About Karen Thomas Olsen
Born and raised in Ohio, I attended college and graduate school in Indiana, moved to Scotts Valley, California south of San Jose to teach, back to Ohio for many years, to Arizona for 11 years with my husband, and finally to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to be near family. (Leaving Prescott Valley, Arizona in 2018 was very hard. Sigh. But for family? Worth it.)
I have taught in three Christian high schools and one community college. My first teaching position was in Scotts Valley, California. In the summer of 1980, a tall, dark, and handsome 26 year old California boy, who had recently completed his degree in Aeronautical Operations from San Jose State University, followed me to Columbus, Ohio where I had accepted a new teaching position at Worthington Christian High School.
There in Worthington we were married. Paul became an Air Traffic Controller, and we raised two beautiful girls in Piqua and Troy, Ohio. We now also have a son-in-law and two precious grandsons born in 2009 and 2012. In 2007, Lockheed Martin transferred my husband to Prescott Valley, Arizona, which was a great adventure for us. Arizona was a good place for my health and great for Paul, a California boy who loves the sunny southwest! However, being far from family is not easy. So, in July of 2018 we moved to Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where we are near relatives and just hours from each of our daughters, one near Chicago and one north of Cincinnati.
For years, I worked in Christian school curriculum design and development, which was challenging, exciting, and satisfying. After retiring in the summer of 2012, I focused on completing a doctorate, pursuing some writing projects, and being involved in Christian education at our church. Maintaining this blog continues to be important to me. With great gratitude to the Lord who carried me through the process, I graduated from Trinity Theological Seminary in August, 2016, earning a DRS (Doctor of Religious Studies) with an emphasis in theology. My dissertation is entitled "A Taxonomic Theology of Suffering and Joy Designed to Assist in Christian Growth."
Besides reading, learning, teaching, and writing, I love to swim, stroll around the neighborhood on my bike, take Water Aerobics classes, mingle with neighbors, and participate in our local church. As my health permits, I love to travel and see God’s amazing creation.
I’m wearing my eye glasses or “life lenses” which instruct me to “Look for the Lord in every page of Scripture, in every corner of nature, and in every chapter of my life." No matter the direction of my life, it's a journey north.
It’s Father’s Day. We know that the role of a father is one of man’s most important and prestigious roles. Our race could not continue without fathers. Children need good fathers.
I’ve heard some men say that they love being fathers, that they couldn’t be prouder than to be the fathers of their children, and that fatherhood is more important to them than their careers.
Yet, Jesus never was a father.
His role is as the Son. And as our brother and Savior. But he never was a father. This is nothing too profound to observe, but it is, to me, striking on several levels. Continue reading →
Recently, I discovered a precious piece of paper in a smelly box of yellowing papers, stored in Aunt Mary’s garage at the Findlay Family Farm. So, our “Spirituality” theme will take a different turn today. A very practical turn. Practical, yet touching and spiritual.
This recent discovery is appropriate for me to share with you on Mother’s Day or on any day that you’d like to have an uplifting thought or two or more….
It is a draft of a love/gratitude letter that my mother wrote to my father in 1990, for their fortieth wedding anniversary which was on September 2. At the end, she adds in pencil, “finished in Sept. 1990”, which indicates to me that she had been working on this for awhile, growing her special, love list. Continue reading →
Ahh. I’ve been wanting to dig into this study of spirituality for months. The first quarter of 2019 is over with all of its activities: a month in Florida, recovery back home, doctor and medical visits, planning for Grand Camp, holding a week long Grand Camp with our grandsons at our house, and recovering from all its hubbub! All these activities as well as many unplanned distractions involved spirituality — spirituality woven into the fabric of daily living.
I had to put all of my study materials away before the two boys came to spend a week with Nana and Papa O during their spring break. Planning Grand Camp was a blessed obsession. Living through the blessed craziness — well, I can’t say that I’ve totally recovered.
Nonetheless, this afternoon, I chose the main guest room as my studio for this study. I collected Bibles, reference books, and my stack of books on our topic. Now, I had been simmering on this topic months ago. Where are those notes? Happily, I found them. Continue reading →
“When someone talks about spirituality or being spiritual, what do you think of? What do you think the other person is thinking of?”
In my January post, “Deeper and Deeper,” I began with these two questions but then did not directly address them.
So, I want to return to those questions as springboards to initiate JNC’s new series on Spirituality. I’m sure you’ve noticed that in the last several decades there has been a surge of interest in “spirituality” of all sorts. How do you respond?
I grew up in a spiritual home. Continue reading →
Unbelievable. Believable. Certainty. Doubt. Trust. Betrayal. Outrage too?
