Charleston: Child's Heart

 Charleston:  Child’s Heart

“I think we know. I think we are born knowing. Somewhere inside, in our soul, we have this instinctive awareness that we are the child of a caring presence. Over the years we may learn to call this presence by many names. We may define our feelings in the language of faith and dogma. We may even let the instinct go and walk away thinking we were wrong all along. But I believe we know because no matter what we do the love never leaves us. You and I are loved, loved by a common parent, loved all of our lives, and loved until we pass over, to discover the truth in the heart of a child.”  Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Emails.

Inner child dream

My experience is that my inner child, the child within me is the creative part of me that connects me to God. I often best experience this inner child in dreams. This is an inner child dream that has saved my life.

My dream was that my daughter had HIV/AIDS. (My daughter in my dreams is usually my inner child, the creative part of me that connects me to God.) I am trying to draw blood from my daughter, and I prick the needle and receive her blood. An old VA nurse comes over and tells me to take this blue “solution” and we both will be well. (May each of us have an old VA nurse in us who always knows the right “solution” for every situation,)

 As I work with several spiritual friends in dream groups about the blue “solution,” it becomes clear; the solution for healing for me, to connect me to God is represented by what is blue, the blue sky, the blue sea, the blue birds I daily see by my window. This is what I see when I am outdoors, in nature. Being in Nature is what always heals me. Trees, Wind, Sea, Blue Skies, Birds. This is where my child’s heart, my soul, begins to beat, comes alive, realizes there is a Creator beyond words who made and loves each of us.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Rohr: Epiphanies and Sacramental Living

Rohr: Epiphanies and Sacramental Living

“The way to any universal idea is to proceed through a concrete encounter. The one is the way to the many; the specific is the way to the spacious; the now is the way to the always; the here is the way to everywhere; the material is the way to the spiritual; the visible is the way to the invisible. When we see contemplatively, we know that we live in a fully sacramental universe, where everything is an epiphany.” Richard Rohr, from Just This, pp 9-11.

Rohr is telling us that every experience good or bad lived in the now, in the present moment, seen as a gift, can become a showing of an outer and inner experience of our relationship to God. A sacrament is an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” (BCP 857) Living sacramentally means viewing everything we see and experience in the outer world as drawing, connecting us to an inner relationship with God.

The result is that every moment in the present moment can become an epiphany, a perception of the essential meaning of everything, an illumination, a discovery, a manifestation of the divine in ourselves and the world. We only need to have ears to hear, eyes to see, hands to touch, a nose to smell, and a mouth to taste it. Our head, our brain perceives what is happening.

 We also must be grounded in the rest of our body in the now, the present moment, so that what we perceive in our head moves to our heart.

Joanna       joannaseibert.com

MLK: Stumbling Block, Again

 Martin Luther King Jr: The Great Stumbling Block again

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” Martin Luther King Jr, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963

I repeat part of the message from MLK this morning, for this letter from jail still speaks so profoundly to us in another century.  We live in a constant time of paradox of “be patient” and “time to act”.  How do we know which to do? I think part of MLK’s message is that what is a “more convenient season” for one is not for another. Most of us have no idea what it has been like to walk in the shoes of those who have been oppressed for years, centuries. I also know that in my life if I wait for the “most convenient time,” that time will never be, never happen.

When is the most convenient time to get married, have children, tell the truth, visit the sick, go to church, write, read, go on vacation, retire? I remember what a friend early in recovery said at a 12-step meeting many, many years ago. “I am all right as long as I have all my ducks in a row.”  Well, my experience is that those ducks never get in a row!  There is always some inconvenience that will keep us and our ducks from getting all lined up so that we can start doing any of these things we know are right and what we are called to do.

 We try to find “the most convenient time” to pray, meditate, be silent. There is always some reason that something else should be done instead, especially marking off the things on our to do list for the day.

We are called to “make time” for these things by deciding on priorities. We know this, but the doing is the hard part. We thank MLK today for putting us in our place, reminding us to listen more carefully to the cries of those who are oppressed, the parts of us that are oppressed, the parts of those who come for spiritual direction who are oppressed, and listen, listen and reach out at a most inconvenient time.  

Joanna  joannaseibert.com