12/24/68 and Love

12/24/68 and love

“But the greatest of these is love.”  1 Corinthians 13:13

Earthrise seen from Apollo 8 Christmas Eve 1968

If you were alive on December 24, Christmas Eve, 1968, to see this picture from Apollo 8, do you remember what else you were doing? I remember much but also remember so little. My husband and I were interns at John Gaston City of Memphis Hospital working  that night so we missed the traditional Christmas Eve services. Instead we went to the quieter Christmas Day services at St. Mary’s Cathedral that next morning. We were not married until the next year, but it was a special Christmas, the first holiday we were able to be together. I do not remember the patients I took care of that night or what presents we gave each other for Christmas. I do remember that our best friend, Charles Stallings, taught us how to make gold and red Christmas ornament balls that we hung on that first tree.  We still have some of the large balls, and we try to tell our grandchildren, Zoe and Turner, about them as they traditionally help us hang them or occasionally have fun almost throwing the decorative balls on our tree each year.

The most memorable part, however, of that Christmas was that I was invited to meet Robert’s parents for Christmas dinner that night at their home. I don’t remember what we ate but, I do remember the red dress I wore. I was so nervous.  I was damaged goods, and I feared that they would not be able to like or much less love me. I had been divorced, and Robert was in the process of being divorced. I remember how they accepted me with open arms and treated me as if I were a lovable person from the start. Their unconditional love and care never ended. I still feel their presence today even though they have been dead for some time.

The only way I can continue to return that love is pay it forward today to my children and their children and their spouse’s families. I remember when Elizabeth died that I would pray that if she would continue to watch over her grandchildren that I would care for her husband, Bob. I didn’t keep up my part of the bargain as well as she did. I could always have done more.

I know that love never dies. Bob and Elizabeth have taught me that. I still feel the unconditional love they showed to me in so many ways even today almost fifty years later. It is a presence. It is a feeling. It is knowledge.  It is present in their only son who also knows much more about unconditional love than I do. I also see it in their three grandchildren whom they loved so dearly. I know love can change the world, one person, one family at a time. I have seen it.

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Bishop Hibbs: Jesus Prayer

Hibbs: Jesus Prayer

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner.”

We are at Camp Allen in Texas for the first time at a Community of Hope International with Mary Earle as the keynote speaker. As I look over her books I find this newly published 20th anniversary edition of An Altar in Your Heart, Meditations on the Jesus Prayer by Bishop Robert Hibbs with a Foreword by Mary Earle. The Jesus Prayer has been my mantra in the early morning and at evening as I go to sleep and during any time of anxiety or fear or temptation during the day or night especially during medical tests for me and my family. It is my feeble attempt at praying without ceasing.  

I have known Bishop Hibbs for years through work with the Episcopal Recovery Community, but never knew about his work on the Jesus Prayer.  As I share with Mary my connections with Bishop Hibbs, I find out he died a year ago in April, and Mary preached the homily at his service. I want to thank and honor him for the support he gave me and so many others in recovery by sharing this book with you. Also included is an audio CD of his lectures at a retreat producing the book, which the Cajuns would call a lagniappe,  a little something extra. For years Bob Hibbs was the major voice for recovery in the Episcopal House of Bishops.

Saying the Jesus Prayer is like using a prayer rope or beads in our heads. Bishop Hibbs relates the story of  Cardinal Mindzenty and Father Eschmann, who survived torture and solitary imprisonment by staying connected to God with the Jesus Prayer.

The first words of the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,” remind us of both Jesus’ divinity and his humanity which Hibbs believes is  an important constant message in keeping us in relationship with Jesus. These first words of the prayer with Jesus’ name express Easter, the Alleluia part of the prayer. The last phrase about mercy expresses Good Friday. Sister Carol Perry at this same conference reminds us that in this request for mercy, we are making the choice to ask for God’s mercy in our lives rather than God’s justice for how we have lived our lives.  Hibbs believes we always live in the tension between being in Easter and always connected to Good Friday.

Bishop Hibbs reminds us that this is an oral prayer to be said out loud as much as possible especially as we begin to make the Jesus Prayer a part of our being. He cautions us not to be discouraged as we become distracted while we say it. We are gently to return to the prayer without judgment on ourselves. We might consider treating distractions similar to those we encounter them in centering prayer. We might see them as barges moving down the Mississippi or any favorite river. We are to let them pass on down without interacting with them.

Eventually the prayer develops a rhythm in our lives and becomes a gift from God closely related to the beating of our heart, a constant, habitual recollection or awareness of God’s presence. Hibbs also reminds us that when we pray the Jesus prayer, we are attempting to connect to Jesus, God, the Trinity above and beyond us but also to the Christ in our neighbor and in ourselves.

For people in 12 step recovery this is where the steps intersect with the Jesus Prayer as we “sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God.” (Step 11, Chapter 5, “How it Works,” Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2016, p. 85)

Sometimes I modify the prayer to be similar to what is called Agnus Dei, the fraction anthem said or sung after breaking the bread in the Eucharist. “Lord God, Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.”

While we meet with someone for spiritual direction or with spiritual friends, we give them our utmost attention, but having the Jesus Prayer running through our mind and body is a way for us to stay connected to the Spirit speaking to the Christ in both of us.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Kelsey: The Ballard of Judas Iscariot

Kelsey: The Ballard of Judas Iscariot

 “We forget that the real task is to bring the totality of our psychic being to God and not just to repress and split off those parts of ourselves that we cannot change.” Morton T. Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence, a Guide to Christian 1976, Paulist Press, p. 105.

Theologian, Morton Kelsey wrote a very practical book over fifty years ago called The Other Side of Silence, a Guide to Christian Meditation to remind Christians that meditation was not just for those in Eastern religions.  His revised edition twenty years later is called The Other Side of Silence, Meditation for the Twenty-first Century has more of his writings and wisdom in a time when Christian meditation now is more well-known. Kelsey believes that meditation is simply the way we set up the conditions to prepare for the God who is seeking us and breaks through to us particularly in silence. “Doing meditation” involves using Biblical stores, dream images, poems, images from other sources.

Included in Kelsey’s book is a moving poem,” The Ballad of Judas Iscariot,” by the Scottish poet, Robert Buchanan, which I always read and meditate on every Easter season, reminding us that no one is lost or not forgiven or not loved by God.  I was reminded about  the story by Sister Carol Perry, a speaker at the recent Community of Hope International meeting at Camp Allen last weekend. The ballad must have been powerful to hear it sung. The story is of Judas wandering through regions of darkness when he spies a light from a lantern at a doorway.  Jesus is holding up the light as he beckons to Judas to come in and join his fellow disciples getting ready to eat. Jesus tells Judas they were just waiting for him before pouring the wine.

 I offer the poem also to spiritual friends who feel they have done something unforgivable or that God no longer loves them, and of course I meditate on it myself when that darkness of guilt or shame or a poor self-image surrounds me as well. Judas is a reminder and icon of times when we cannot accept that we might be forgiven or loved or might be open to God’s Grace continuously offered to all of us through dark and light times in our life. In all honestly, was Judas’ betrayal of Jesus really worse than denying Jesus or abandoning him as the others did? Judas simply could not ask for or accept forgiveness and had forgotten that the God of his understanding was a loving and forgiving God.

Joanna joannaseibert.com