a traffic light, I finally began to do the calculations. It would take a half-hour to get to Naperville: I would have to leave by 2:00, run to the store, get home, debone the chicken, make the soup, mix blackberry liqueur into the whipped cream and create a sauce for the blackberry buckle, the recipe taken from my Cooking French book. If I returned home by 3 o'clock, would I get everything done by the time people arrived? Read more...

Weather Financial Blowouts Rule #2

by Karen Mains

Financial blowouts can create the kind of community we have forgotten and yet long for in the deepest part of our beings.

I suspect we Christians need to lead the way in breaking up our government dependency. We need to increase our God-given Body of Christ interdependency. We need to explode the myth that unless we have money we can't solve problems. What a deception that is! (My personal mantra learned during these years in God's School of Finance is: We don't need money. we don't need money. We only need Him, the Provider and Sustainer.)

Creativity and ingenuity are our best currencies. So, let’s brainstorm together all the ways we can solve our personal, citywide, regional and national problems We need to develop neighborhood architectures for helping one another; we need to joyfully explore the alternate barter, recycle and trade economies. I do most of my clothes-shopping at Goodwill. I bought a pair of Ralph Lauren pants ($400 online) for $4. I got a great black leather jacket with a furred hood for $30. “You look terrific!” said some younger women I’ve mentored but hadn’t seen for a year. Well, losing 22 of the 30 pounds I gained during our season of financial discontent helped, but letting my hair go white (consequently, $22 for a haircut at the JCPenney Salon—no styling, walking out with my hair wet—instead of $160 for cut, color, styling, blow-dry and tip) not only saves money, it honors the fact that I have achieved these older years. A Daisy Fuentes tunic and Tommy Hilfiger black jeans, $4 apiece from Goodwill, finished the look.

Too bad the concept of community organizer came under such disapprobation in the last election, because God is the original Community Organizer. His platform always includes pulling together a group of unlikely folk who are willing to be inspired by the Holy Spirit to make amazing differences in the world. What a wonderful thing—to create neighborhoods where we actually feel free to borrow sugar, not to mention a car, where we can chat over fences, reinstitute the coffee klatch, tend to those who are feeble, and even know one another’s names and what we each do in the world. Together, we can change the environment around us. Together, we can learn that the meaning of the word “stranger” is not “the neighbor I don’t know who lives next door.”

On one sub-zero day this winter, my African-American neighbor, new to our community, phoned. “How are you doing over there?” she asked. “Is your furnace OK? Are you warm?” I have never had another neighbor, in all the years we’ve lived in the Chicago-area inquire as to our being warm! Needing one another in financial hard times, we can learn again the gift of helping one another. Last summer at Home Depot I bought some clearance table burnished brass lamps for outside our home. My daughter-in-law’s father is a handyman, so he graciously came to teach me how to install the lights—he mounted one with me acting as an assistant apprentice, passing tools and carefully watching over his shoulder. I installed the remaining two without his help and proudly bragged to everyone who came in the front door, “I did it myself.” Six Rules for Weathering Financial Blowouts

On Karen Mains

For decades, Karen Mains, a prolific writer and gifted communicator, has offered her talents, as well as her joys and sorrows, to the building of God’s Kingdom.

Whether as an author, speaker, or radio and television producer and co-host, Karen has addressed the deep spiritual needs and longings that surface in our current society. Karen’s voice is substantive, often humorous, many times lyrical, but always practical.

Many of her creative works have been birthed out of personal experience. Her first best-selling book Open Heart, Open Home, is considered a classic and deals with the theology of Christian hospitality. It has sold over 600,000 copies and captured experiences out of 12 years serving in an inner city pastorate in a church founded by her husband, David R. Mains. The book challenges believers to use hospitality as a means of bringing redemption to a broken society.

In 1977, Mains’ communication gifts expanded when her husband became director of The Chapel of the Air Ministries. This nationally known outreach featured a syndicated radio broadcast, aired on almost 500 outlets each Monday through Saturday across the U.S. and Canada. Karen often served as co-host on the 15-minute program, lending her unique perspective to issues that impact the spiritual vitality of individual Christians and local churches. Her broadcast research generated the widely accepted book, Child Sexual Abuse: A Hope for Healing, co-authored with Maxine Hancock. The Mains’ media ministry continued with the daily half-hour national television show, You Need 2 Know, which won the 1995 Producer of the Year award from The National Religious Broadcasters.

In 1980, Karen traveled through the barrios and refugee camps in Central America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. As a result of these journeys, she wrote The Fragile Curtain, which won the 1982 Christopher Award given to writers, producers, and directors whose works affirm the highest values of the human spirit and are representative of the best achievements in their fields.

Mains’ three books for children, The Kingdom Tales Trilogy, was awarded the Gold Medallion by the Evangelical Press Association. These stories are frequently used by pastors as sermon material, have been endlessly adapted in dramatic form for churches and Christian schools, and have been regularly employed for the purposes of deep therapy by Christian counselors.

Karen Mains served on the Board of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for eight years and was elected its first woman chairperson. She is the co-founder of the Chrysosostom Society, a group of well-known Christian writers committed to excellence in their work. A past member of the Author’s Guild of New York, she works to reconcile, through a variety of means (one of which is the establishment of Artists’ Communities in local churches), the artist to Christianity. As part of her personal interest, Karen now offers informal Wannabee Writers mentoring discussions.

Karen Mains now serves as co-director of Mainstay Ministries where she is responsible for Hungry Souls, a spiritual mentoring outreach that seeks to help people whose appetite for God is greater than what their present environment is meeting. An annual 24-hour Advent Retreat of Silence, 3-day Retreats of Silence to people in the Chicagoland area. She delights in leading hungry souls in growth groups where group spiritual direction is offered. In addition, she has developed Journeys for Hungry Souls, a travel ministry that seeks to introduce pilgrims to the disciplines of pilgrimage.

The lastest growth edge in the Hungry Souls outreach has been to experiment with the powerful healing potential of listening groups. Over the past three years, Karen has overseen, observed, or participated in over 240 small listening groups. She is now beginning a research project that will assess the profound impact of these small group experiences.

Always passionate about the underprivileged and under-resourced, this year Karen and similarly passionate colleagues have launched The Global Bag Project, a way to connect eco-shopping to micro-credit enterprises. The first cooperative bag-making project is now being formed in Nairobi, Kenya. Karen will be traveling to Kenya in March 2009 with a group of 14 women. They will be meeting with Kenyan women to link their distant worlds in pragmatic ways.

Although she has authored over 27 books in the religious fields (her most recent is Going on a God Hunt with IVPress), Karen feels called to write about spiritual meaning into the secular culture, and is now spending much of her time discovering markets that are open to her work.

The Mains have been married for 47 years and live in the western suburbs of Chicago. As the parents of four adult offspring, Karen and David are highly committed to creating healthy families and are eagerly sharing their invaluable spiritual journeys with the next generation, their own 7 grandchildren.