Book Club: Fresh-Brewed Life by Nicole Johnson

Nicole Johnson

Fresh Brewed Life – Nicole JohnsonA freshly-brewed, wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee guide to living life to the fullest! Newly revised—with new chapters and a study guide—Women of Faith dramatist Nicole Johnson pours out a heartwarming, honest book that’s good to the last drop.
Nicole tells us Fresh-Brewed Life is “a journey of awakenings”:

Coffee is far more than a beverage… it is an invitation to life. Yours.

This book holds ten cups of fresh-brewed life. Remember, with coffee we have to sit awhile, so don’t rush; just take it one cup at a time. See if you find the Creator of all coffee finding you and drawing you out of hiding, welcoming you, issuing the same invitation: “Wake up to a richer, fuller, more flavorful life than you ever imagined.”

A Conversation with Nicole Johnson

WoF: You originally wrote Fresh-Brewed Life in 1999. Why did you decide it was time for an update­—and what’s different about this edition?
Nicole: Actually, two years ago it came to my attention that Fresh-Brewed Life was celebrating 10 years and still going strong. My publisher suggested I write a sequel. I thought about the idea, but it didn’t seem like the right direction. However, in the process of thinking it through, I thought about reconnecting with the readers by revising and expanding the existing book. The difficulty in the revision was that almost everything about my life had changed since Fresh Brewed Life first came out. I won’t take the time here to fill you in here as I’ve done a better job in the epilogue of the book, but suffice it to say I had a good bit of ground to cover. Going back through the chapters, revising and freshening them up, then adding a new cup called “Enjoy your freedom”, became an important process for me. It was like writing Fresh Brewed Life all over again. I’m really proud of the book.

WoF: What makes a life a “fresh-brewed” one?
Nicole: Lots of coffee? Actually, when a woman seeks to be an alive, awake, participant in her own life, bringing the “grinds” from her past and allowing the love of God to pour over her all of it—she’s creating a very fresh brew. A checklist or a set a do’s and don’ts will not give us the kind of rich life we hunger for, it is our relationships (with God and others) that provide the abundance. When our relationships are healthy, robust, and “coffee” worthy—that’s huge.

WoF: Your book holds “ten cups of fresh-brewed life.” How did you choose those ten “flavors”?
Nicole: Very carefully, I can assure you. Fresh-brewed life didn’t begin as a book; it was a ten-year journey before I ever started writing. The cups I chose for the book followed my own path quite closely. They are arranged in a certain order in the same way that waking up follows a kind of order. From stirring our souls in a relationship with God, to dealing with the obstacles that keep us from living abundantly (like anger and self-hatred), the book concludes with enjoying the freedom that the work we’ve done in our souls will bring about.

WoF: In the Friendship chapter you said, “Your friendship with God is not a stepping-stone to a ‘real’ relationship; it is the cornerstone of all relationships.” Can you expand on that?
Nicole:Our tendency is to think that our relationship with God is not “real” in the ways other relationships are. We skip over spending time with him, focusing instead on say, our desire to have better friendships, never realizing how deeply our friendships can be transformed by a fuller understanding of God’s love for us. When a woman feels lonely, she often seeks to find another person to help ease these feelings only to discover that the feelings remain or return because they are spiritual feelings that are deeper than most relationships can touch. These feelings must often be dealt with outside of relationship and with God, so that when in relationship we can participate fully.

WoF: You included a chapter titled “Savor Your Sexuality.” (That was brave.) It includes this statement, “We barter our personhood for sex when we treat it like something we do rather than an expression of who we are.” Could you explain the difference?
Nicole: Even though women were at the heart of the 60’s sexual revolution, it seems some have learned quite a bit since then. While our culture still promises that we can disconnect our hearts from sex (hooking up, friends with benefits etc.) and treat it casually with “no strings attached” many women have found this impossible. For a woman, or a man, who has worked to integrate the body, mind and soul—this split between the heart and body is simply not rewarding and seems to run contrary to how we are designed. I once heard a speaker say, “Until someone invents a condom for the heart, there is no such thing as safe sex.” Many women sell themselves short in settling for a bodily encounter (sometimes even in marriage) that does not satisfy on the level that bringing the whole heart and mind along would offer. Esau (in the Old Testament) experienced this when he sold his birthright for a bowl of beans just because he was hungry.

