Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Born to Wander
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 4-Jul
WEBSITE: http://michellevanloon.com/
CITY:
STATE: IL
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
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| 670 | __ |a Van Loon, Michelle. ParableLife, c2005: |b ECIP t.p. (Michelle van Loon) data view (res. Chicago) |
| 670 | __ |a If only, 2014: |b E-Cip t.p. (Michelle Van Loon) data view (July 4, 1959) |
PERSONAL
Born July 4, 1959; married; husband’s name Bill; three children.
EDUCATION:Northern Seminary, graduate certificate, 2017.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies, Wheaton, IL, U.S. administrator. Has worked as communications professional for churches, produced church services, and served as consultant to nonprofit organizations. Perennial Gen website, cofounder.
MEMBER:INK Creative Collective.
RELIGION: Christian.WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Christianity Today.
SIDELIGHTS
Michelle Van Loon explores the concept of pilgrimage in Christian life in Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity. Many people of faith feel a sense of exile, of being an outsider, but this must not be an end in itself, but instead should be the motivation for a pilgrimage toward a closer relationship with God. “We are all people who live in exile, sent from Eden to make our way through a world shaped by sweat and sorrow,” she writes. “The state of exile is as familiar to us as our own heartbeat.” We can feel dislocation in our lives from the loss of loved ones, changes in job or home, or discrimination based on our identity, she notes. Exile, however, “is not a destination,” but “is meant to transform us into pilgrims,” according to Van Loon. To be a pilgrim is to leave one’s settled life in one sense or other, as Jesus told his followers to do, she says. There are various types of pilgrimage, and she deals with all of them: moral pilgrimage, which “focuses on everyday obedience to God”; physical pilgrimage, the act of traveling to a holy site; and interior pilgrimage, “the pursuit of communion with God through prayer, solitude, and contemplation.” She uses many stories from both the Old and New Testaments to encourage readers to take up their pilgrimage, and she offers prayers for various stages of pilgrimage and questions to help readers evaluate themselves. “It is time for us to reclaim our pilgrim identity,” she writes. “It is an identity for God’s people woven through Scripture from beginning to end.”
It is difficult for some believers to embrace this identity, Van Loon told Bible Gateway online interviewer Jonathan Petersen. “Those of us who are overly comfortable have no real incentive to follow [Jesus],” she said. “Conversely, nor are those of us who’ve wrapped ourselves so firmly in the identity of exile from the world that we’ve learned to live in a bunker and sought salvation as a way to avoid a world we don’t particularly like.” The overly comfortable must unsettle themselves, she told Petersen, and those entrenched in exile must move on to pilgrimage. There is no “tidy map” to pilgrimage, she added, but a pilgrim must trust in God while on the journey.
In Born to Wander, Van Loon displays both erudition and passion for her subject, remarked a Publishers Weekly critic. She “is well educated in biblical history” and offers a “spirited discussion” of the concept of pilgrimage, the critic related. Her “fervent book” the reviewer concluded, shows that a commitment to God “can be an invitation to a life of motion.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, May 28, 2018, review of Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity, p. 91.
ONLINE
A Novel Writing Site, http://www.anovelwritingsite.com/ (October 28, 2018), brief biography.
Bible Gateway, https://www.biblegateway.com/ (August 23, 2018), Jonathan Petersen, interview with Michelle Van Loon.
Michelle Van Loon website, http://michellevanloon.com (October 28, 2018).
My writing life started when my mom taught me to read before I started kindergarten. My early elementary years were spent sneak-reading classroom reference books I hid inside primers. I dreamed of becoming a writer when I grew up, but those dreams got swallowed alive by tangle and turmoil as I moved into adolescence. I was lost, and not all that certain I wanted to be found, but Jesus my Messiah was waiting for me in the midst of my mess. (Read an excerpt from my book, Parable Life that shares this story in a bit more detail.)
Shortly after I married Bill in 1979, a friend from church approached me with an out-of-the-blue idea. “I work for the National Public Radio station in Chicago, and we’re producing a children’s show in our studios. We always need short scripts. It seems like this might be something you might enjoy doing.” I don’t remember exactly why she lobbed this idea my way, but I do remember feeling like I must have been waiting my whole life for a request like hers.
I immersed myself in playwriting books, and the station produced a few of the scripts I wrote for them. I devoured every “how to write” book and magazine on the library shelf, and had a few articles and a number of children’s stories published during those years.
After a hiatus from writing when my three children were young, I began writing for publication in earnest beginning in the mid-1990’s. I did a little of everything: reviewed home school curriculum, wrote press releases for an art gallery, served as a communications coordinator at a non-denominational church, entered playwriting competitions, created skits for congregational use, and wrote lots of articles for a variety of evangelical print publications. I also began tutoring groups of home school students.
