Charleston: I Honor You

Charleston: I honor you
“I honor you. I honor you for who you are and for what you have done. You did not become the person you are without effort. You have weathered many storms and seen many changes. You have kept going when others might have given up. You have lived your life like an art, creating what you did not have, dreaming what you could not see. And in so doing, you have touched many other lives. You have brought your share of goodness into the world. You have helped more than one person when they needed you. I honor you, for walking with integrity, for making hope real, for being who you have become, I honor you. “Bishop Steven Charleston Daily Facebook message

 December 7th

 Thursday was December 7th, anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was also the anniversary of the day I stopped smoking almost 40 years ago. That was the day of my grandfather Whaley’s funeral. He had taught me the most about unconditional love. I wanted to do something to honor him and knew he so disliked my smoking because his mother had died when he was seven years old of lung disease (Tuberculosis).  My grandfather taught me about love when he was alive and saved my life when he died. My younger brother died of complications from smoking, and I could so easily have done the same.

I honored my grandfather and his mother two years ago when my husband and my daughter helped me make the trek to my great grandmother’s grave in an isolated graveyard in the Great Smoking Mountain National Park. It was not an easy adventure. We entered the Park, went over one small bridge on a dirt road, then an even smaller bridge, parked on a road with a chain across it, walked a half mile on an uneven path with roots crisscrossing it until we came to the secret, well-kept cemetery, a cathedral like open space framed by a canopy of trees.

My experience with the grief recovery group, Walking the Mourner’s Path, teaches me that honoring those you love who have died is one of the most significant ways of healing. So today I do what others have taught me.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Rohr: Nature, Cottonwood Clapping

 Rohr: Nature

If you scale chronological history down to the span of one year, with the Big Bang on January 1, then our species, Homo sapiens, doesn’t appear until 11:59 PM on December 31. That means our written Bible and the church appeared in the last nanosecond of December 31. I can’t believe that God had nothing to say until the last nanosecond. Rather, as both Paul and Thomas Aquinas say, God has been revealing God’s love, goodness, and beauty since the very beginning through the natural world of creation. “God looked at everything God had made, and found it very good” (Genesis 1:31). Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr’s Daily Mediation

Cottonwood leaf after flight

We are staying at a favorite hotel by the Mississippi River. We watch the sun give its last hurrah of pink and orange as it sets over the rapidly moving water racing to New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. We follow a rare treat of the migration of a super full moon where the moon is closer to the earth and is brighter and larger.  It finally sets over the north shore of the Mississippi River and quickly disappears into a cloud bank at early dawn. There is a gentle breeze blowing the last of the leaves from their trees near the water’s edge. The cottonwood leaves seem to be the last hold outs. As the wind blows their palm shapes, they seem to be clapping, praising their Creator and the spectacle we have seen just before their own last flight.

Nature is telling us something. There is still amazing beauty in the world. Something greater than we can ever imagine fashioned it all. All of nature seems to be giving thanks and honoring their Creator. Dare we consider joining the dance and doing the same?

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Hunt:Jesus, the Light of the World

Jesus: Light and Waiting

“I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

Nestled away in the side chapel of Keble College, Oxford is this haunting painting, “The Light of the World”, by Holman Hunt. I stumbled upon on an adventure walk at Oxford one summer when we spent two weeks at nearby Wadham College. I was mesmerized by it and sat and visited it almost every afternoon. Hunt painted it in 1854 and sold to Thomas Combe who on his death willed it to Keble College. When Hunt heard that Keble was charging admission to see it almost fifty years later, he painted another picture four times larger with the understanding that it would be considered a “sermon in a frame.” The much larger work went on an international tour of evangelism where hundreds did indeed become believers.

When I found out that this larger version was donated to St. Paul’s Cathedral, I knew we needed to go back to London to see it behind the altar in the North Transept, Middlesex Chapel. This version is just as haunting, but it is much harder to meditate on the painting with the crowds in that larger setting. I was almost always alone at the chapel at Keble.

This is just a reminder of how art, even one painting can make such a difference in the world.  The figure of Christ and his searching eyes stands with a lantern on the other side of a door that is overgrown with dead weeds with rotten fruit on the ground. This speaks volumes more about our relationship with Christ than most theological writings. Christ has been there for some time. No matter where we stand or sit in relationship to the painting, Christ’s eyes are looking directly at us.  The door opens from the inside. Christ is not banging on the door but persistently and gently knocking.  I give copies of this image to spiritual friends especially when they are feeling God’s absence. God is there waiting.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com