Thurman: Love

Love from my heart

“I want to be more loving in my heart! It is often easy to see it with my mind, and give assent to the thought of being loving. But I want to be more loving in my heart! So I must ease the tension in my heart that ejects the sharp barb, the stinging word. I want to be more loving in my heart so that, through both unconscious awareness and through deliberate intent, I shall be a kind, gracious human being. I want to be more loving in my heart!” Howard Thurman, For the Inward Journey, Daily Quote, Inwardoutward.org, July 13, 2018, Church of the Saviour.

Howard Thurman was an African American theologian and educator who greatly influenced Martin Luther King Jr. in the theology of racial nonviolence in our last century. I read into this quote that Dr. Thurman is actually praying to connect to love, to the Christ, the divine, within himself. I also hear the difficulty he may be having “ejecting the sharp barb.” We can be comforted in knowing that this great proponent of nonviolence knows it is not an easy task. He is praying that when we connect to this love, the divine within, that we will love others, “be a kind and gracious human being”  consciously as well as an unconsciously.

 Dr. Thurman is reminding us that when we are living in connection with the Holy Spirit, the Divine within us, we will know the fruit of the Spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23). We know we are connected to the Divine within us when we feel and know these feelings and act accordingly, but how do we get there? This is the calling of every spiritual practice, meditation, prayer,  reading, corporate worship,  fasting, and so many others, to put ourselves in position to connect to God within.

Perhaps if Paul were writing today he might have told his scribe to use the word “nonviolence” as one of the fruit of the Spirit even though it is already so loudly speaking out in all the other fruit of the Spirit.

Joanna joannaseibert.com  

Esther Harding: Change

Change

“But we cannot change anyone else; we can change only ourselves and then usually only when the elements that are in need of reform have become conscious through their reflection in someone else.”

-M. Esther Harding, The I and the Not-I, Daily Quote, July 16, 2018, InwardOutward, Church of the Saviour

Esther Harding describes this concept of how we change so concisely. We most often only recognize the parts of ourselves that need changing reflected in others.  We say, “This is awful. I certainly do not want to be like that.” Then by some unknown factor, perhaps God’s Grace, we realize, that character defect, that sin, that failing is also in us. I often find myself not wanting to be around that person. That is sometimes a clue that they are carrying that part of us we do not recognize but  are repulsed by it.

The opposite of this is of course true. People we most admire  carry a gift we do not recognize in ourselves as well.

I also know from 12 step work how people change. They reach what is called a bottom. They become so overwhelmed with their life, so “sick and tired” of how miserable their life is that they will do anything to change.

So, what does all this have to do with our life in the Spirit? My experience is that it is indeed the Spirit, the Christ, the God within us that leads us to change, that whispers in our ear that those defects in others may be in us, that there is a better life planned for us. Those is 12 step call it a “moment of clarity.” I believe that moment of clarity is God speaking to us and for many reasons we are now in a position to listen. We are able to listen with “the ear of our heart.”

Joanna  joannaseibert

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