Nouwen: Easter Message

 Nouwen: Easter message

“When you forget your true identity as a beloved child of God, you lose your way in life. You become preoccupied trying to please others and you lose the confidence to be yourself. You work hard to avoid rejection, or abandonment, and you may cling to people more from fear than freedom. In making compromises you may please people but lose touch with your original blessing, the connection to the deep and everlasting love of God.

Jesus announces to us, "Do not be afraid. I dwell in you till the end of time." Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Meditation. From Bread for the Journey, Henri J. M.  Nouwen, 1997 HarperSanFrancisco.

Jim and his grandson

So many spiritual friends I talk with so well understand Nouwen’s Easter message to us.  For a multitude of reasons, often fear based, we lose our true identity. We stop becoming the person God created us to be. We become insecure, fearful, frightened and look for relief in power, addictions, fame, money, attachments to others and become dependent on what others think about us, or we may become paralyzed and unable to make any decisions. We eventually become very aware that we have lost our connection to God. Where can we find help?

 My experience is that it is in community where we are helped. We talk with others who can share their connection to God. In recovery groups this is known as “sticking with the winners,” “staying close to those who still have their lights on.” Eventually we are healed, and we stay connected by reaching out to others in need who have gone through a similar experience.

As the alcoholic or addict in recovery stays sober and clean by sharing his or her story, we talk to someone else who is seeking recovery and tell them our story of Resurrection from Good Friday.

Some may not call it Easter, but that is what it is. I was reminded of this by a dear friend, Jim Waldron, who now lives in the resurrection, who indeed did become sober on Easter Sunday many years ago.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Easter Vigil

Easter Vigil 1

“Dear friends in Christ: On this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer.” Book of Common Prayer, p. 285.

Episcopal church of the Messiah, Santa Ana California

For the church, the Easter Vigil is one of the most complicated and beautiful services of the year.  The difficulty is that it is only once a year so it is hard to remember all the tiny details from year to year, so sometimes there is more chaos than the church would like. But this is also what adds to its beauty, light and creation coming out of chaos. The service starts with the lighting of the pascal candle from a fire, usually outside of the church and its entering inside into the church in complete darkness.

The deacon carries the pascal candle in as he or she lights the congregation’s candles while singing, “The Light of Christ”, three times, each time a little higher pitch. This is followed by the deacon chanting the beautiful Exsultet.

It is time for me to turn the Exsultet over to someone else. I have loved chanting the Exsultet for over seventeen years. It has been a privilege.  A newer deacon singing the Exsultet this year has been practicing it for two years and so lovingly and beautifully chants it from her heart. The Exsultet is followed by Old Testament readings about God’s history with God’s people. Next come baptisms, crying babies, curious toddlers escaping from their parents still in the dark. Finally, the cacophony of the great noise of bells of every size announce that Christ has risen indeed as all the lights come on, and we see all the flowers of Easter surrounding the inside of the church. Then we celebrate the first new Eucharist of the Easter season.

The service may have some similarity to what the spice bearing women experienced when they came to the empty tomb on that early Easter morning and saw one or two angels in dazzling white telling them that they were the first to know that Jesus had been raised from the dead!

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Good Friday

Good Friday

The courageous women who weep   John 18:1-19:42

“On Good Friday, so much focus is rightfully on Jesus' suffering on the cross. But let's look down below him and see the courageous women of John's story. In memory of them, let us pray for women who today will weep for their children, refusing to be comforted. And let us hold in prayer the women on today's Golgothas who, in the face of horrible suffering, somehow find the strength to hold each other up.”    Eileen D. Crowley, “Sunday’s Coming”, Christian Century April 11, 2017

In Arkansas last year starting on Easter Monday there were eleven executions planned because one of the drugs being used had an expiration date at the end of that month. There had not been an execution for twelve years. I remember that earlier execution well because I was a deacon at our cathedral then which is close to the governor’s mansion. We had an ecumenical prayer service for the person to be executed and the person he killed. I know I played the harp at the service, probably the African American spiritual, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”. We then went to the governor’s mansion and sang and prayed by candlelight until after the execution.

 All of the men on death row last year had killed young women. I wonder what these girls now in eternal life are praying for and if they are lighting candles. Some of the stories about the men reveal that they had awful lives with a lack of love from women like the ones who followed Jesus. My prayers today are of course that governors all over our country will stay executions and that eventually this state could abolish the death penalty.

My third prayer is that we will do our best to raise strong and loving women like the ones at the cross with Jesus so that their children will know love and not violence against others, especially against women.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com