Epiphany remembered

Epiphany remembered

“Arise, shine; for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” Isaiah 60:1

Epiphany, the revelation, the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles-us, you and me. Christ is indeed manifested to me almost sensuously at Epiphany. It first happened in the mid fifties when I attended my first Episcopal service which was the Epiphany Feast of Lights around the age of eleven in a small Virginia church with a boyfriend and his family.  I still remember the unfamiliar liturgy, the candlelight, and the haunting mystic melodies.   As we walked out of the small-town church on that bitter, cold January night, carrying our candles, we were surprised by the winter's first snow.  I knew that night that God spoke most clearly to me through this tradition.   A decade later I again encountered the beauty of the Feast of Lights at St. Mary's Cathedral in Memphis with their choral procession of the costumed wise men bearing their great gifts. 

 Here in Little Rock at St. Mark’s we again will experience that haunting call of Epiphany at their Saturday evening service at 5:30 tonight on January 6th.   The choir and candlelight recessional out of the church into the dark night to me is always breathtaking.  I watch the beautiful, often familiar faces of those walking out ahead of me.  Their expressions seem to ask, "What will we encounter next in the night?  Will this light be enough for me to see?"  This service empowers all of us to think about carrying our small candle out into the world. 

As the candlelight service concludes, we also realize that we can only see our path because of the light from so many others before, beside, and behind us.

May this new year be full of epiphanies for you and those you love.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Anders: Women's Wisdom

Anders: Women’s Wisdom

Guest writer: Isabel Anders

“Carol Lee Flinders explains the maternal thinking of philosopher Sara Ruddick: ‘Ruddick emphasizes that women tell stories to one another out of their daily experience, stories that are meant to strengthen [their] values in themselves and one another. [Women’s] visionary writings … can be seen as just this—concrete, highly visual, and often quite intimate ways of presenting the spiritual teachings that a learned theologian might treat in a much more abstract manner.’” Carol Lee Flinders, Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics (HarperSanFrancisco,1993, p. 8.

1.

The Daughter asked: “How do you spin all day, and see so little for your effort, and keep from discouragement?”

The Mother answered: “See this little square of texture and design? It is enough to wrap the universe in comfort and warmth.”

The Daughter was perplexed. “How can this be?”

The Mother replied: “Even a few inches of loving intent can spread to span continents. Ask a ray of sun.”

2.

The Daughter wondered that the Mother could spend

so much time lovingly tending the fire, stirring the soup,

baking the bread. 

“Do you not tire of such mundane tasks?”

“This substance,” the Mother explained, breaking bread, “makes possible the chemistry of life. Through it the roughness of grain is transformed into the fine constituents of our Being. ... How can this be called mundane?”

3.

The Daughter asked, “How does one find the Truth

amid the myriad choices of every day’s confusion?”

“See the ball of tangled threads at my feet?” asked the Mother. “Many colors are bound together into a knot of complexity. But take the end of any one string, and follow it to its end, and you will by your effort reach the Center.”

—Isabel Anders, excerpted from Becoming Flame: Uncommon Mother-Daughter Wisdom (Wipf & Stock, 2010).

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Anders: Becoming Flame, Uncommon Mother-Daughter Wisdom

Anders: Becoming Flame: Uncommon Mother-Daughter Wisdom

Guest Writer: Isabel Anders

“If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.”  —St. Catherine of Siena.

            “Holy One,” a disciple asks his master within the context of a traditional “school” of learning. “What is the difference between knowledge and wisdom?” It is said that the Holy One answered: “When you have knowledge, you use a torch to show the way. When you are wise, you become the torch.”

One trait shared by the various strains of dialogical wisdom is the personal commitment that is required from one’s soul in order even to approach the wisdom elicited through the dialogues. And so I title my collection of mother-daughter exchanges Becoming Flame. …

We find many profound “feminine” insights among early Christian mystics who were “birthing” their faith; and today I believe that such wisdom is ripe for revitalization. As Mechthild of Magdeburg wrote: “Even though we are as a small vessel, yet Thou hast filled it. … ”

         In Becoming Flame I hope to bring attention to ways in which this tradition still lives and encourage its continued growth.

The Mother and Daughter saw a great ship on the horizon, its sails catching the red and gold of the morning rays.

“I long to be carried by such a glorious ship to the land of my hopes and dreams,” wished the Daughter aloud.

“You have been blessed with just such a Ship,” said the Mother.

“What is its name?” asked the Daughter.

Her Mother replied: “It is your Soul.”

—Isabel Anders, excerpted from Becoming Flame: Uncommon Mother-Daughter Wisdom (Wipf & Stock, 2010).

Joanna    joannaseibert.com