Charleston: Born Seeker

Charleston: Born Seeker

“You have the gift of a curious spirit. You have a faith deeply rooted in what your lifetime of experience has shown you so far, but you are never afraid to encounter a new idea. This gives you an instinct for compassion, a concern for justice, and an ability not to take reality too seriously. In short, you are one of the spiritual pathfinders that the rest of us rely on. How do I know all of this? Because if you take time to read what I write you are tolerant of change and patient with uncertainty. In a word, you are a born seeker.” Bishop Charleston Daily Facebook email

Seekers. We are all born seekers, searching after what brings us peace. Is it knowledge, fame, family, money, relationships?  Are we seeking what we didn’t have as children?  Are we seeking to harm those who have harmed us? 

My experience is that we all are seeking to fill our “God hole.”  I just know there is an emptiness inside that can only be nourished by our relationship to the God of love, the source of our being. I know because I have tried unsuccessfully to fill that hole with so many of these things…. And more.

I listen to what others as well have filled their God hole. We talk about how everything we try to fill our God hole inside of us becomes like an addiction. It may be helpful at first, but as time goes on we need more and more of it to fill the hole. We can never get enough.

Somewhere along the journey we meet someone who shows us in his or her living that only God and God’s love can fill that hole. This person may not talk about Christ, but he or she is the person who sees Christ in us, sometimes for the first time.

This may be our only job as a seeker to find the love of God inside of ourselves and then show others the love of Christ that also lives in them.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Charleston: Surprises

Surprises

“Life keeps throwing us surprises. When they are good surprises, we are delighted, but when they are bad, we are caught off guard. But we have a few surprises up our spiritual sleeve as well. Even if the situation turns grim, we have a little back-up plan called faith. We can rely on one rock solid reality: the love of God.” Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook email.

I have a dear friend who mentioned at a 12-step meeting, “I am all right as long as all of my duck are in a row.” An older gentleman we both did not know piped up, “You will never find all your ducks in a row!” I keep remembering this and share with old and new spiritual friends. I think I can count on my fingers of one hand the times in my life when all of my ducks were in a row.  The out of row ducks are a constant reminder that we are not in control.

Two things seem to help to prepare us for the daily events when our quacking friends no longer line up in a straight line. First, we try to learn about who we are, what our buttons are that people can push and drive us over the edge into a place of discomfort. There are so many ways to try to understand our makeup, what drives us, where our energy is, why we react the way we do, what are our assets and what are our shadows, what makes others the way they are. Perhaps the most used methods are the Myers-Briggs Personality Indicator Test, dream work, and the Enneagram.

Secondly, Bishop Charleston tells us we have more spiritual surprises up our sleeves than we can count to deal with these old and new situations:  a connection to God by innumerable spiritual disciplines, a rule of life, a multitude of forms of prayer, a worshiping in community, a constant call to reach out of ourselves and connect to others, and so much more.

 God continually offers us the opportunity and by grace leads us to move from victor to survivor to hero.

Here are just a few books teaching us about our personality.

David Keirsey, Please Understand Me II: Temperament, Character, Intelligence.

Otto Kroeger, Type Talk: The Sixteen Personality Tyles That Determine How We Live, Love, and Work.

Don Riso, The Wisdom of the Enneagram: The Complete Guide to Psychological and Spiritual Growth for the Nine Personality Types.

Richard Rohr, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective.

Joseph Howell, Becoming Conscious: The Enneagram’s Forgotten Passageway.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Nouwen, Kushner, Bolz-Weber: Choices, Suffering

Nouwen, Kushner, Bolz-Weber: Choices, Suffering

 Choices make the difference. We have very little control over what happens in our lives, but we have a lot of control over how we integrate and remember what happens. It is precisely these spiritual choices that determine whether we live our lives with dignity.” Henri Nouwen, Henri Nouwen Society Daily Meditation, from Bread for the Journey by Henri Nouwen 1997 HarperSanFrancisco.

Early morning fog

The choices we make determine how we keep our connection to God and how the Christ in us connects to the Christ in those around us. In this postmodern world, we have so many choices, and so many are good. Our ministry is to connect to the choices that will bring about to us and others the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)

Also, learning and being aware of our spiritual gifts can help in making a choice. If we are doing what we were created to do, we will be energized. Our community can also help us as we discern choices.

Nouwen is also talking about our choices when life brings unmerited suffering. This is so hard.  If we become bitter or withdraw, it is hard to stay connected to God. I visit so often with spiritual friends who are seeking an answer to this very why question of why does an all-powerful, all loving God let suffering happen.

  Harold Kushner had a young son, Aaron, who died at age fourteen from a devastating incurable genetic disease, In his book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Kushner asks us to change our question and all our energy from why did this happen to how can we work through this. This is the choice that can change us from victim to survivor to hero.   Kushner also reminds us that God is right there in our suffering with us. We never suffer alone.

Nadia Bolz-Weber in Accidental Saints (p. 59-60)   reminds us that she can only see God working in her life in retrospect. In the middle of difficulty she is “so filled with doubt and self-interest and ambition and neurosis that it’s hard to be tuned in to God. But after something surprising or intensely beautiful happens.. then I begin to suspect God.”  This is my experience as well.  When I am in the midst of pain, God’s presence is more like the early morning fog. As the fog lifts and the sun comes out, it becomes obviously clear that God was right there.

What also helps is reading and talking to others, hearing the stories of survivors who have lived through and are still living in suffering.

 The why of suffering is a great mystery that people through the ages have written about. Our tradition teaches us that we have a God who suffered and suffers with us. It can be a time of questioning. Our tradition also teaches us that every Good Friday experience can lead to Easter, to resurrection.  I think this is our ministry with our spiritual friends, trying eventually to remember and help ourselves and others see any hint of an Easter experience in suffering. I have mentioned my Easter story before. I never tire of sharing it.

later in the day

Joanna  joannaseibert.com