Faith

“Each person defines faith for themselves. Part of that definition is received, imparted to us by culture and community. Part is internally developed over time and through experience. Faith, therefore, is a process. It can solidify or liquefy depending on the situation. Being conscious of what faith means to us is being aware of how life works for us. As Socrates is supposed to have said: the unexamined life is not worth living.” Steven Charleston Daily Facebook Message

In her weekly message to her church today, Mary Vano, rector of St. Margaret’s Church, Little Rock, reminds me about Lauren Winner’s spiritual memoir, Still, Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, fifty-four short meditations about Winner’s two-year sojourn which she describes as the “middle” of her spiritual journey after the initial “glow.” Winner invites us to travel with her into the times of her unbelief when her spiritual life feels dry and God becomes an abstraction or absent. It is a time when awareness of God’s daily presence may be more difficult, especially in hard times such as the death of a loved one or difficulty in a marriage as Winner was experiencing. Dryness also may come when work or problems with children become overwhelming and there is no time left to try to find a spiritual connection, as well as when all the things you once did like praying, reading, going to church, no longer seem to make a connection to God.

Winner stops praying, but she still feels surrounded by prayers of other people. Slowly Winner finds God in the most unlikely and ordinary places and people like a group of believers watching a video in the parish hall during a pie social. Other writers such as Emily Dickinson, John Updike, and Julian of Norwich reconnect her and hold her still with a “loose stitch.”  Harper, the publisher of Still, also provides an online  book discussion and reflection guide of the book formatted for forty days of Lent, though it could be used at other seasons like forty days of summer!

So many people come for spiritual direction who are in this “middle” sojourn of their spiritual journey.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Ezekiel: Canticle and Shower Chant

Ezekiel: Shower Chant

“I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you. Ezekiel 36:25-27.

I am up early watching light come to day as a gentle rain sounds outside my window and on our roof. I can imagine this rain cleaning our planet as well as my heart. Maybe later I will have the courage to go outside and stand or sit and feel the rain on my face, hair, and clothes and pray for a heart of flesh instead of stone for just this day.

One of the first priests I worked with when I was a deacon in training shared with me that he chanted these few verses from Ezekiel in his shower each morning. I think of and pray for him each time I recite these words which are now one of the alternative canticles in Morning Prayer in Enriching our Worship I.

As I talk with people in spiritual direction who share about the heart of stone they carry, I also let them know, I suffer from the same dis-ease. My experience is that our responsibility is an awareness of when we cannot feel the Spirit within us and our hearts turn to stone. Awareness is a major gift that God calls us to develop and discern. Only God can change our heart. We keep that prayer to be open to change in our hearts every day. We try to put ourselves in relationship to others who also desire a heart of flesh and not of stone and we pray for each other.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com  

Pentecost Continues

Spirit

“When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:22

USA TODAY

 We are now in the season of Pentecost remembering, celebrating that the Spirit was given to us on the day of Pentecost. If you want to see what happened that day when the Spirit moved through a large room of people who do not have a clue what is happening, watch Bishop Michael Curry’s sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the morning of Pentecost Eve. Usually the minister’s words at a wedding are called a homily, a short sermon, but as one of the British commentators says, Curry’s message is a true sermon, and it is all about love.  He first describes love by reminding us that when two people fall in love, almost the whole world shows up as it does on that Saturday morning.  That is how important love is.

 Bishop Curry reminds us that love has the energy of fire, and his enthusiastic, passionate words are indeed like the Pentecost flames of fire running throughout St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.  Bishop Curry is so filled with the Spirit that he has to keep holding on to his lectern to stay in place. His body language signals that he wants to move out and reach out more directly with the young couple and his congregation. As you watch people’s faces, you can tell they have no idea what to do with him or his barnstorming message. They look mystified, amused, indignant, comical, questioning. Some look down at their program so others cannot see what they are thinking. Some glance at their neighbor to get a clue from them about what is happening. Some almost fall out of their chair! Some look at Curry as if they are mesmerized.  

Perhaps the ones who seem to understand his message the most are indeed the royal wedding couple, especially Meghan who has a radiant smile with an occasional twinkle for the whole sermon.

 Bishop Curry’s presentation and delivery are not in the British style, but his message of love is true to his Anglican and African roots. He speaks out of his African American tradition from his ancestors in slavery and out of his training in an Episcopal tradition that Americans modified from immigrants from England who settled this country. Bishop Curry speaks his truth that comes from deep inside of him as all these traditions come together and kindle tongues of fire from the power of love that flame around the world.

Bishop Curry is our role model of what it is like to be filled with the Spirit.  We have no choice but to speak the truth. Many people will not have a clue what we are saying, but everyone who hears us will be changed in some way. Bishop Curry also reminds us that the truth from God should always be about love, loving God, loving ourselves, and loving our neighbor. Period.

Happy Pentecost Season.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com.