Kelsey: Outreach

Kelsey: Outreach

“A Christian meditative practice that does not result in horizontal outreach to suffering and lost human beings has gone astray.” Morton Kelsey, p. 27, Companions of the Inner Way, The Art of Spiritual Guidance, Crossroad 1983.

Langley in Nicaragua

Morton Kelsey was a teacher, counselor, Episcopal priest, former teacher at Notre Dame and author of over 30 books on spiritual development.

He writes about the tension that develops between the peace we find in relationship to God and the lack of peace in our outer world. This is similar to what we heard Gordon Cosby from Church of the Saviour write about recently. Cosby called it the the real and unreal world. In fact, the Church of the Saviour’s website is Inward Outward.

 Just as the inner peace is found with love, the same is true for birthing the outer peace. The love we find in staying connected to the God of our understanding calls us out of ourselves to those who are suffering in the world. The paradox is that in reaching out to those in need, we again find God, for that is where God promises to be most present.

Spiritual friends or guides who have encountered the creative love of  Christ within themselves and in others can be guides to practices that help put us in position to experience this kind of love. Often spiritual guides are helpful in pointing out to us where God was working in our life, where we experienced God’s love, God’s protection and were not aware of it.  Spiritual friends help us find the Christ already within us which always is calling us to find the Christ in our neighbor, especially our neighbor in need.

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

Real World

Real World

“Often, as we conclude a retreat at Dayspring, someone will say: This has been powerful. I hope I can hold onto it back in the real world.” But the “real world” is not the one to which we are going. We return to the “unreal” world where the culture is distorted and trapped in pretense. The “real” world is the one we were just in, where our hearts were opened and we gave inner consent to rest in God.” N. Gordon Cosby, Seized by the Power of a Great Affection, June 20, 2018, Daily Quote, Inwardoutward.org

What an amazing concept that Gordon Cosby, the founder of Church of the Saviour in Washington D C, brings to us this morning. Real means not artificial or imitation. Real is genuine, not fake. Unreal is not living out of our true self, our core of love, the divine within us. Seeking power over others is artificial. Connecting to God, the power greater than ourselves, is real. Humility is real. Arrogance is imitating something we are not.   Holding a newborn baby in our arms is real. Having that child we love taken away from us is unreal. The white sands of the gulf are real. Oil stains on the beach are unreal.

 Living with the fruit of the Spirit, peace, joy, kindness, patience, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) is real.  Living in fear is living in an artificial world, another world, not the real world that God made. This is a constant message from Jesus. “It is I, do not be afraid,” is Jesus’ message to his disciples as he walks on water towards them in a storm on the sea of Galilee. (John 6:20) “Fear not” are the first words all the angels say that God sends to us.  That’s how we suspect the presence of angels and even God when we hear these words. Making choices out of fear is not real. It is not the world of the God of my understanding.

Phillip Newell frequently writes that a major premise in Celtic spirituality is that our core is good, is love, as opposed to western or Mediterranean spirituality that tells us that our core is sinful.  So many of us live a life wearing many masks to prop ourselves up to hide our sinfulness. At other times we become so overcome by our sinfulness that we are paralyzed, we live in a mechanical trance, going through the motions. This is not a real life. We have become discontinued from the love within us as well as the love of God and our neighbor.

So what do we do? We change the world and ourselves by connecting to the core of love within us, the Christ within us, by trying to put ourselves in position to know that love. For many this means learning to live by a rule of life. We begin by trying to connect and spend time with our loving God. We try to love one person at a time, including ourselves.

 When we are confronted with fear, we say our prayers. My mind keeps reciting the old saying, “Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” The answers will come. We will begin to know and desire only what is real. It goes by the name of love.

Joanna joannaseibert.com  

Mosaic Community

 Mosaic Community

“When I am with a group of human beings committed to hanging in there through both the agony and the joy of community, I have a dim sense that I am participating in a phenomenon for which there is only one word...."glory."      M. Scott Peck

Andrew Ridley

This morning I think of groups I am in, especially a Wednesday morning book group who has meet for more years than I can remember. We started in one church as an Education for Ministry or EfM group who later morphed into a Disciples of Christ in Community or DOCC Transforming the  Literature of the Bible study group. We moved to other churches as the bishop reassigned me and continually collected different members. We continued to read contemporary literature and scripture and looked for patterns in the lives of those of our Judeo-Christian heritage that might speak to us today in modern language and agendas.

Very few now attend the same congregation, and we are always enriched by people of other faith groups.  On occasion, we have met at our home by our fireplace in the den. My husband always had fresh flowers on the coffee table. There was something about meeting in a home as well as meeting with a group of people who have learned to accept and know each other so well they can easily ignite “God moments” in this eclectic community.

  Another amazing image of such a community is a mosaic of pieces of cut glass of different shapes and colors. Each individual may be beautiful in its own right, but together a truly glorious multicolored image emerges.

I think of the story that I often tell children that was given to me so many years ago by Dean McMillin, another spiritual friend. God wanted to give part of God to God’s creation. God took a huge mirror, looked into it, and broke the mirror into many tiny pieces, sending them down to earth. God gave to every one of us a tiny piece, a reflection of God.  We spend years trying to find that piece of God within ourselves, and when we do, we get so excited, “I have found God.”

That is where it stops for so many who try to make their piece, their image of God as the only image that is truly of God. But God calls us to another task. We are to fit our piece with that of others, and the more pieces of God we find in others, the larger is our image of God. We sometimes meet people who say they have an image of God that is so different, so foreign from ours. Sometimes these people are our children! As we fit more and more pieces and see so many other parts that represent God, we come closer to their part way on the edge of  our God’s image.

This is a journey of a lifetime, finding God in ourselves, connecting it to the God in others, and enlarging our image of God. A beautiful mosaic. It is called community.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com