WoF: What does that mean for women who are celibate?
Nicole: That’s a really good question and one I’d like to give more thought to. I know that a woman must seek to get comfortable in her body and to savor her sexuality in ways that have very little, if anything to do, with sex, so I’d say that many of the ideas and thoughts in the sexuality chapter would still apply. I might encourage celibate women to compare doing this work to taking art classes even though they might not show or give away their paintings. Sex is one expression of the desire for unity, but for a person who lives celibately (by choice or by circumstance) there are plenty of other expressions equally worthy of development and attention.

WoF: You point out that “We have exchanged changing the world for running the world; there is a painful difference.” Why do we do that?
Nicole: There is something about being busy (running the world) that makes us feel important and in control. But this kind of control rarely brings about change. When I’m not sure what to, I default on the “too much” side of things and often have to pull back. Wanting to change the world does not mean we’re busy. On the contrary, it means we have to be intentional, which often requires the time and patience to wait for that to which we’re called before we fill up the calendar with other activities. I write from experience on this. “Running” the world depletes us and “changing” the world invigorates us—so when we swap or confuse the two, there is no way we can make a difference; we’re too tired.

WoF: Favorite piece of advice in the book: Stop waiting for your life to begin. What’s a good first step?
Nicole: What comes to mind when you think about what “real life” holds? Is it travel? A better marriage? More kids? Going back to school? What rises up in you against those thoughts? Do you find yourself thinking, “I can’t do that until my husband gets a raise, or we finally retire, or, I don’t have to raise my kids or care for my mom? As worthy as these reasons are, we can allow them to become excuses for not living the life that is available to us right now. I’ve found that for those who are waiting for real life to begin, it never does. Another reason/excuse rises up to take the previous one’s place. So a good first step is to get back in touch with your dreams (they are inside you for a reason) and do something toward making at least one of them a reality. Sign up for the class, pick up some guide books on Italy or put one hour down on your calendar for volunteering—do one small thing that will get you moving to overcome the inertia that is so common to those who are waiting for “someday” to come.

WoF: We’ll end with one final hard-hitting question: How do you take your coffee?
Nicole: Black and strong. Does that surprise you?

Taking Your First Sip
By Nicole Johnson

Would you like coffee this morning?

There is rarely a morning out when this offer fails to bring joy to my heart. At home the first thing I do in the morning is put on the coffee. Just the sound of the brewing perks me up. Often my soul does a little dance when the aroma of freshly ground beans starts to fill the kitchen.

Coffee brings warmth and comfort to my life. Part ritual, part relationship, part hope, having a cup in my hand feels as natural as holding a pencil. It stirs up memories and gratitude inside me . . .

But my favorite characteristic of coffee is the deep metaphor it holds for life. The process of making a cup of fresh-brewed coffee has given me words and insight as to what has made a fresh-brewed life for me, and what can make a fresh-brewed life for anyone. The coffee part is fairly simple: a whole coffee bean goes into the fire, emerges richer and darker, is ground up into tiny pieces, and when hot water pours over those grinds, a magical aroma and flavor are released, and a remarkable drink is created.

Because the life part is not quite as simple as the coffee part, we’ll spend the rest of the book exploring how our lives can become fresh-brewed. You’re invited to begin stirring your soul to wake up the slumbering parts and throw out the two-day-old, stale stuff in the bottom of the glass carafe. This is not freeze-dried life, like the Sanka your grandmother drank. We’re after the real McCoy—authentic, energizing, stimulating, robust life.

Fresh-Brewed Life is a journey of awakenings:

• To God, as we learn to respond to his compelling love for us
• To ourselves, as we recognize our true identity and it illuminates us from the inside out
• To others, as we relate in new and healthy ways that bring joy and peace

Coffee is far more than a beverage. The dark substance in the cup transcends water poured over ground-up beans. It is an invitation to life. Yours.

We only live once, and if we do it well, once is enough. This book holds ten cups of fresh-brewed life. Remember, with coffee we have to sit awhile, so don’t rush; just take it one cup at a time. See if you find the Creator of all coffee finding you and drawing you out of hiding, welcoming you, issuing the same invitation: Wake up to a richer, fuller, more flavorful life than you ever imagined.

Excerpted from Fresh-Brewed Life Copyright © 1999, 2011 Nicole Johnson. Published in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Purchase your copy of Fresh Brewed Life here.