Hope out of Shameful Acts

 Hope out of Shameful Acts

“In the Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone highlights a paradox of the gospel: out of the shameful and humiliating act of crucifixion comes hope.” Debra J. Mumford, “Living the Word,” Christian Century, March 14, 2018, p. 21.

We drove through Montgomery, Alabama, the week before the opening of The National Memorial and Museum for Peace and Justice or better known as the Lynching Memorial and Museum. We think we caught a glimpse of it in the distance. We felt a call that we must return to Montgomery someday to visit both parts.

 Between 1950 and 1877 more than 4400 African American men, women and children were lynched by being burned alive, hanged, shot, drowned, or beaten to death. The memorial structure on the center of the site is made of over 800 steel monuments, one for each county in our country where a racial lynching took place. The adjacent museum is built where there once was a former warehouse where black slaves brought in by boat or rails were imprisoned before going to the slave market.

James Cone, one of American’s best-known advocates of black theology and black liberation theology, ironically died two days after the opening of this memorial and museum.

In her Good Friday message this year in Christian Century, Debra Mumford reminds us how the horrific lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in the Mississippi Delta in August of 1955 sparked national outrage that led Rosa Parks to move from the back to the front of the bus in Montgomery that December. Her arrest began the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott that was a groundbreaking event in the civil rights movement.

The cross many of us wear is the symbol of an unjust public execution. We more often relate to the resurrection that came out of it rather than the brutal killing of an innocent man. The cross’s message of resurrection is hope to all who are oppressed, but we must also remember the injustice.

The Lynching Museum and Memorial and the yearly Good Friday services we participate in will hopefully remind us of the shameful acts that did and still take place in our world. We are to remind each other, especially our spiritual friends, that our hope, our small part is not unlike that of Rosa Parks.  We are to change the world by remembering the cruelty and standing our ground with trembling hearts in love wherever we see injustice.

Cone and Mumford are reminding us that when we talk with spiritual friends at some point we are also to remind them that our traditions teach us about great hope that can follow horrendous and unjust tragedy. 

Joanna    joannaseibert.com 

Peace of God

Peace of God

“Jesus doesn’t offer peace of mind. He offers the peace of reconciliation.” Diane Roth, “Living the Word,” Christian Century, March 14, 2018, p. 23.

Turtle tracks by Marci Hixson

This response by Diane Roth to Lectionary Readings for the Second Sunday in Easter from John 20:19-31is another wake-up call for us to reconcile with those with whom we are having difficulty, loving that neighbor who is so different, loving our relatives who look at our political scene wearing  a very different pair of glasses, seeing Christ in the most unlovable person with whom we work, loving those whose belief systems are the exact opposite of ours. I could go on for several more pages of examples.

A verse that haunts me that is often said at the offertory is Matthew 5:23-24, “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

Family systems models tells us that we must make every possible attempt to get back into relationship with any family members from whom we are estranged.

The heart of 12 step recovery is looking at the resentments we have for others, seeing our part causing the estrangement from others, making amends, seeing how we are alike instead of seeing our differences.

All of these teachings are reminding us that when we cannot love our neighbor, it is hard to love God, for the God of our understanding always also lives in our neighbor as does God live in us.  

This is an important message for us to share with spiritual friends. We may not be the trained person to help our friends reconcile with those with whom they are having difficulty, but we are called to share our experience that reconciliation with our neighbor is a straight pathway to the peace of God.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

Wounded Healer

 Wounded Healer

“To be a conscious person in this world, to be aware of all the suffering and the beauty, means to have your heart broken over and over again.” Sharon Salzberg, InwardOutward.org, “Daily Quote,” May 31, 2018

Brain Thoughts

Sharon Salzberg is an author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practices. Those in Christian and psychological traditions will recognize this Buddhist belief we share as the Christian and Jungian teaching of the wounded healer. The best healers are those who also have experienced and have known the most about suffering. We daily see this in our small group grief recovery group, Walking the Mourner’s Path. Three or four of us are the facilitators holding the group together. The real healers are those participating in the group who are trying to live through the death of a loved one and know something about what the others in the group are thinking and feeling.  The same is true for all of those in 12-step recovery groups.

When we talk with spiritual friends who are suffering, we listen and listen and listen. At some point they will mention someone else who is suffering who helped or reached out to them. This is our clue subtlety to tell them that perhaps at some future date they can be able do the same for someone else. It is the old native American message of having walked in someone else’s moccasins that gives us compassion for that person when we have a hint of what his or her life is like.

Sometimes the only resurrection that we ever see in tremendous suffering is developing an awareness of what it is like for others who are also in distress.

We have a choice, bitterness for the suffering or an understanding of compassion for others who also struggle.

Four disciplines are telling us this same message about the wounded healer. I know there must be other traditions as well who are sending this message.  When several disciplines intersect, for me this is a sign of a truth.  

Joanna joannaseibert.com