The theme I’ve been researching for this blog has been caught in bad weather. I’ve been researching responses to the question, “What is spirituality?” and was about to post the first article in a new series, comparing and contrasting various spiritualities. Spirituality is popular today. The purpose of this blog is to nourish a specific spirituality, the spirituality of following Christ. Thus, the Pedestrian Theologian motto and underlying theme.
However, the raging forces of what is called “moral outrage” has “tsunamied” many in our country, and I can’t help but catch some of the blast. Raging media waves. Raging thought waves. Raging rage. Fire and water. FEMA or not, in time, Lord willing, I’ll rebuild on my little lot (this blog).
Strikingly, along these detoured highways of moral outrage, I observe “spirituality” billboards. There it is! A connection between outrage and spirituality. Hmm. Unbelievable. Believable. Now, I can add moral outrage to my list of back doors to belief – in God.
Continue reading →
Sometimes my learning curves take me in circles! However, the circles often roll forward. Not always. This is what I call the “recursive process” — of writing, of learning — of life.
For much of today, Ive been exploring my WordPress blog operations, trying to make some ideas work. I wanted to add some pictures to my Photo Gallery found when you click on my Gravatar, that picture of my face, below the header. I couldn’t figure out a way to add pictures. I don’t know how those pictures that are there got there!
Finally, I decided to try another avenue. I started a new “page,” added pictures and some text, and thought I sent the post to you! It is there on JNC now, but it did not get sent to your email box, so you don’t know I made a new post, on a new page within JNC.
I’m sending you this from my main page to inform you, that if you click on “JNC Special Pictures” which is hanging above the header (the picture of the mountainous, Pacific coastline), you will find today’s post, which is on a different page. Apparently, somewhere in my “dashboard,” there is presented a way to add this page to my mailing list of readers. Someday, I may figure this out, but I’ve done enough figuring out for one day!
So, click on JNC Special Pictures, Continue reading →
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When someone talks about spirituality or being spiritual, what do you think of? What do you think the other person is thinking of?
Before you read further, please click on the link below to access some J. S. Bach performed on classical guitar (!!!) while you read this, if you would like. Oh, I think you would!
This is my first post of 2019. My last post discussed light. Energy. “Let there be light.” And before that, I wrote a series of posts about my father, since my father’s 100th birthday was in the fall. I doubt he celebrated it, but we did! He’s been in heaven since 2004.
Last January, I made one resolution. (Note the January 1 and January 11, 2018 posts.) I resolved to keep on keeping on. I have. Enabled by the energy God has given me daily. Yes, I’m still tired. But I’ve not given up! I’ve not given in! It was a huge year for us — moving in the summer from Prescott Valley, Arizona to Fort Wayne, Indiana! Oh, my! A whirlwind year. (I’m writing this in Florida, where we’re spending a month with dear friends from the Good Samaritan Mission, happily avoiding below zero temperatures in Indiana!)
So, now a new resolve to make for 2019 and a new series to start: Continue reading →
Lights, lights, lights. ‘Tis the season: Christmas lights on trees, wreaths, houses, and stores. This, of course, triggered my thinking: What is light? Literally. Figuratively.
What is darkness? Well, except for the obvious contrast, maybe the latter will have to be explored at another time!
Light? Immediately, I connected the light theme with Scripture. Jesus claimed, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Hmm. I’ve always found this phrase, “light of life”, to be a curious expression. John 1:4 says, “In him was life; and the life was the light of men”. Life’s light; Light’s life.
I need to explore. But I can only do so if I slow down in my cluttered busyness to “be still” and learn to “know” something of what is available to be known. Research creates another kind of clutter. Out come stacks of books, spread all over our dining room table! Oh, no! Not much time! Must clean this up by tomorrow! So, here is what happened:
Continue reading →
I hope you are enjoying this continued story about my father and his family. Throughout Dad’s life, from childhood to deathbed, Dad tended to bubble with a kind of joy, a Jesus-joy. It made him delightful to many and peculiar to others. William Wordsworth’s poem, “My Heart Leaps Up” reminds me of my father’s heart — established in childhood, shaping the man and his life.
My Heart Leaps Up
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety. Continue reading →
Part III: We left off here:
“The problem was the house. Now, the house becomes a main character in this real life story.”
If I were writing a book about my dad and his family (which I’m not), I could develop this “main character”, the house, beyond the details I’ve been given. I’m thinking of houses as characters in literature.
I think of the professor’s house in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Or, there’s 221B Baker Street in London, the “home” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creates for his character, Sherlock Holmes. Last summer, my first daughter visited a place in London, a museum, actually designed to match Doyle’s descriptions of Holme’s apartment! Continue reading →
Journey North Character 