Since then, I’ve worked at a seminary bookstore, produced church services at a church and at a Christian university, served as a Communications Director for a parachurch ministry, and have been a consultant for several faith-based nonprofits. I received a graduate certificate from Northern Seminary in June, 2017. I am currently the U.S. Administrator for the Caspari Center for Biblical and Jewish Studies.
I am grateful for the collaboration of other bright and talented writers and thinkers. To that end, I am a member of INK Creative Collective. In addition, I am co-founder along with Amanda Cleary Eastep of the website for midlife women and men, ThePerennialGen.com.
My primary vocational focus today is blogging, writing books, and speaking about spiritual formation topics. If you’d like to know more about what I’ve published to date, click here.
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Michelle Van Loon @michellevanloon
Last night, my husband and I watched the Netflix documentary “Welcome To Kutcher’s: The Last Catskills Resort”. The… https://t.co/ULxgX1Jse8
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The incentive to peacemaking is love, but it degenerates into appeasement whenever justice is ignored. To forgive a… https://t.co/N4kTyzlFTv
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Christians, this excellent op-ed by Tim Keller is well worth your time and contemplation. https://t.co/XF8T4M15Bb
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Michelle Van Loon
Author Michelle Van Loon home schooled her three children for 13 years. All three graduated from home school and are now young adults. Michelle began teaching groups of home schooled students in her local co:op what the Lord had taught her about writing. Over a decade ago, the success of these classes led to the launch of her home school writing tutorial business (www.homepagewriting.com).
Michelle is the author of 2 books about the parables of Christ, as well as three full-length plays, numerous articles, skits, curriculum reviews, devotionals and children’s stories. She’s served on staff handling communications duties at a church, a Christian university and a service ministry. She speaks about spiritual formation topics and writing to groups across the midwest.
You can email Michelle at mishvl@yahoo.com or visit her at her websites.
Home Page Writing
The Parable Life
Quoted in Sidelights: “is well educated in biblical history” “spirited discussion” , . “fervent book” “can be an invitation to a life of motion.”
Born to Wander
Publishers Weekly.
265.22 (May 28, 2018): p91. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Born to Wander
Michelle Van Loon. Moody, $14.99 trade paper (208p) ISBN 978-0-8024-1812-8
Van Loon (If Only), Christianity Today contributor and cofounder of the Perennial Gen lifestyle website, channels the Jewish story of exile in this spirited discussion of the "pilgrim identity" embedded within Christianity. Everyone is living in exile, writes Van Loon, and the purpose of exile is to mold believers into pilgrims following in the path of Jesus Christ. For Van Loon, pilgrimage during the life of a Christian (both practically and metaphorically) is always away from a settled, comfortable life and into one that will reorient followers toward their true home-- God himself. Van Loon, who has traveled to Jerusalem seven times, is well educated in biblical history and spends a large portion of the book paraphrasing narratives from the Old and New Testaments--such as the story of Abraham, the Jewish diaspora after Assyrian and Babylonian capture, and the disciples Jesus sent out--that will help readers understand the passages in their historical context. She asserts that pilgrimage carries three themes: moral, physical, and interior. Each chapter ends with a series of questions considering these aspects of pilgrimage stories, as well as a prayer about different challenges of the pilgrim's journey. Van Loon's fervent book demonstrates how a response to follow God can be an invitation to a life of motion. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Born to Wander." Publishers Weekly, 28 May 2018, p. 91. Book Review Index Plus,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A541638865/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=ee233287. Accessed 30 Sept. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A541638865
1 of 1 9/30/18, 7:25 PM
Quoted in Sidelights: “Those of us who are overly comfortable have no real incentive to follow [Jesus],” she said. “Conversely, nor are those of us who’ve wrapped ourselves so firmly in the identity of exile from the world that we’ve learned to live in a bunker and sought salvation as a way to avoid a world we don’t particularly like.” , “tidy map” ,
Jonathan Petersen
August 23, 2018
Directionless Wanderer or Pilgrim Follower: An Interview with Michelle Van Loon
Jonathan Petersen
Content manager for Bible Gateway
Michelle Van LoonWhy are we so restless? All of us have a little wanderlust—a desire for that next thing, that new place—but this competes with our longings for security, control, and safety. We don’t like how it feels to be unsettled and uprooted, navigating a season of transition, dealing with the fallout of broken relationships, or wrestling with a deep sense of unease. And we do whatever we can to numb the feelings of unbelonging and powerlessness that come with it.
Bible Gateway interviewed Michelle Van Loon (@michellevanloon) about her book, Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity (Moody Publishers, 2018).
Buy your copy of Born to Wander in the Bible Gateway Store where you'll enjoy low prices every day
How do you define wandering and what are some common ways people experience it?
