FOREWORD

My friendship with Jannel Glennie began 20 years ago at a retreat center in Washington.  At that time she was Director of Christian Education in a large church in Tucson, Arizona. She had come to the conference I was conducting in order to learn how to teach a simple way of prayer to those people in her congregation she knew were desiring a deeper walk with God.  
            As I learned more about Jannel during that week, I became aware of how down to earth she was–practical, caring and desiring to support people in their experience of God. I discovered that she had a gift for creating and designing exciting educational opportunities for people that led them to new insights about themselves and their relationship with God. I knew also that during that week Jannel was touched with her own spiritual insights and feelings, her own desire for a deeper walk with God. 
            Throughout the years of our friendship, it has been a privilege to see the many aspects of change and growth–including sorrows, decisions, discoveries and joys–that have taken place in her life. From time to time, Jannel invited me to be a part of her life in special ways. She welcomed me to lead programs and retreats for various groups. She asked me to preach at her ordination service. And now I am honored to be writing this forward to her first book. 
            When I was reading her Confessions of an Ordinary Mystic, I remembered the many times she and I had shared about prayer in her life, whether it was around the meal table in the Glennie's dining room in Tucson, in the prayer room of a hermitage in the woods of Alabama, in phone conversations, or in Michigan at the church where she was ordained. No matter where it was, I always knew two things: Jannel was an ordinary person and Jannel was a mystic. 
            She has now arrived at a point in her life where she chooses to share some of her prayer experiences with us. In doing so she encourages you and me to recognize our prayer experiences and consider sharing them as well. She has a gift for not only telling us what she experiences, but also showing us how she reflects on and celebrates those events. She provides words and images to help us explain and explore our own spiritual insights and feelings. 
            I encourage you to read and rejoice in her story. I also encourage you to be attentive to your own story. My hope is that as you read her Confessions, her stories will resonate within you as they have within me–bringing renewed awareness of God's graciousness. Jannel reminded me again that each of us is called to be aware that we are ordinary mystics.  

Ron DelBene