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Conversations: Joan Riebel- "Several Answers"

(The following article is an interview with a member of St. Joan of Arc parish. The primary purpose of the interview is to allow a parishioner an opportunity to share some part of their story or journey. These written snapshots are conversations between two people in which the person being interviewed willingly shares their ups, downs, reflections and life lessons with you the reader. We hope that you enjoy these conversations and that they are helpful to you on the journey. - C. MacDonald)

She sat there with a serious look and her eyes told you she was thinking about a question she had just been asked. “When you asked me to tell you about my favorite parts of scripture, I think first about Mary going to visit Elizabeth. I have always thought it had something to do with a frightened girl seeking support from another woman. But I also like Luke’s story about the father and his embrace of his prodigal son. And like many others, I like to hear those words from the Old Testament about the love and support between Ruth and Naomi”. It was the later part of a Monday afternoon in February when I sat down to interview Joan Riebel. What I didn’t know was that I was about to get a lesson in the Gospel of Womanhood.

When asked, we all talk about our individual life experiences and given a couple of hours of conversation, the listener can hear themes and in a way the themes are what you think about after you have gone your separate ways. In Joan’s 58 years of living she has traveled much. A lot of it had to do with her work with families and children. She is the Executive Director of Family Alternatives, a non-profit agency that does foster care and adoptions. She supervises a staff of 25 and works with 119 families who care for about 175 children. Because of her work, she has been in Africa, Russia, Japan and other countries, but it was the story she told me about Russia that was the most haunting. Joan had gone with a group to the new Russia to assess some of the social needs. They had been told not to give money to the beggars but as Joan

Streetchild in Kiev

says, when she got there she was overwhelmed by the number of children begging. One night they were about to board a train and she turned to see a young boy come out of the shadows and hold out his hand. She was conflicted but she didn’t give him anything and boarded the train. She remembers that boy’s face and it took her months to get over her trip to Russia. Those that have traveled to parts of this earth, to areas of poverty and deprivation can tell similar stories but for Joan it has always been about our ongoing need to embrace a larger world.

Joan Riebel’s travel stories are wonderful to listen to and as she was talking I thought about her earlier descriptions of growing up in Madelia, Minnesota in 50s’ and early 60’s. I discovered then when I asked questions, I frequently would not hear one answer, but two or three. “Who in your life were the key forks in the road that set you in a particular direction?” “Well Mom and Dad for sure, they always were so open to other people. Then there were the Benedictine Sisters at the College of St. Benedict, but also it has been the clients I have worked with over the years. I often think of the black women around Rockford, Ill who were struggling to make life safe and good for their children."

When Joan graduated from St. Ben’s she got a job at the Home of Good Shepherd in St. Paul. “We worked with wayward girls, it was a different time,” she said smiling. “ I got married in 1965 and my husband got a job in Rockford. I took a job with Catholic Charities working with unwed mothers and families living in poverty. Rockford was where I began to feel anger, and my anger grew. The world I was working in was so different from the safety of my Minnesota upbringing; it was the world of want and struggle. The Vietnam War was going on and I got very involved in protest and draft resistance and my anger grew. The Church and the social structures I had grown up with didn’t and couldn’t answer my questions and I became more and more involved with welfare rights and the needs and wants of the have-nots. I stopped going to church.”

Joan continues, “In 1978 by brother-in-law died of a heart attack and it proved to be a wake up call for me, I started looking around for someplace, for something. Like many others, someone suggested I try St. Joan of Arc. Harvey Eagan had moved into the gym and I felt comfortable there, that was 23 years ago. I got involved in the social justice work and over the years I have served on the Parish Council twice. George even made me a parish trustee. I am on my second go around on the council. Twenty-three years is a lot of church history when it comes to St. Joan’s. I am one of the three women who went up to the altar with the MaryKnoll priest at Mass one Sunday. We had to live through threats of ex-communication. When I ask her to tell me about a time she sat in church and found the speaker to be transformational, she shot back her answer, “Sister Teresa Kane, the woman who spoke to the Pope on his first visit to the United States. She told him not to forget women. Then Joan did it again; she gave me two or three more responses. “I like to listen to people who don’t ask you to agree with them but have the strength to say, ‘this is what I believe in, this is what I choose to do’.”

So tell me Joan, do you think there is a different spirituality for women and men? “No,” she said, “but there is a different experience in some ways. Woman struggle in the church and society because of the second class thing. Men, I think, struggle because they cannot embrace each other.” There was an interesting discussion that followed about how women find strength in one another, like Mary going into the hill country of Judea to help or be helped by Elizabeth. Joan reflected, “I don’t think it is easy for men to reach out to other men. You know I have worked with so many adolescent boys over the years and they always tell me how much easier it is to talk to a woman.”

Joan at Cabaret

The afternoon got later and we continued to talk. The subject of hard times came up. Again Joan responded with three answers. “In 1989 I got cancer, had nine months of chemotherapy, and a year later I was divorced. I went inward, very inward, and I survived.” In 2001 Joan Riebel has a clean bill of health. She speaks proudly of two grown sons and lives comfortably in a big old house with her widowed twin sister and her brother. She laughingly said, “Makes it easier this way for mother, when she comes to visit she can see three of us at once.”

The story of Mary’s journey to Elizabeth and that of the prodigal son are found in the Gospel of St. Luke. If you talk to Joan, or you ask others about her and her work, you understand why she likes Luke’s gospel. Like Luke, she is interested in people, individuals, social outcasts, women, children, and social relationships. Luke’s writings are sometimes referred to as the Gospel of Womanhood or as Joan Riebel might say; “God to me is like a force of energy that draws us toward one another, we are here to support and encourage one another.”.....“And Mary set out at that

Chuck MacDonald and his wife Beth are parishioners at St. Joan of Arc. Chuck serves on the Executive Committee of the Open Arms of MN Board. He is actively involved with efforts to help victims of AIDS in South Africa. Currently he is working with Joe Selvaggio on the 1% Club.

time and went as quickly as she could into the hill country to a town in Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth.” (Luke 1: 4)

Joan Riebel was interviewed on February 5, 2001 by Chuck MacDonald