MADISON — “Why talk about chaos when everyone wants to talk about joy?” asked Jeanne Ewing who spoke virtually at the Madison Diocesan Council of Catholic Women (MDCCW) convention in June.
Ewing shared her own chaos, including suffering from severe shingles, facing struggles going on in her family of origin and relationships, and parenting five children under the age of 10, including one with a rare serious disease and another who is hypersensitive and anxious.
Focusing on chaos first is important, she said, “because society bypasses grief and numbs pain and considers happiness to be the highest ordeal.”
While people tend to say they just want to be happy, they forget that happiness is fleeting. Happiness begins and ends and tends to peak, and once the peak is reached, it will descend. “Making happiness our goal harms our spiritual progress,” she said.
Joy is better than happiness
With two degrees in psychology and a counseling background, Ewing focuses on joy rather than happiness in her speaking and writing.
Before achieving joy, “we need to wrestle with the dark figure like Jacob did in the Old Testament before he received the blessing,” she told the women.
“What is your dark storm in your heart of life? Is it your relationship with your children, parents, siblings? Your marriage? What do you have to wrestle with? You can’t experience the fruit of joy until you first wrestle with the chaos and darkness in your life,” she said.
Describing joy as the fruit of the Holy Spirit and the “consequence of how we live our life,” Ewing said joy lasts. It is a gift and grace from the Holy Spirit.
“Joy is one of those blessings that we can live in, in the midst of our chaos.”
Finding and creating joy
However, Ewing admitted that finding joy is sometimes difficult.
“Finding and creating joy doesn’t come naturally to me, and it is tough for me to talk about it,” she said.
While writing and speaking on this topic, Ewing said she doesn’t have all the answers. Rather, she said she has more questions than answers to life’s mysteries.
By talking and presenting on chaos and joy and sharing stories, she tries to help people “rest in those questions.”
She talked about her 10-year-old daughter who has sensitivity and anxiety issues. Accepting her daughter’s challenges made her realize that each child is born with a gift to share and a burden to carry and a job to do.
While extreme sensitivity to external stimuli is often seen as a burden or flaw and a “huge cross to bear because of its emotional consequences,” at the same time it is a gift.
“Sensitive people are perceptive and notice things, especially the little things that most people tend to miss. They are in tune to the sufferings and cries of others and are natural empathizers.”
Not all the answers
Along with the challenge of parenting her sensitive oldest child, she has had to face the fact that her second child, a daughter, was born with a rare syndrome for which there is no cure. Ewing’s first inclination was to fix it and find answers.
“I was grasping in desperation. I felt like I was suffocating, desperately searching for answers so we could be proactive, take charge and be one step ahead of her progression.”
Discovering there was so little information about the disease, she realized that how she had been living up until that point — being a perfectionist and knowing the answers — wasn’t going to work anymore, and “I wasn’t going to have the life I thought I was going to have.”
Ewing said by taking on a personal Calvary and dying to self, she discovered that the cross became more prominent in her life.
“When we faithfully carry our cross and make an effort to show up every day, God will bless us with pockets of joy. The choice is whether we view suffering and chaos as a gift or burden.”
Be more intentional
When chaos seems overwhelming and joy is hard to find, that is when God wants us to create joy which means “we need to be more intentional about finding these moments where God presents himself to us. As we can carry that torch of hope forward, we can be a joy bearer to someone else.”
She said we can all be bearers of joy to others, even as we suffer.
“Joy doesn’t have to be separate from the cross,” she said as she shared her dedication to the Blessed Mother and how she meditates on her seven sorrows, “mother to mother. I think of how the very beginning we hear about the Annunciation and Visitation, jam-packed with joy. These are the stories we cling to because they give us hope for our own lives.”
But, then, said Ewing, we learn about how the Blessed Mother’s heart was pierced by a sword at the Presentation of the Child Jesus.
“Once her heart was pierced, it stayed that way, even as she raised her child . . . When we have trouble finding joy in the chaos, we can turn to her and realize that she is the greatest mentor we have as women. She is the example for us to continue to live in our suffering and chaos while still finding and creating pockets of joy which become the light of the world.”
She ended with her hope that by her sharing of “what I have come to learn will help you find a piece of your own journey and hope for your life.”
MDCCW convention on YouTube
To view her entire speech, search for “MDCCW” on YouTube.
Ewing’s talk, along with a keynote presentation by Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison, the Divine Mercy Chaplet set to music, and prayers and meditations are included and can be viewed in segments.
MDCCW is affiliated with the National Council of Catholic Women (NCCW) which was established 101 years ago to serve as an umbrella for Catholic women’s organizations. All Catholic women of the diocese are encouraged to join
MDCCW either through their parish councils or as individuals.
Membership information is available on its website mdccw.com
The NCCW acts through its members to support, empower, and educate all Catholic women in spirituality, leadership, and service.
NCCW programs respond with Gospel values to the needs of the Church and society in the modern world.