Experiencing Holy Week: By his wounds

 Experiencing Holy Week: By his wounds

“Pay attention to what happens in the next few days. Pay attention to what goes on around you and within you. Pay attention to the water on your feet and the roughness of the towel in your hand. Pay attention to the softness of the bread and the sting of the wine in your throat. Pay attention to the brusqueness of the kiss and the splinters of the cross. Pay attention to the coldness of the tomb and the terror that clutches your heart. Pay attention to the brightness of the dawning light and the life that bursts forth.” Br. James Koester, Society of Saint John the Evangelist Daily Emails, ssje.org

I remember reading this one Holy Week when one of my childhood wounds had been painfully opened. My “not good enough” button was pushed. As I came out of the cloud of humiliation, I read this piece about Jesus’ wounds. In some very, very small way I had experienced a wound.

The “brightness of the dawning light” is indeed knowing I had been experiencing Holy Week fully with the woundedness, the sadness, the humiliation as well as the joy that I anticipated. I remember many years again another Holy Week when I had a complication from a medical procedure I performed that week. I still remember the sadness I felt for the harm I caused to my patient instead of bringing healing. I could only imagine how my patient must have felt.   I realized how difficult it was and is to accept that we are human and make mistakes and accept responsibility for our mistakes. 

Today I also experience life bursting worth as I try to reach out of myself and reach out to someone else I know today who has been wounded, for yesterday I was very painfully reminded what it is like. Buechner talks about what a difference it makes in our suffering knowing that Jesus not only is always beside us in our suffering but he suffered himself as well. 

We identify with Jesus. He identifies with us. We identify with others. He heals our wounds as we reach out to others. We are constantly called to community where we learn to accept our humanness, our sins and mistakes, to be forgiven, healed, loved, and blessed.

 In community there is redemption and resurrection.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Which Part Holy Week

Which Part for Holy Week

 “And many believed in him.”  John 10:31-42

Palm Sunday St. Luke's Episcopal Church North Little Rock

 We are approaching one of the holiest times of the Christian year, appropriately named, Holy Week. In preparing for this time, our tradition suggests the sacrament of the reconciliation of a penitent. Today, I share with you the rough draft of my confession of the ups and downs of my relationship with God looking through the lens of the Stations of the Cross that many followed this Lent as well as this upcoming Holy Week.

 Today, on Palm Sunday, we will read the passion gospel in Mark, and Good Friday we will hear the passion gospel from John. Many congregations have also been reading Luke during Lent, and this week we will be reading part of that gospel’s passion narrative.   I imagine myself as so many of the players in this extraordinary drama. Come with me and see if you as well have a part to play.

 I have been Judas and betrayed Jesus for politics and money.  At the same time, I have also had the privilege for seventeen years of preparing Christ’s supper.  Jesus has washed my feet.  I have sung hymns with him on the way to mountaintops.  I have publicly declared Jesus as my God in front of large groups of people.   I have prayed with Christ and fallen asleep either literally or by staying unconscious to the present moment. I have figuratively cut off ears defending him in my zeal.  I have been Nicodemus coming to him secretly at night and speaking out for him in ways that would keep me safe.  I have given false witness against him by making my plan his plan.   I have been Peter and denied my God more than three times. I have spat on him and mocked him by my actions.

I have been Pilate’s wife receiving dreams that tell me that God is among us.  I have been Pilate and washed my hands of situations where I should have spoken out for what I knew in my heart was wrong.  I have been Barabbas, the criminal who was freed, and did not have to face the consequence of my sins. I have been privileged to wipe the face of God present in so many others in pain. I have perhaps been Simon of Cyrene and carried another’s cross for brief periods of time.  I have been among the women who followed Jesus from Galilee and looked helplessly on his crucifixion from a distance.

I have been the thief on the cross crying out for God’s mercy in my distress.  I have been the other thief on the cross still trying to tell God what God should do to relieve my pain. I have been the centurion at Jesus’ death, finally recognizing God in the lives of so many only after they have died.  I have been Joseph of Arimathea and found a resting place for him. I have been one of the women at the empty tomb still looking for God. I have been Mary Magdalene in the garden, searching for God and not recognizing him. /

I close with an invitation to take again this Holy Week journey.  I hear there is a surprise ending.

Joanna Seibert joannaseibert.com

Finding what is missing

Finding what is missing

     “What is truth? You can see where there is truth and where there isn’t, but I

      seem to have lost my sight. I see nothing. You boldly settle all the important

     questions, but tell me, my dear boy, isn’t it because you are young and the

     questions of the world haven’t hurt you yet?” Anton Chekhov, The Cherry   Orchard. From inwardoutward.org

A dear friend, Pan, who reads my blog, Daily Something, noticed a word I had not spelled correctly. I had been writing about how we see the world through different lenses and glasses.  She kindly sent me a message asking me, “Did you mean to spell glases with only one s or did you do it to make a point to see if we might see it?”  I loved her comment. She reminded me of so many lessons. 

It helped me see and remember how something that looks so right can be so wrong. In writing, it more often is a missing letter, especially when there is another similar letter beside it.  I have also talked about it in my life as a radiologist. It was the things that were missing such as a part of a bone that I would miss and not recognize its absence. It was easier to see the things that were added such as a tumor or extra blood vessels.

So many lessons. We need community to help us have better vision in our world and in our everyday and spiritual lives. I made such fewer mistakes in radiology when I took the time to share what I was looking at with others and asked their opinion. In radiology, that person was a partner or colleague.  In writing we might call that person a copy editor. In learning to live life on life’s terms, we might call that person a therapist. In recovery we would call that person a sponsor. When we want to find out what might be missing in our spiritual life, we would call that person a spiritual friend or director.

Joanna joannaseibert.com