Tangier Island, the Church, Our Soul

Tangier Island

“The margins, Nathan,” he said when he started speaking again. “That’s what we’re losing. We’re losing the churches on the margins. We aren’t doing enough for them.”  Conversation by Loren Mead to Nathan Kirkpatrick, www.faithandleadership.com “Tangier Island, the church, and living on the edge,” Duke Divinity School Leadership Education Center Alban Weekly, June 26, 2018.

NeilKaye Aerial of Tangier Island

Tangier Island is a disappearing island in the Chesapeake Bay 12 miles equidistant off each the Maryland and Virginia coast, losing up to 16 feet of its coastline a year secondary to the rising sea level from global warming and soil erosion. It is believed that in 20 to 30 years the island will be uninhabitable to the more than 500 people who now live there, and in fifty years the island will be completely underwater. The local islanders speak what is described as a unique Elizabethan British-like dialect combined with a southern drawl.  They are primarily oyster and crab fishermen year-round and tourist guides in the summer. The 1.2 square mile island is steeped in religious tradition and actually completely shuts down on Sunday morning.
Nathan Kirkpatrick writing recently in the Duke Divinity School Leadership Education Center Alban Weekly (www.faithandleadership.com  June 26, 2018)  recalls the above conversation with the founding director of the Alban Institute, Loren Mead, who compared the church to Tangier Island. What does Dr. Mead mean by saying  the church is “losing its margins?” Is he saying the church is shrinking because it is not paying attention to people on the fringes or margins of society, the poor, the weak, the hungry, the homeless, the tired, the sick, those who are the most different from ourselves?  In the larger scheme, is he referring to our neighbors who border us that we are not caring about?  

I can remember one of my favorite quotes from Bishop Barbara Harris. “The church is like an oriental rug. Its fringes are what make it most beautiful.”

In spiritual direction I ask people how the story of Tangier Island might relate to the care of their soul.   There are so many possible answers.

Another question is, “Do you ever feel your soul shrinking? Do you feel you are losing the margins, the borders, the uniqueness, the most inspiring and possibly the most interesting parts  of your soul, the God, the Christ within you?

Joanna   joannaseibert.com

Recognizing God

Recognizing God

“He who recognizes a king in disguise treats him very differently from he who sees before him only the figure of an ordinary man and treats him accordingly. Likewise, souls who can recognize God in the most trivial, the most grievous and the most mortifying things that happen to them in their lives, honour everything equally with delight and rejoicing, and welcome with open arms what others dread and avoid.” Jean Pierre de Caussade, The Sacrament of the Present Moment, Daily Quote, InwardOutward.org,  July 12, 2018, Church of the Saviour, Washington DC.

Benjamin Child Unsplash

I know people like this who seem to treat everyone equally, one person is no more important than another, all are human and divine at the same time. They seem to see the Holy Spirit, the God, the Christ in each person they meet. They do not look onto the  outer appearances or political statue, or wealth or power that a person represents. This was certainly modeled to us by Christ.

My experience teaches me that if we cannot see Christ in our neighbor, often it is because we cannot see Christ in ourselves. Consequently, we project onto others our unChrist-like behavior that we do not realize is really within us.

How do we change? Along the way, we are touched by someone who treats us as if we do really have a divine spark, the holy within us. They treat us with love. It is like a spark is being lighted. A light, a lightbulb goes on inside of us. We begin to believe we are loved.

So, this is indeed our mission as spiritual friends to  seek out the light, the Christ in each other.

 I remember talking to a spiritual friend about a family member I was having difficulty with. She helped me by asking me, “Tell me something good about her. Something she does well.”

My experience also is that I cannot see the Christ in someone else when I live in fear. I realized this recently at a meeting I attended where I was uncomfortable. I wanted to look good. I did not know exactly what was expected of me. I was fearful that I might make a mistake. As an introvert, I did not interact with anyone I did not know. I only had concern for what people might be thinking about me. Was I making a good impression?

 At our next meeting I hope  to relate better to others. My plan is just before the meeting to say a prayer for each person I know who will be there, asking specifically that we will see  the Christ within each other.

I will let you know how it goes.

Joanna  joannaseibert.com

Guest Writer: Susan Cushman, Icons

Guest Writer: Susan Cushman, Icons

“Our icon painters had seen the beauty that would save the world and immortalized it in colors.” - Eugene Trubetskoi,  Icons: Theology in Color

St. John's Nave

Standing before the icon of Christ in the front of St. John Orthodox Church, I prepare to offer my confession at the Sacrament of Forgiveness. The Holy image of the One Who Forgives comes forth to meet me, as the father comes forth to welcome home the prodigal son in the familiar gospel passage (Luke 15:11-32). The love of Jesus pours forth from his prototype (the icon), sees the offering of my broken heart, and raises it to the heavenly realm.

After receiving the priest’s counsel and absolution, I remain in the nave (the large part of the temple, called the sanctuary in Protestant churches) to give thanks and to let God’s grace and peace fill my heart. Surrounded by icons of Christ, his Mother, the angels, saints, biblical scenes and church feasts, I think about how Prince Vladimir’s envoys must have felt when they walked into Hagia Sophia Orthodox Cathedral in Constantinople near the end of the tenth century. Their mission was to find a religion that Prince Vladimir could embrace and offer to the people of Russia. In their report they said, “We didn’t know whether we were in Heaven or on earth.” Shortly thereafter, Orthodoxy became the official religion of Kievan Russia, infusing the lives of peasants and princes, artists and writers, with the Orthodox vision of beauty. Nine hundred years later, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky penned the famous words, “Beauty will save the world.”

I don’t think Prince Vladimir or Dostoevsky had in mind the kind of worldly beauty that today’s fashion and entertainment industries worship, or even the beauty of secular art and architecture. I think they were both swept off their feet by true spiritual beauty in Vladimir’s case, the beauty of the Orthodox temple (church), adorned with icons.

Susan Cushman, excerpted from "Icons Will Save the World," published in First Things, December 20, 2007.

Susan Cushman is a convert to Orthodox Christianity. Her husband, Father Basil Cushman, is Associate Pastor at St. John Orthodox Church in Memphis, Tennessee, where this photo was taken. Susan spent a number of years writing icons and teaching iconography. Now she writes books, including her novel CHERRY BOMB, which features a weeping icon and numerous scenes in an Orthodox monastery and an Orthodox church. Read more about her at www.susancushman.com.

joanna  joannaseibert.com