Charleston: Gratitude

Gratitude

“I have an important message for you: thank you for continuing to be a channel of grace in this world. Thank you, because it is not always an easy thing to do. If we become discouraged ourselves, doubting whether justice will prevail or peace will come at last, then we can keep ourselves from receiving the word of hope that is trying to pass through us to others. We slow the flow of grace into the lives of those for whom we care. But when we keep the channels wide open, unafraid of the future and full of faith, then we share strength where strength is needed most. So, thank you, thank you for keeping your heart open, thank you for letting love reach as far as it can.” Steven Charleston, daily Facebook email.

Whenever I am in some kind of funk, feeling sorry for myself, feeling low, thinking I am not valued or loved, I know of one prescription that always brings healing. I make a gratitude list. It never fails. It brings me back to reality and all I have to be grateful for. I also talk to friends who share the same egocentric disease with some awareness of it, and we laugh about our condition and how ridiculous it is!

Gratitude is at the heart of 12-step programs, especially gratitude for the love of others, and it is at the heart of the spiritual life. It is very difficult to lose recovery when we are grateful for and learn to appreciate loved ones in our lives. The same is true for keeping a spiritual connection to God. Making a gratitude list every day for people and situations and our surroundings can help us find recovery from addiction as well as help us know and feel that connection to the God who is always with us, who always loves us, who never leaves us.

 As we list each day what we are grateful for, we suddenly or gradually realize that we are not alone, that we are cared for, that there is a love we cannot understand or fully know that is caring for us, has cared for us all our lives, has walked beside us, cried with us, laughed with us, and will never leave us.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Nouwen: Forgiveness

Nouwen: Healing our hearts Through Forgiveness

“How can we forgive those who do not want to be forgiven? But if our condition for giving forgiveness is that it will be received, we seldom will forgive! Forgiving the other is an act that removes anger, bitterness, and the desire for revenge from our hearts and helps us to reclaim our human dignity. We cannot force those we want to forgive into accepting our forgiveness. Forgiving others is first and foremost healing our own hearts.” Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Meditation, from Bread for the Journey, January 27, HarperSanfrancisco, 1997.

This past weekend I was with an amazing group of women in Searcy, Arkansas, as we talked about forgiveness. One of the first questions from two of the women was, “How can I forgive someone who has harmed me or someone I love when they do not see that they have done any wrong?”

These are the hardest situations for me to forgive as well. I think I am doing well, but then I hear how the people involved see no wrong doing on their part, and an angry dragon puts his head up again. The anger is nothing like the initial event, but it still endangers my body and my mind and my soul.  I am allowing the people and the situation to continue to harm me unless I can transform that energy into something useful for my body and the world.

I think of a a small church related school that I and many others were involved with several years ago that was closed overnight. Most of us have worked through the abrupt closing and have moved on. We will all carry a scar, but for the most part the wound is healing.

 Most of us decided that if we cannot forgive those involved in the closing, or those who did nothing to prevent it, they are still hurting us. They take up space in our minds, our life, our bodies, and our relationship with others. We all have prayed to transform the huge amount of energy generated by this hurt into something positive. We all are now seeing gold deep down in this pain.

I often go to a place where I remember the children and teachers and school board singing as they walk out in pairs at the conclusion of the school’s closing graduation as each carries a small lighted candle out into the world. What I do see every day is the light each of those involved at this school now bring to so many other schools, homes, churches, and places of work. We have been sent out to share what we learned from that experience, the relationships,  the love, the kindness to others, the acceptance of others, the belief in a very loving God. There was so much light at that school. That is why it was so hard to leave, but we have now been commissioned to carry out the light we received there into the larger world. We can make a difference in so many other lives, and so many have been doing just that.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Nouwen: Roots

 Nouwen: Trees and Needing Praise

“Trees that grow tall have deep roots. Great height without great depth is dangerous. The great leaders of this world - like St. Francis, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., - were all people who could live with public notoriety, influence, and power in a humble way because of their deep spiritual rootedness. Those who are deeply rooted in the love of God can enjoy human praise without being attached to it.” Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society, Daily Meditation, from Bread for the Journey, 1997 HarperSanFrancisco.  

Nouwen gives us an amazing sign of when our connection to God is thin. When we are needing the praise and adoration of others, we are not “rooted” in God. Living off of the praise of others is living on the surface. Needing the positive opinion of others is like a “stop sign.”

Stop! We are going in the wrong direction. Turn around. Go and sit or walk outdoors. See that there in Nature is something greater than ourselves. Remember that a loving God loves us so much that God created all this for us to care for and enjoy.

Talk to a spiritual friend. Do one of the many, many spiritual exercises we most often do best to reconnect to God. Re-examine our rule of life.

Reach out in love to someone else, especially someone in need. Make eye contact. Look for the light of Christ in them.  Connect the Christ in us to the Christ in the other person. I think this is one of the ways of nurturing that our souls need to make deeper roots.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com