Special to United Methodist Insight | Nov. 17, 2025
Upon hearing of the passing of my friend, Rev. Jeanne Murray Jones this week, I remembered the day she told me a remarkable mystical story. She mentioned it in passing as she showed me around the newly renovated Willow Valley United Methodist Church in Ithaca, Wisconsin. Willow Valley is my home congregation, and I was back to do a storytelling program in the new sanctuary.
Jeanne was pastor at Willow Valley from 1997 to 2007 and led the congregation in a major renovation of the church building. My grandfather, James Archie Sumwalt, had worked on an earlier renovation of the building in the 1930s when the family farmed on Little Willow.
The Rev. Jeanne Murray Jones
Jeanne and her late husband, Maynard, had helped to build the Prescott Valley United Methodist Church in Prescott Valley, Arizona, where they lived for many years before both accepting a call to pastoral ministry in 1991. They enrolled at my Alma Mater, the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, where they received Master of Divinity degrees in 1994.
Jeanne knew that I was working on a book of vision stories, and so, as we walked through the beautiful new sanctuary after worship that day, she told me this touching personal story, which I later included in the book:
“When we lived in Arizona, my mother-in-law, Frances, lived in the apartment below ours in the house my husband, Maynard, built. He knew of her love for flowers and built her a greenhouse on two sides of her living room.
One evening, the three of us returned from an outing. As we entered her apartment, prior to going upstairs to ours, both she and I were astounded at the odor of flowers. There were no flowers in bloom in either of our apartments, but she and I could suddenly smell so many flowers it was almost overpowering.
Frances told me, "This is what my mother's house smelled like." Maynard couldn't smell a thing, but Frances and I shared that gift of love. I don't know why we were given that particular gift. Who knows, perhaps it was the scent of heaven!”
I wrote to Jeanne the following year when I began work on “Sharing Visions,” the second book in the three-part series, to ask if she had any more stories to share. She sent me a memorable personal account of her call to ministry, to which she gave the title, “The Taste of Music.”
Music was a very important part of Jeanne’s life. She had been a church organist and choir director, and she played the baritone horn for over 60 years.
Jeanne wrote, “The whole thing began when I was asked to be the song leader for a Walk to Emmaus retreat in 1988. I was a kindergarten teacher and sang in the choir, but no one had ever asked me to lead singing for adults, and I was amazed at having been chosen. I felt comfortable with the task. It didn't require a really good voice, as the singing was mostly used to gather people together after break time and as a time-filler if needed.
“I had a back-up guitarist who had a good voice, and I knew the leadership team could all sing, so I attended the training sessions and felt really happy and excited about the weekend. But when I arrived in Phoenix, I got sick. I had a stomachache, and it wouldn't go away. I ate Tums, I ate crackers, I sipped water... I felt lousy. If I had been stressed, I could have blamed that, but I knew I wasn't stressed. At times I felt that there were two of me, one going through the motions of enthusiastically leading the singing, and the other watching me and wondering what I was doing since I was so sick.
“The retreat started Thursday night. By Saturday, I decided that if I wasn't better by Sunday, I would go to the hospital and see if I had an ulcer, instead of starting for home 100 miles away.
Saturday night we had a Healing Service, and I asked for forgiveness. The thought popped into my head that I needed to forgive my mother for not loving me. This was strange, because intellectually, I suppose I knew that my mother really did love me in her own way, although she was not demonstrative. Apparently, I carried those feelings inside and needed to let go of them, because the minute I said that I needed to forgive her, I was healed.
I know that God was working in my life that weekend. I think I could say that I had an ‘infilling’ of the Holy Spirit, although I didn't know what that phrase meant before that time. I do know that when we were ready to leave, those who were the participants in the Walk were asked to stand up at the last gathering and tell what the weekend had meant to them and what they were going to do about it.
“Though the leaders were not expected to say anything, I got up and said that my life had changed. Not only was my pastor there, so were my husband and 18 members of my home church. Most were enroute to Mexico for a mission trip. My husband could see such a change in me that he wondered if I was okay to go home while he went to Mexico. I was. I had Jesus with me.
“For several months afterwards, every time I closed my eyes, Jesus with his arms outstretched was imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. I also experienced great joy and odd sensations, such as being able to taste music. I could suddenly "play by ear" instead of just reading music. It was as though the barrier between the left side, and the right side of my brain was broken down and the two sides were integrated somehow.
“I went from being a very organized left-brained person to being a person who couldn't remember what day it was! Fortunately, that didn't last for too long, and I feel a greater sense of wholeness now than was ever possible before. Another joy was that the scriptures were ‘opened’ to me, so that what I read earlier as words became full of life and meaning. I truly love to read scripture now and feel God's presence in new ways each time.
“As I said, it was a strange weekend. After a year of Spiritual Direction, I felt that I was to leave teaching and go into ordained ministry. God had indeed blessed me in many ways.”
Rev. Jeanne Murray Jones (1941-2025) served the Gays Mills & Seneca and the Ash Creek & Willow Valley charges in the Wisconsin Conference of The United Methodist Church before her retirement in 2007. Finding retirement not to her liking, she asked the bishop for another assignment and ended up serving interim appointments in several more Wisconsin churches in Colfax, Tainter, Blue River, Avoca, Racine, Elkorn, and Richmond. Rev. Jones was devoted to mission work. She served as a leader in the Wisconsin Volunteers in Mission, going to Biloxi Mississippi three times to help with clean up after Hurricane Katrina.
John Sumwalt
The Rev. John Sumwalt is a retired United Methodist pastor and the author of “Sharing Visions: Divine Revelations, Angels And Holy Coincidences,”,