Michelle Van Loon: In Born to Wander, I define three terms that can describe our spiritual, physical, and emotional journey. An exile is someone sent or banished from their homeland. A pilgrim, on the other hand, is a person moving toward a sacred destination. And a wanderer is someone traveling without a purpose or focus…or are they?
In varying degrees, we humans live as moving targets, trying to escape the existential grief of separation from God and others. This reality is at the heart of our wandering. Each one of us experiences the painful disconnect that comes from exile from Eden and the miscommunication that replays the Babel story in our lives on a regular basis.
We experience wandering in a variety of ways:
Some of us learn to wander because of family issues including divorce, death, and dysfunction that drive us from one another.
Others learn to wander via our culture, as minority groups who’ve experienced systemic injustice and unholy discrimination find themselves on the outside looking in.
Some of us find that the place that’s supposed to be a community of love and welcome—our local church—has instead left us feeling like outcasts.
And the world right now has more than 65 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people around the world, according to an estimate by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Exile may be an experience common to most of us, but God never intended it to be a destination. Exile is meant to make pilgrims out of each one of us.
Why do you write that the words contentment and discontentment are misused among American Christians? What would be better uses of these terms in the lives of believers?
Michelle Van Loon: I’ve spent more than four decades in suburban church culture where I hear the word contentment used as sort of a mark of sacrifice in responding to consumer culture: “I wanted to remodel my kitchen, but God is helping me learn to be content with a new glass tile backsplash instead.”
I’ve also heard contentment used as Christian-speak to simultaneously broadcast ambition while signaling the virtue of humility: “I believe I’m called to be in charge of women’s ministries in this church someday, but right now, I’m content teaching the toddler Sunday school class. I just love those kiddos!”
1 Timothy 6:6 says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” I suspect Paul, who penned these words to his young prote?ge? Timothy, would be very confused by the way in which we use contentment. The Greek word autarkeia used for contentment in this verse means that a person is resting in a place of safety and security in their lives. The context for this verse is a discussion of the greed of false teachers and the lure of our own acquisitive desires. Godly contentment says “enough” instead of spouting Christianized versions of “I want more.” I appreciate the irony of Paul saying that godly contentment is the only “more” for which we should be aiming. Godly contentment will keep us in a state of discontentment with the world around us.
What are the implications of Jesus’ command to “follow me”?
Michelle Van Loon: As change ripples through our culture, there has been much talk in the American church encouraging believers to embrace their status as exiles and outsiders. This language is not without context in Scripture: in John 17:14-19, Jesus emphasizes that we’re to live in the world but not be of it and 1 Peter 2:11 reminds us we’re citizens of the kingdom, not bound by this world’s ways. However, Scripture shows and tells us that exile is never meant to be our destination in this life, but to transform us into people journeying toward a destination with a sacred purpose—and without a tidy map.
In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells a religious leader who wants to become his disciple, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).
Just as Christ called this man to “unsettle himself” and embrace a life of pilgrimage, he calls us, too, to the same journey. Those of us who are overly comfortable have no real incentive to follow him. Conversely, nor are those of us who’ve wrapped ourselves so firmly in the identity of exile from the world that we’ve learned to live in a bunker and sought salvation as a way to avoid a world we don’t particularly like.
Can I trust him even when I don’t understand why these things are happening? Will I follow him even though it hurts? And do I have eyes to see his perfect care and abundant provision for me through it all?
What is a favorite Bible passage of yours and why?
Michelle Van Loon: A verse that’s especially meaningful to me is Psalm 84:5: “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” Even after the chosen people reached the Promised Land, God had built into the yearly worship cycle three feast times each year—Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot (see Leviticus 23)—when they were to leave their homes and gather as one in order to worship together. They were practicing pilgrimage regularly. Psalm 84:5 reminds me that a pilgrim’s life is a beautiful life.
What are your thoughts about Bible Gateway?
Michelle Van Loon: Bible Gateway has long been my go-to reference tool! I appreciate the ease of use, the many, many translations and paraphrases, and the access to study materials like commentaries. (My favorite commentary on the site is the IVP New Testament Commentary.) I’m a grateful regular visitor at the site.
Bio: Since coming to faith in Christ at the tail end of the Jesus Movement, Michelle Van Loon’s Jewish heritage, spiritual hunger, and storyteller’s sensibilities have shaped her faith journey and informed her writing. She is the author of five books, including Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity, If Only: Letting Go of Regret, and Moments & Days: How Our Holy Celebrations Shape Our Faith. Michelle is a regular contributor to Christianity Today‘s women’s blog, In Touch magazine, and is the co-founder of ThePerennialGen.com, a website for midlife women and men. She’s married to Bill, and is mother of three and grandmother of two. Learn about her writing and speaking ministry by visiting her website, www.michellevanloon.com.
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https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2018/08/directionless-wanderer-or-pilgrim-follower-an-interview-with-michelle-van-loon/