Charleston: How We Learn

Charleston: How We Learn
“We are strongest when we show our tenderness to others, when we bend the rigidity of culture and custom to care for those in need. The Spirit dares the conventions of our time so that love can reach out as far and wide as it can. Those from whom we would turn are those from whom we would learn.” Bishop Steven Charleston, Daily Facebook Emails

Transcranial Doppler

Bishop Charleston constantly reminds us that we most learn from those from whom we want to turn away. I try to pass this insight on to spiritual friends as I remember the people and situations who have made such an impact on my life.

 In my medical career, my major research developed because the person I had the most difficulty working with pushed me into it. She not so kindly told me that if I didn’t start working on this test for her patients, that she would get someone else to do it or she would do it herself! As I started the research working with children with Sickle Cell Disease, it became one of the most rewarding parts of my career as I grieved for the children and their families and what they had to suffer, hoping to make their lives even a small part better, helping to develop an ultrasound test to know which children were at risk for stroke.

I think of all the people after the recent elections whose candidates did not win. Instead of reacting with violence and hatred, they became more involved in the politics of their country locally, nationally, and globally. They committed themselves to problems of refugees, immigrants, the environment, the working poor, gun violence, and  children’s and women’s issues. They let our representatives know what is important to them and actually are running for office where before they watched from the sidelines or perhaps gave a small amount of money to a cause or watched someone else do it.

 We learn most from difficult people and difficult situations if we have the courage and energy to go there and process what is going on, transforming the initial anger into useful energy to make a change.  

God uses every part of our lives to connect to us and lead us into becoming the people we were created to do and be. Nothing is ever wasted.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

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